Great Historical Fiction - Adventure Through The Ages
Explore the best adventure historical fiction books that transport you through the ages. Dive into thrilling tales of epic journeys, daring heroes, and rich historical settings.
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Dawn of Empire
by Sam Barone
Five millennia ago, on the eastern bank of the river Tigris, the course of human history changed forever . . . The people of Orak cherish their peaceful village and the life they have made. Though not proficient with the bow or sword, they possess a weapon far stronger: the ability to coax food from the ground. This is why the barbarian leader Thutmose-sin hates and fears them. As his marauding clan of bloodthirsty warriors readies itself for the plunder and the kill, the fate of the village rests with the outcast barbarian Eskkar and the woman he loves, the wise and beautiful slave girl Trella--and on a bold, remarkable, never-before-tested plan of defense. For those who have known peace must turn their hands to war, to save from the savage invaders not only their families but their way of life.
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Men of Bronze
by Scott Oden
It is 526 B.C. and the empire of the Pharaohs is dying. Leading the fight to preserve the soul of Egypt is Hasdrabal Barca, Pharaoh's deadliest killer. When one of Egypt's most celebrated generals, a Greek mercenary called Phanes, defects to the Persians, it triggers a savage war that will tax Barca's skills, and his humanity, to the limit.
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Gates of Fire
by Steven Pressfield
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Steven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.”—Pat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in history—one that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .
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Memnon
by Scott Oden
Through the deathbed recollections of a mysterious woman, the life of Memnon of Rhodes (375-333 BCE) unfolds with brilliant clarity. It is a record of his triumphs and tragedies, his loves and losses, and of the determination that drove him to stand against Alexander the Great.
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Pride of Carthage
by David Anthony Durham
This epic retelling of the legendary Carthaginian military leader’s assault on the Roman empire begins in Ancient Spain, where Hannibal Barca sets out with tens of thousands of soldiers and 30 elephants. After conquering the Roman city of Saguntum, Hannibal wages his campaign through the outposts of the empire, shrewdly befriending peoples disillusioned by Rome and, with dazzling tactics, outwitting the opponents who believe the land route he has chosen is impossible. Yet Hannibal’s armies must take brutal losses as they pass through the Pyrenees mountains, forge the Rhone river, and make a winter crossing of the Alps before descending to the great tests at Cannae and Rome itself. David Anthony Durham draws a brilliant and complex Hannibal out of the scant historical record–sharp, sure-footed, as nimble among rivals as on the battlefield, yet one who misses his family and longs to see his son grow to manhood. Whether portraying the deliberations of a general or the calculations of a common soldier, vast multilayered scenes of battle or moments of introspection when loss seems imminent, Durham brings history alive.
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SPQR I: The Kings Gambit
by John Maddox Roberts
Blackmail, corruption, treachery, murder--the glory that was Rome. In this Edgar Award-nominated mystery, John Maddox Roberts takes readers back to a Rome filled with violence and evil. Vicious gangs ruled the streets of Crassus and Pompey, routinely preying on plebeian and patrician alike, so the garroting of a lowly ex-slaved and the disembowelment of a foreign merchant in the dangerous Subura district seemed of little consequence to the Roman hierarchy. But Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger--highborn commander of the local vigiles--was determined to investigate. Despite official apathy, brazen bribes, and sinister threates, Decius uncovers a world of corruption at the highest levels of his government that threatens to destroy him and the government he serves.
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Under the Eagle
by Simon Scarrow
It is the year 42 AD, and Centurion Macro, battle-scarred and fearless, is in the heart of Germany with the Second Legion, the toughest in the Roman army. Cato, a new recruit and the newly appointed second-in-command to Macro, will have more to prove than most. In a bloody skirmish with local tribes, Cato gets his first chance to prove that he's more than a callow, privileged youth. As their next campaign takes them to a land of unparalleled barbarity - Britain - a special mission unfolds, thrusting Cato and Macro headlong into a conspiracy that threatens to topple the Emperor himself.
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Imperial Governor
by George Shipway
LondiniumÂżs burning. . .This does for the Roman governor, Suetonius Paulinus, what I, CLAUDIUS did for the stuttering Emperor whose armies invaded Britain in AD43: an obscure historic figure is suddenly centre-stage. And he has a terrific story to tell. Sent to Britain to conquer the gold mines in Wales, he faces the fury of the tribes united by Queen Boudicca in opposition to the corrupt officials entrenched in NeroÂżs favour. Somehow, Paulinus must seize the gold and defeat the rebellion without earning the enmity of an increasingly unstable Emperor. Packed with fascinating detail of life in Roman Britain Âż and in the ranks of the Legions in particular Âż this is first-class historical fiction in the tradition of John Masters or Alfred Duggan. 'Engrossing, exciting and lit by a kind of imaginative realism which makes characters, supposed to have been dead two thousand years, vivid and aliveÂżI am reminded of Alfred Duggan' - John Masters
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Julian
by Gore Vidal
The remarkable bestseller about the fourth-century Roman emperor who famously tried to halt the spread of Christianity, Julian is widely regarded as one of Gore Vidal’s finest historical novels. Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign. A marvelously imaginative and insightful novel of classical antiquity, Julian captures the religious and political ferment of a desperate age and restores with blazing wit and vigor the legacy of an impassioned ruler.
