History Literature / AdventureSeries

The "Adventure" series, by Willard Price, was a series of self-contained individual novels published between 1949 and 1980, about two brothers named Hal and Roger Hunt, who travelled around the world to all sorts of exciting locations picking up exotic (and more often than not extremely rare) wildlife specimens to sell to zoos and circuses.

!!These books provide examples of:

* GirlOfTheWeek: Averted, see ChasteHero.

How did they get this dream lifestyle? It's their father's business, but he doesn't do much, and teenagers are more exciting to read about anyway, so Hal and Roger merrily drop out of school with alarming frequency to go and wrestle giant snakes and tigers and so on.

* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: Roger has never heard of a unicorn.

* EgomaniacHunter: parodied and played for laughs with the bumbling 'Colonel' Bigg in ''African Adventure''.

* GirlOfTheWeek: averted, see Chaste Hero.
* GreatWhiteHunter: the boys have shades of this.

* NobleSavage
* ShoutOut: In ''South Sea Adventure'', the boys make explicit references to Literature/RobinsonCrusoe.

Who did they get this dream lifestyle? It's their father's business, but he doesn't do much, and teenagers are more exciting to read about anyway, so Hal and Roger merrily drop out of school with alarming frequency to go and wrestle giant snakes and tigers and so on.

* TropicalIslandAdventure: Most notably the ''South Sea Adventure''.

!! Tropes found in the Adventure series include:

* IronicName/MeaningfulName: Hal and Roger, well, hunt.

* ShoutOut: In ''South Sea Adventure'', the boys make explicit references to RobinsonCrusoe

* BringItBackAlive: the basic premise of the series. Frequently [[main/Lampshaded]] along with one or both of the boys insisting that this makes their job much harder, often when a local or trigger-happy tourist is inclined to scoff at their lack of desire to kill things.

* CulturalOsmosisFailure: Roger has never heard of a unicorn.

Hal is the typical hero; tall, handsome, clean-cut, with a lovely caring and trusting disposition and an almost limitless knowledge of [[whatever it is they have to deal with on any given day MonsterOfTheWeek]], while Roger fell into the AudienceSurrogate role, with a side dose of TheWatson, and also provided the fun and games, playing ridiculous jokes and pranks on his brother and other characters whenever the action lulled.

* EgomaniacHunter: parodied and played for laughs in African Adventure with the bumbling 'Colonel' Bigg in "African Adventure".

* ValuesDissonance: the series is never explicitly racist, but some of the ways the Africans or native South Americans are described can make the modern reader wince occasionally.

* BringItBackAlive: the basic premise of the series. Frequently [[Lampshaded]] along with one or both of the boys insisting that this makes their job much harder, often when a local or trigger-happy tourist is inclined to scoff at their lack of desire to kill things.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Hal is relentlessly determined to think the best of anyone and everyone, even if they have /in the past tried to murder him/, as with reoccurring villain Merlin Kaggs.

* GirlOfTheWeek: averted, see Chaste Hero.
* GreatWhiteHunter- the boys have shades of this.

* LongRunningSeries: 14 books published between 1949 and 1980.

* ValuesDissonence: the series is never explicitly racist, but some of the ways the Africans or native South Americans are described can make the modern reader wince occasionally.
GirlOfTheWeek: averted, see Chaste Hero.
Great white hunter- the boys have shades of this.

* BringItBAckAlive: the basic premise of the series. Frequently [[Lampshaded]] along with one or both of the boys insisting that this makes their job much harder, often when a local or trigger-happy tourist is inclined to scoff at their lack of desire to kill things.
* Chaste hero: Hal is a healthy, active, strapping 19-year-old who travels the world leading a very dramatic & exciting lifestyle hunting dangerous wild animals in exotic locations with almost no parental supervision & only a young brother to be responsible for. However he shows next to no interest in girls whatsoever & his behaviour even borders at times on AmbiguouslyGay.

* Egomaniac Hunter: parodied and played for laughs in African Adventure with the bumbling 'Colonel' Bigg in "African Adventure".
* Friend To All Living Things: Roger, to an occasionally ridiculous degree in a series which tries to remain for the most part grounded in the realms of scientific possibility.
* Horrible Judge Of Character: Hal is relentlessly determined to think the best of anyone and everyone, even if they have /in the past tried to murder him/, as with reoccurring villain Merlin Kaggs.

* Long-RunningSeries: 14 books published between 1949 and 1980.

Egomaniac Hunter - parodied and played for laughs in African Adventure with the bumbling 'Colonel' Bigg.
Bring it back alive - the basic premise of the series. Frequently lampshaded along with one or both of the boys insisting that this makes their job much harder, often when a local or trigger-happy tourist is inclined to scoff at their lack of desire to kill things.
Friend To All Living Things - Roger, to an occasionally ridiculous degree in a series which tries to remain for the most part grounded in the realms of scientific possibility.
I Know Karate - Hal's knowledge of hand-to-hand combat gets the boys out of a few sticky situations.
Ironic name/ meaningful name- Hal and Roger, well, hunt.
Horrible Judge Of Character - Hal is relentlessly determined to think the best of anyone and everyone, even if they have /in the past tried to murder him/, as with Merlin Kaggs.
Long-Running series - 14 books published between 1949 and 1980.
Noble Savage
Values Dissonence: the series is never explicitly racist, but some of the ways the Africans or native South Americans are portrayed can make the modern reader wince occasionally.
Informed ability - John Hunt is described in most of the books as a skilled & respected animal collector. Which is fine, & you would expect the boys to get their ability from somewhere, except that throughout the series he does pretty much... Nothing. About his most significant role is to break his leg or get sick with startling frequency so the boys have to take on the world alone, send congratulatory telegrams at the end of each book after he gives up coming altogether &, in X adventure, change the sign on the gate 2 read 'John Hunt & Sons', which, considering who's been doing all the work for the last 6 books or so seems more than a little overdue. HandWaved occasionally with the observation that he's 'getting old' for the very active job of animal collecting, but still.
Chaste hero - Hal is a healthy, active, strapping 19-year-old who travels the world leading a very dramatic & exciting lifestyle hunting dangerous wild animals in exotic locations with almost no parental supervision & only a young brother to be responsible for. However he shows next to no interest in girls whatsoever & his behaviour even borders at times on Ambiguously Gay.
Ho yay?
Mr Exposition - Hal's extraordinary knowledge of the appearance, habits, life cycle, biology & evolutionary history of any animal you happen to run across in any given country in the world.
Cultural osmosis failure - roger has never heard of a unicorn.
Girl of the week - averted, see Chaste Hero.