Adventure fiction is a genre where the main storyline revolves around an exciting and perilous undertaking, typically involving risk and physical danger. Between the Progressive Era and the 1950s, adventure novels and short stories were popular subjects in American pulp magazines, dominating the realm of popular fiction during that period. This genre often intersects with various others, including war novels, crime novels, sea stories, Robinsonades, spy stories (as exemplified by John Buchan, Eric Ambler, and Ian Fleming), science fiction, fantasy (with authors like Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien blending secondary world storytelling with adventure), and Westerns. While not all books in these genres qualify as adventures, adventure fiction borrows settings and premises from them, emphasizing a fast-paced plot centered around the hero's actions within the given setting.
