"The thriller portrays persons confronting problems they can't solve by recourse to established institutions and agencies; calling 911, or a psychiatrist, won't help matters in the slightest."
"The problems not only threaten the character's physical and mental safety, they threaten to bring down the society they live in; their families, their communities, their nations."
"The solution to the character's problems usually involves some degree of violence, illegality, technical expertise, and dramatic action, but not more than we can plausibly expect from people of the kind we have chosen to portray." ~ Crawford Killian
"I think they do represent the best of ourselves and the people we'd like to be.... I think there is the wish fulfillment that you can sometimes feel powerless in the world and, if you had these abilities, you could fight back." ~ Al Gough
"Audiences also identify with another element of superheroes: They're the embodiment of the American myth of the lone, rugged individual who comes into a society and cleans it up." ~ George Slosser
"Heroes symbolize the possibility of successful action in the world ... whether it's the world of politics or business or whatever. ... Even if we're completely helpless, you want at least to imagine the possibility of effective action. And the hero story is the symbolic way of imagining that. That's why we try to find common ground between ourselves and heroes." ~ Richard Slotkin
Book Browser has a useful list of military fiction sequels and series
Horatio Alger Jr. Resources includes some good pulp fiction content.The Mystery Guide includes several adventure categories as part of mystery fiction. This is reasonable since there is a mystery associated with most adventure stories.
The Mystery
Reader also include "thrillers" and "spy novels" in the mystery
genre.
The latter provides helpful tagged reviews.
Street
& Smith Publishers' Archive and Dime Novel Cover Art is well
worth a visit. Street & Smith was perhaps the largest publisher of
popular pulp literature from 1855 onward across a wide range of genres.
Blood, Bedlam, Bullets, and Bad
guys: a reader's guide to adventure/suspense fiction by Michael
B. Gannon covers the period from 1941 to 2003 with about 2,000 titles
under 16 headings. Definition, appeal, and history for each category.
Good index.
Cloak and Dagger Fiction: An Annotated Guide to Spy Thrillers by Myron Smith and Terry White covers about 3400 works.
In the G. K. Hall "Reader's Guides to Mystery Novels" series, Nancy Stone has written A Reader's Guide to the Spy and Thriller Novel.
While the origin of genre fiction is a complex matter, there is no doubt that the pulp adventure magazines played a major role in the United States. Munsey's Argosy in the 1890s was the father of the pulp magazine. The cheap pulpwood paper, similar to that used in newspapers, was responsible for the nickname. In contrast, more established general audience magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, were published on smooth paper. Pulp magazines included today's genre's:
Amazing Stories was the first science fiction
magazine.
Vivid, often sensational covers appealed to the impulse buyer. "Stories
...
were equally as colorful, outlandish, and sometimes risque. Pulps had
particular appeal for younger male readers and often readers without
much
education. Street and Smith was a notable publisher of the pulps. They
also
introduced the "character" pulp magazine with an entire issues
devoted to stories of one character such as The Avenger or
Doc Savage. Mass market paper books continue this
tradition
with series of books involving a particular character such as the
"Destroyer."
The 1930's represented the peak for the pulps.
"For thousands of Americans throughout the 19th and early 20th
centuries, dime novels and pulp magazines were their first experiences
with the emerging world of mass-produced material culture."
Several well-known authors began with the pulps. Edgar Rice Burroughs published both his Tarzan and his science fictional/fantasy stories in pulps. Max Brand (western), Robert E. Howard (heroic fantasy), Earl Stanley Gardner (mystery, and Isaac Asimov (SF) are good examples of authors who developed experience and an audience with the pulps.
World War II paper restrictions really hurt the pulps. Television may have had an impact in the 1950s. Too, the genre fiction paperback provided relatively easy access to the longer stories in one convenient volume (many longer stories were serialized in the pulps). As the genres became more respectable, a more serious approach became popular. Astounding Science Fiction became the much more sedate Analog and is now Analog: Science Fiction and Fact. Today, the few remaining pulp magazines are having a difficult time surviving.
The Pulp.net is a good place to learn more about pulp magazines. Besides good content, there is a solid collection of links. Pulp Fiction Central has an excellent collection of vintage pulp magazine covers plus good introductions. Jess Nevins provides a descriptive list of Pulp and Adventure heroes of the Pre-War Years.
Comic books, influenced by the pulp magazines, have played and continue to play an important role in stimulating interest in adventure fiction among children, teens, and adults. The current film interest in bringing comic book super-heroes and super-villains to the large screen (Spiderman this summer) is a good example.
