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Built on ISFDB, Wikipedia, Wikidata and Open Library. Curated reading orders carry their reasoning on the page; the rest follow publication order. Data sources & licenses

© Loreful · data: ISFDB · CC BY

More like The Three Devils

anchored on:adventure

but

Mood

The mood the book leaves you in.

  • The reading experience is propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical risk; excitement and forward momentum dominate over dread or introspection.
  • Joy and loss are deliberately mixed; the resolution grants characters something real while taking something else away, leaving warmth and sorrow together.
  • The book demands work from the reader — dense prose, difficult structure, unfamiliar ideas, or morally uncomfortable material — as part of its intended effect.
  • Grim events, cruelty, or despair dominate the atmosphere, and the book does not soften them with comfort or comic relief.
  • The atmosphere is quietly unsettling — wrongness, unease, and the uncanny pervade the book without necessarily escalating into overt horror.
  • The book is built to move the reader; character feeling is foregrounded and major scenes aim at a strong emotional response.
  • Humor is a primary aim and the prose plays for laughs — comic situations, wit, or dialogue produce sustained comedy, not occasional levity.
  • The book insists that things can improve; effort and decency are shown to matter, and the arc bends toward better outcomes even through hardship.
  • The book teaches as it goes — real facts, history, science, or craft are conveyed in enough depth that learning is part of the reading experience.
  • The book is designed to uplift and motivate, presenting perseverance or achievement in a way that invites the reader to aspire or act.
  • The overall register is cheerful and easygoing; stakes are kept gentle and the book avoids dwelling on pain or dread.
  • Withheld information drives the experience; the book sustains enigmas and secrets the reader wants resolved, whatever its genre.
  • The book is contemplative and inward-looking, giving more weight to thought, memory, and meaning than to external events.
  • The book works as comfort reading — low tension, a soothing pace, and an atmosphere the reader can unwind in.
  • Grief, loss, or melancholy set the dominant register, and the book lets sorrow stand rather than resolving it into comfort.
  • Sustained suspense is the point; the book keeps the reader braced for what happens next through danger, pressure, or impending revelation.
  • Playful invention and charm define the register — fanciful conceits, light absurdity, and a narration that delights in its own oddity.

About

What the story runs on.

  • Stories in which extraterrestrial beings are central — as characters, cultures, or the object of the plot.
  • Stories about venturing into space to explore — survey missions, astronauts, and the frontier of the unknown beyond Earth.
  • Stories structured as a quest — a journey undertaken to find, deliver, or destroy something of great import.
  • Stories in which staying alive against nature, catastrophe, or scarcity is the central problem.
  • Stories of lovers kept apart by law, family, faith, or station, where the obstacle to love is the plot.
  • Stories in which a friendship — its making, testing, or loss — is the emotional center.
  • Stories of growing up — a young protagonist crossing from childhood into adult knowledge and responsibility.
  • Stories about who a character truly is — self-discovery, doubled lives, and the search for a self.
  • Stories in which a buried family truth — hidden parentage, crimes, or shames — surfaces and reorders the present.
  • Stories driven by maneuvering for power — factions, conspiracies, and statecraft conducted in shadow.
  • Stories in which war itself is the subject — combat, occupation, and what warfare does to soldiers and civilians.
  • Stories organized around investigating a killing — the case, the clues, and the pursuit of the killer, in any genre's clothing.

Shelf

Where it sits in the library.