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The Winter King
by Bernard Cornwell
It takes a remarkable writer to make an old story as fresh and compelling as the first time we heard it. With The Winter King, the first volume of his magnificent Warlord Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell finally turns to the story he was born to write: the mythic saga of King Arthur. The tale begins in Dark Age Britain, a land where Arthur has been banished and Merlin has disappeared, where a child-king sits unprotected on the throne, where religion vies with magic for the souls of the people. It is to this desperate land that Arthur returns, a man at once utterly human and truly heroic: a man of honor, loyalty, and amazing valor; a man who loves Guinevere more passionately than he should; a man whose life is at once tragic and triumphant. As Arthur fights to keep a flicker of civilization alive in a barbaric world, Bernard Cornwell makes a familiar tale into a legend all over again.
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The Deepest Sea
by Charles Barnitz
"An Irish Viking on a magical quest in the turbulent 8th century"--Cover.
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The Last Kingdom
by Bernard Cornwell
In the middle years of the ninth-century, the fierce Danes stormed onto British soil, hungry for spoils and conquest. Kingdom after kingdom fell to the ruthless invaders until but one realm remained. And suddenly the fate of all England—and the course of history—depended upon one man, one king. From New York Times bestselling storyteller Bernard Cornwell comes a rousing epic adventure of courage, treachery, duty, devotion, majesty, love, and battle as seen through the eyes of a young warrior who straddled two worlds.
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Eaters of the Dead
by Michael Crichton
An ambassador of the tenth-century Caliph of Bagdad is carried off by the Norsemen to endure, for three years, the harshness of their way of life and the creatures that terrorize them.
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The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan
by Yasushi Inoue
The first English translation of a Japanese literary classic br>Originally published in Japanese in 1959, this classic Japanese novel by writer Yasushi Inoue takes place during the Japanese Warring Era (1467-1573)
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Captain Blood
by Rafael Sabatini
Peter Blood is a physician and an English gentleman who becomes a pirate out of a rankling sense of injustice. Barely escaping the gallows after his arrest for treating wounded rebels who were fighting the oppressive King James, Blood flees England and becomes enslaved on a Barbados plantation of buccaneers. When he escapes, no ship sailing the Spanish Main is safe from Blood and his companions. Abounding with adventure, color, romance, and strong social commentary on the evils of slavery and the dangers of intolerance, this classic adventure is a story about how oppression drives men to desperate actions, how fate plays a hand in everyone's life, and how love is ultimately the greatest power of all. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Sharpe's Tiger
by Bernard Cornwell
"It was a bloody awful shot," Sharpe said. "My mother could lay a gun better than that." "I didn't think you had a mother," Private Garrard said. "Everyone's got a mother, Tom." "Not Sergeant Hakeswill," Garrard said, then spat a mix of dust and spittle. . . . "Hakeswill was spawned of the devil." Richard Sharpe—Soldier, hero, rogue—the man you always want on your side. Born in poverty, he joined the army to escape jail and climbed the ranks by sheer brutal courage. He knows no other family than the regiment of the 95th Rifles, whose green jacket he proudly wears.
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The Battle
by Patrick Rambaud
A fictional re-creation of the 1809 battle of Essling captures the events of the conflict, Napoleon's first major defeat, through the experiences of real-life people of the time.
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Flashman
by George MacDonald Fraser
"If ever there was a time when I felt that 'watcher-of-the-skies-when-a-new-planet' stuff, it was when I read the first Flashman."–P.G. Wodehouse The first novel in the Flashman series Fraser revives Flashman, a caddish bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays by Thomas Hughes, and relates Flashman’s adventures after he is expelled in drunken disgrace from Rugby school in the late 1830s. Flashy enlists in the Eleventh Light Dragoons and is promptly sent to India and Afghanistan, where despite his consistently cowardly behavior he always manages to come out on top. Flashman is an incorrigible anti-hero for the ages. This humorous adventure book will appeal to fans of historical fiction, military fiction, and British history as well as to fans of Clive Cussler, James Bond, and The Three Musketeers.
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The Horns of the Buffalo
by John Wilcox
In 1879 the redcoats of the British Army are universally regarded as the finest fighting force in the world. Among them is Lieutenant Simon Fonthill, dispatched to South Africa with much to prove: for Colonel Covington, his former Commanding Officer, has slanderously branded him a coward. In the Cape, tension is high. The Zulus, an independent nation of magnificently militant tribesmen, threaten the colonial government's vision of a united South Africa. And Simon has been chosen for a particularly dangerous mission: to travel deep into Zululand to discover the intentions of the king. Simon encounters violence and imprisonment before he is faced with his greatest challenge. Escaping from the massacre at the Battle of Isandlwana, he must warn the tiny garrison at Rorke's Drift of the threat posed by advancing Zulu impis. He has a chance to prove Covington a liar, but he may pay the ultimate price...
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A Sailor of Austria
by John Biggins
In a historical novel about the last days of the seldom discussed Austrian empire, a 101-year-old former sailor in the Austro-Hungarian Navy narrates this fascinating journey into the past, focusing particular attention on World War I. Original.
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Cross of Iron
by Willi Heinrich
CROSS OF IRON is the thrilling story of a German platoon cut off far behind Russian lines in the second half of World War II. A resourceful and cynical commander somehow manages to coax his men through the bitter hand-to-hand fighting in forests, trenches and city streets until eventually they regain the German lines. But safety is only temporary. After the tension of waiting for the last overwhelming Russian advance the platoon is forced into futile counter-attacks and murderous house-to-house fighting until its final decimation becomes inevitable. A modern classic of war fiction both as a book and a film, this is a strikingly realistic story of action on the Eastern Front, where the grimness of combat seems to have neither pity nor end.