While comics go back to 1896 with the "Yellow Kid" by Richard Outcault, it is in the 1930s--the "Golden Age"--that comics became truly genre fiction with jungle adventure (Tarzan, 1929), science fiction (Flash Gordon, 1934), historicals ( Prince Valiant), and detectives (Dick Tracy). Until 1933, comics were almost exclusively found in strips in newspapers. The first comic book were reprints of the newspaper strips.In the early days, comics were mostly humorous and thus the name.
But the super-hero certainly was not comical. Costumed characters became popular:
Many super-heroes followed, including Captain Marvel, and Captain America.
The first romance comic, My Date Comics appeared in 1947 and several others soon followed. Hopalong Cassidy sold well and created considerable interest in western comics. Crime, however, was the most popular comic genre and super heroes began to fade. Horror comics also became popular.
In 1954, Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent declared that comic books caused crime and corruption among youth. Batman and Robin, he said, were a gay couple. A Senate Committee investigated comics. Many parents and concerned adults restricted access to comics. A Comics Code was adopted to insure that comic books did not violate appropriate taste. The industry suffered greatly. Several publishers went out of business.Marvel Comics came back with an emphasis on the super-hero in the 1960s. However, by the 1970s, super-heroes were not doing well. Archie Comics were very popular. The Code also loosed during this period. In late 1977, we see the first of what will become the independent comic book. While comic books remain popular, the major publishers are not doing well. Graphic novels, often darker and more explicit have become quite popular and are collected by many adults.
We will leave this brief look at comic books by noting that many older adults, including some noteworthy genre authors, were notably influenced by comic books. Much adventure fiction written today contains comic book roots.
The "History of Comic Books" provides quite a good brief history.
Comic Book Websites Comic History also does a good job, especially with the early history.
A genre is a category or type of imaginative work. Typically,
categories have common attributes or similarities. Often these
attributes are related to the appeal elements that link works to
readers. There are many possibilities when considering attributes, but
common ones include:
There is some question if ADVENTURE FICTION is a genre or an appeal element. While there is variation from genre to genre (the REGENCY ROMANCE may have little adventure for example), most popular genres contain a substantial amount of adventure. If adventure equals action, then some science fiction and fantasy and most western novels would fall into the adventure category.
A traditional notion has been that males want action more than females. This would mean that the stories that most appeal to men would be the most adventurous and those that appeal most to women would be the least adventurous. While men do prefer many of the adventure types mentioned above, women also enjoy adventure stories. For example , a rich variety of adventures can now be found in the romance genre. Too, many SF and fantasy adventure stories are now written by female authors.
ACTION is the key ingredient. It may be person against person or it may be person against the environment. The military stories belong in the first category and survival novels in the second. Stereotypical adventure stories, like many video and computer games, feature much explicit violence.
Characteristics of the adventure novel would include:
Many readers prefer adventure stories because of their fast-paced plot and the fact that they are relatively easy reads. While most of us would be uncomfortable in a real adventure situation, it IS comfortable to be able to be in the middle of an adventure as a reader. Particularly, if our every day life is dull and boring, adventure fiction provides a safe and exciting alternative. Since some adventure novels begin with ordinary people caught up in strange events and eventually gaining some sort of victory, we may be able to identify with the main characters.
As the world becomes smaller and organizations become larger and more distant, many people feel that their way of life is threatened by powerful people far away. The popularity of a variety of conspiracy theories is a reminder of this fear. The adventure story, where one or a few characters are able to save or restore a threatened way of life or some important aspect of society, is appealing in the same way that the story of Robin Hood continues to appeal.
While adventure stories are often considered to be male fiction, there are a growing number of female authors who write in this genre (many write in adventure stories in other genres). There are more fully developed female characters.
The enormous popularity of the James Bond books and films is an indication of how much readers enjoy a spy story where the spy is urbane, invincible, and uses a variety of interesting state of the art "tools."
The popularity of the ESPIONAGE ADVENTURE seems to be a function of powerful, threatening enemies. With the defeat of the Soviet Union, interest in spy novels has declined. While there are always enemies, an "evil empire" makes a better foe.
1. Is adventure a genre or an attribute that reasonably applies to all genres?
2. If adventure is a genre, what would distinguish it from the western or the science fiction story?
3. Adventure is often associated with heroes or super-heroes. Can adventure involve ordinary people who become heroes or is this usually the tale of someone who is already heroic? Can a super hero be taken seriously?
4. Have you read adventure oriented comic books or graphic novels? What was or is the primary appeal of these stories?
5. Traditionally, the adventure story appealed almost exclusively to a male audience, some times a relatively unsophisticated one. Are female readers disinterested in adventure or do they prefer softer edged adventure?
6. Considering the several adventure categories mentioned above,
which
would have the most appeal to you? For readers in your community?
Last major revision: August 2005.