    • Fiction built on magic or other supernatural elements that have no scientific explanation.
    • Secondary-world fantasy at large scale, where the fate of nations or the world turns on the protagonists' struggle.
    • Fantasy set in a recognizably modern city or contemporary world where the supernatural intrudes on everyday life.
    • Fantasy that blends in horror's atmosphere and imagery, keeping a fantastical frame around grim or frightening material.
    • Action-driven fantasy following warriors or rogues with personal stakes against sorcerous threats, rather than world-spanning conflicts.
    • Fantasy set in a real historical period or a close analogue of one, with magic woven into the era.
    • Fantasy in which protagonists cross from the ordinary world into another world through a portal or similar passage.
    • Fiction that retells or reworks a traditional fairy tale in a new form or setting.
    • Fantasy drawing directly on myths, legends, and folklore, retelling them or building on their figures and logic.
    • Fantasy of ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, psychics, and similar phenomena, usually set in an otherwise ordinary world.
    • Fiction mixing science-fictional trappings with overtly magical or impossible elements in one setting.
    • Low-stakes fantasy emphasizing comfort, community, and everyday pleasures over conflict and peril.
    • Speculative fiction of pervasive moral ambiguity, violence, and cynicism that rejects heroic conventions — fantasy and SF alike.
      • Fiction that extrapolates from science and technology — future societies, space travel, or speculative inventions — within at least nominally natural laws.
      • Science fiction of interstellar scope — starships, galactic polities, and adventure across star systems.
      • Science fiction committed to scientific rigor, where technical plausibility constrains the story.
      • Science fiction centered on armed forces and warfare, told largely from a military point of view.
      • Science fiction of networked, corporate-dominated near futures, pairing high technology with social decay.
      • Science fiction styled on nineteenth-century steam-powered technology, often in a Victorian or pseudo-Victorian setting.
      • Fiction depicting an oppressive or catastrophic society, presented as a warning.
      • Fiction set after civilization's collapse, following survivors in the ruins of the old world.
      • Fiction in which characters move between past and future, and the mechanics or consequences of that travel drive the plot.
      • Fiction exploring a world where a historical event went differently and history diverged from ours.
      • Science fiction about humanity's first encounter and communication with an alien intelligence.
      • Science fiction in which extraterrestrial forces attack or occupy Earth and humanity resists.
      • Fiction whose primary aim is to frighten or unsettle the reader through dread, menace, or the monstrous.
      • Horror of vast, indifferent, incomprehensible entities before which humanity is insignificant, in the Lovecraft tradition.
      • Horror of decaying houses, buried family secrets, and oppressive atmosphere in the Gothic literary tradition.
      • Horror centered on hauntings and the returning dead.
      • Horror located in the mind — paranoia, obsession, and unreliable perception rather than external monsters.
      • Horror built around the reanimated dead and survival amid their outbreaks.
      • Horror defined by explicit, transgressive gore that refuses to cut away from violence.
      • Speculative fiction of the strange and uncanny that resists both natural explanation and standard genre categories.
      • Fiction organized around solving a crime or puzzle, typically following an investigator toward the identification of a culprit.
      • A puzzle-first mystery that lays out clues so the culprit's identity can be deduced before the reveal.
      • Crime fiction of moral ambiguity, fatalism, and hard-edged style, set among the corrupt and the doomed.
      • A mystery following the realistic routines of police work — forensics, interviews, and case-building.
      • A gentle mystery with an amateur sleuth, a small community, and violence kept off the page.
      • A mystery set in a past era, where the investigation works within that period's methods and society.
      • Fast-paced fiction driven by imminent danger, pursuit, or high-stakes conspiracy, built to sustain tension.
      • A thriller of espionage — agents, tradecraft, and intelligence services in conflict.
      • A thriller centered on lawyers and the courtroom, where litigation carries the suspense.
      • A thriller driven by detailed contemporary or near-future technology, often military or scientific.
      • A thriller whose tension comes from mental states and manipulation between characters rather than external action.
      • Fiction whose central plot is a romantic relationship and its development toward an emotionally satisfying resolution.
      • Romance in which one or both partners are supernatural beings, blending fantasy elements into the love story.
      • A fantasy-romance hybrid in which the romantic arc and the fantasy plot carry equal weight.
      • Romance set in a past era, with courtship shaped by the period's society and manners.
      • Romance set in the present day, without supernatural or historical elements.
      • Fiction set in a real past period, where the historical setting materially shapes characters and events.
        • General and literary fiction emphasizing prose style, character interiority, or formal ambition over genre plot conventions.
        • Fiction in a realistic world where magical events occur and are treated as ordinary, in the tradition of Latin American literature.
        • Fiction that ridicules people, institutions, or society in order to criticize them.
        • Fiction of dreamlike, irrational imagery and logic that breaks from realistic representation.
        • Fiction that plays with narrative convention through metafiction, fragmentation, and self-reference.
        • Fiction propelled by journeys, exploration, and physical peril, where action and survival carry the plot.
        • Adventure fiction of ships and seafaring — naval engagements, voyages, and life at sea.
        • Fiction of the American frontier West — gunmen, ranchers, and lawmen, typically in the late nineteenth century.
        • Fiction centered on soldiers, campaigns, and the experience of warfare, historical or imagined.
          • Fiction written primarily to amuse, using comedic situations, wit, or parody as its organizing principle.
            • Multi-generational fiction following a family or dynasty across decades, with inheritance and kinship as the through-line.
              • Fiction whose world runs on explicit game mechanics — levels, stats, and skills that characters can see and exploit.
                • Fiction about costumed or superpowered heroes and their conflicts with comparable villains.

                Practical

                How long a commitment, whether it stands alone, and whether it has finished.

                Tap a chip to ask for it · tap again to rule it out · once more to clear. Numbers show what would be left.

                • Cover of Tarzan
                  Tarzan

                  series · 50 books · 1912

                  part of Tarzan Universe

                  similar byadventureearly 20th centuryadventurous

                  Tarzan is a series of 24 adventure novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875–1950) and published between 1912 and 1966, followed by several novels either co-written by Burroughs, or officially authorized by his estate. There are also two works written by Burroughs especially for children that are not related to the main series.

                • Cover of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds
                  H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds

                  universe · 65 books · 1898

                  Start hereThe War of the Worlds · Start here

                  similar by+3 more

                  No one would have believed, in the closing years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely from the timeless worlds of space. And then the cylinders fell. H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds opens in the quiet of the Surrey commons, where a falling star proves to be the first Martian craft — and from the pit rise the towering tripods, the Heat-Ray, the choking Black Smoke and the creeping red weed, wielded by minds that regard mankind much as we regard the creatures we boil for supper. This is invasion rendered as natural disaster: cold, methodical, and vast beyond argument. Wells' 1898 novel is the seed; everything else grows from that Martian soil. The catalogue gathers direct sequels and continuations alongside a wide field of other hands. In War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches the invasion is retold across the whole planet through the eyes of Twain, Verne, Tolstoy, Lowell and Kipling; in the Manly Wade and Wade Wellman crossover, Sherlock Holmes, Watson and Professor Challenger take the field against the machines; and Scott Washburn's Great Martian War stretches the fighting into a decades-long alternate history of steam, artillery and grinding attrition. It is a loose shared world — no single decreed sequence, many voices answering one calamity. What sets this world apart is its refusal of heroics: the invaders fall not to generals but to the smallest things of Earth, humbling and indifferent. Begin, always, with Wells' original novel — it is short, and it is the ground every later book stands upon. From there follow your appetite: Global Dispatches for the panorama, the Holmes campaign for adventure, Washburn for the long war.

                • Cover of Kirby O'Donnell
                  Kirby O'Donnell

                  series · 5 books · 1934

                  completed

                  similar byadventureearly 20th centuryadventurous+2 more

                • Cover of Mucker
                  Mucker

                  series · 4 books · 1921

                  similar byearly 20th centuryadventure+2 more

                  Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mucker novels follow their tough antihero across two linked magazine serials from 1914–1916 that were combined into the 1921 novel The Mucker. Burroughs continued the story in The Return of the Mucker and The Oakdale Affair; British editions of the sequel were published under the alternate title The Man Without a Soul.

                • Cover of The Outlaw of Torn
                  The Outlaw of Torn

                  Edgar Rice Burroughs · standalone novel · 1927

                  similar byadventureour worldadventuroustense

                  Raised from childhood by a vengeful royal fencing master who wants him turned into a weapon against the English crown, Norman of Torn grows up in 13th-century England knowing only combat and contempt for the nobility. By nineteen he leads the kingdom's largest band of outlaws and carries a king's ransom on his head, yet a priest's influence has left him with a streak of chivalry. Amid rebellion against King Henry III, Norman joins Simon de Montfort's rebels, and finds himself drawn to de Montfort's daughter despite a startling resemblance to the crown prince. An early adventure novel from Edgar Rice Burroughs.

                • Cover of Allan Quatermain
                  Allan Quatermain

                  series · 25 books · 1885

                  similar byadventureadventurous

                  Allan Quatermain is the protagonist of H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines, its one sequel Allan Quatermain (1887), twelve prequel novels and four prequel short stories, totalling eighteen works. An English professional big game hunter and adventurer, in film and television he has been portrayed by Richard Chamberlain, Sean Connery, Cedric Hardwicke, Patrick Swayze and Stewart Granger among others.

                • Cover of The Lad and the Lion
                  The Lad and the Lion

                  Edgar Rice Burroughs · standalone novel · 1938

                  similar byadventureour worldearly 20th centuryadventurous

                  The Lad and the Lion is an adventure novel by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, written in February 1914. His working title for the piece was "Men and Beasts." It was first published as a three-part serial in All-Story Weekly in the issues for June 30, July 7, and July 14, 1917. The story was the first by Burroughs adapted to film, the movie appearing about the same time as the print serial. Despite this distinction, the story did not appear in book form for over twenty years; only after a remake of the film appeared was the first book edition published, by Burroughs's own publishing firm, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., in February 1938. The text was apparently expanded for book publication, as certain incidentals of the story reflect the political situation of Europe in the late 1930s rather than the mid-1910s. The book was reprinted by Grosset & Dunlap in 1939 and Canaveral Press in 1964. The first paperback edition was issued by Ballantine Books in September 1964, with a second appearing from Ace Books in May 1974, reprinted in June 1982.

                • Cover of Duke de Richleau
                  Duke de Richleau

                  series · 4 books · 1933

                  completed

                  similar byearly 20th centurytensethriller & suspense+1 more

                  The Duke de Richleau novels follow Dennis Wheatley's aristocratic adventurer and occultist across four decades of twentieth-century intrigue, moving from a 1930s rescue thriller in The Forbidden Territory into Satanist set-pieces such as The Devil Rides Out and Strange Conflict, then a later case in Gateway to Hell. Wheatley wrote the books out of order over nearly forty years, but their internal chronology matches the order they were published in.

                • Cover of Jack Christie Adventures
                  Jack Christie Adventures

                  series · 3 books · 2009

                  similar byadventureour worldadventuroustense+1 more

                • Cover of Find Your Fate
                  Find Your Fate

                  series · 32 books · 1984

                  similar byour worldadventureadventuroustense+1 more

                  Find Your Fate is a series of gamebooks published by Ballantine Books featuring licensed characters including Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Morgan Swift. They were written and published between 1984 and 1987 by authors including R. L. Stine, Rose Estes, and Richard Wenk to compete with the popular Choose Your Own Adventure series published by Bantam Books, featuring a similar branching storyline which depended on choices made by the reader.

                • Cover of Pym
                  Pym

                  series · 5 books · 1838

                  similar byadventure+3 more

                  Edgar Allan Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), his only complete novel, sends a young stowaway through shipwreck, mutiny, and cannibalism toward an increasingly strange voyage to the South Pole that breaks off on a mysterious, unexplained image. Jules Verne wrote an unauthorized 1897 sequel, An Antarctic Mystery, resolving Poe's cliffhanger in more rationalist terms, while Mat Johnson's 2011 novel Pym uses Poe's original as the springboard for a satirical modern story about race.

                • Cover of Doc Savage novels
                  Doc Savage novels

                  series · 190 books · 1933

                  part of Doc Savage

                  similar byadventureour world

                • Cover of Uncharted Seas
                  Uncharted Seas

                  Dennis Wheatley · standalone novel · 1938

                  similar byadventure

                • Cover of Gregory Sallust
                  Gregory Sallust

                  series · 4 books · 1934

                  completed

                  similar bytensethriller & suspense+4 more

                  Dennis Wheatley's Gregory Sallust novels follow a resourceful, ruthless British secret agent operating against Nazi Germany, beginning with Black August's vision of a Britain collapsing into anarchy and continuing through wartime espionage across occupied Europe. The series, spanning the 1930s to the 1960s, mixes political thriller with Wheatley's taste for scheming villains and narrow escapes.

                • Cover of Airman
                  Airman

                  Eoin Colfer · standalone novel · 2008

                  similar byadventureour worldadventuroustense

                  Airman, by Eoin Colfer, is a best-selling historical adventure novel set in the 19th century. It was released in the UK, Ireland and US in January 2008. The novel was shortlisted for the 2009 Carnegie Medal.

                • Cover of The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage
                  The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage

                  series · 14 books · 2011

                  completed

                  part of Doc Savage

                  similar byadventureour worldearly 20th century+2 more

                • Cover of Thrilling Adventure Yarns
                  Thrilling Adventure Yarns

                  series · 4 books · 2019

                  similar byadventureour worldadventurous

                • CU
                  Caspak Universe

                  series · 4 books · 1918

                  similar byadventureearly 20th centuryadventurous

                  The Caspak trilogy — The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, and Out of Time's Abyss — is Edgar Rice Burroughs's 1918 adventure sequence set on a hidden Pacific island called Caprona, where a World War I-era U-boat crew discovers an isolated world of dinosaurs and successive stages of human evolution living side by side. The story was later adapted into comics by Mike Wolfer, credited alongside Burroughs.

                • Cover of The Wild Adventures of Tarzan
                  The Wild Adventures of Tarzan

                  series · 14 books · 2015

                  part of Tarzan Universe

                  similar byadventureearly 20th century+1 more

                • Cover of Jack Howard
                  Jack Howard

                  series · 8 books · 2005

                  similar byadventureour worldadventuroustensethriller & suspense

                • Cover of Voyages extraordinaires
                  Voyages extraordinaires

                  series · 59 books · 1863

                  similar byadventureadventurous+1 more

                  The Voyages extraordinaires is a collection or sequence of novels and short stories by the French writer Jules Verne. The cycle features some of Verne's best known titles, such as Journey to the Center of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, Around the World in Eighty Days and The Mysterious Island.

                • Cover of R. J. MacCready
                  R. J. MacCready

                  series · 3 books · 2016

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                • DS
                  Doc Savage omnibuses

                  series · 24 books · 1980

                  part of Doc Savage

                  similar byadventureour world+1 more

                • Cover of Dirk Pitt
                  Dirk Pitt

                  series · 12 books · 1973

                  completed

                  similar byadventureour worldadventuroustensethriller & suspense

                  Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels follow the title character, a two-fisted marine engineer and de facto field agent for the fictional National Underwater and Marine Agency, through globe-spanning adventures mixing undersea salvage, historical mystery, and international conspiracy. The run collected here spans The Mediterranean Caper (1973) through Valhalla Rising (2001), the earlier stretch of a series Cussler continued for decades with later co-authors.