Larry Stanley
6-6-06

Action Novels

Genre Definition:

Action is the process or state of acting or of being active or energetic activity. That is “a man of action.” Action novels, or what some may classify as men’s novels, are written to create an action-packed situation that can take a reader’s imagination to places no human has yet ventured. It can lift the reader’s spirit to a height that makes him feel he is in the situation the hero is in. Writings like these were the project of Edgar Rice Burroughs, the man who created Tarzan of the Apes. His novels of Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, Carson Napier of Venus, and David Innes of Pellucidar helped set his readers in places and situations only the imagination could take him. Not the first, but probably the most famous action writer, Burroughs’s novels have sold millions of copies in almost every country on earth.

Subject: (audience appeal)

Mainly young men looking for an escape from the reality of the world

Alternative or Related Genres:

Action movies, war movies, western movies and novels

Narrative Genre:

Most action novels create a condition where the hero must fight for the girl against overwhelming odds, usually leading to a romantic finish, but always with action-packed adventure throughout the novel.

Representation Genre:

Though some novels may use the narrator + dialogue method, most times drama or dialogue techniques are used

Examples:

  So it was that Tarzan set forth through the trees toward the village of the blacks, all excitement at the prospect of discovering the Supreme Being, the Creator of all things…If he met God, Tarzan would be prepared…if God wished to fight, the ape-man had no doubt as to the outcome of the struggle (Burroughs. Jungle Tales of Tarzan. pp.52).

 …I closed my eyes, stretched out my arms toward the god of my vocation and felt myself drawn with the suddenness of thought through the trackless immensity of space…I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars…(Burroughs A Princess of Mars. pp.20).

It waddled in on its ten short legs, and squatted down before the girl like an obedient puppy…its head bore a slight resemblance to that of a frog, except that the jaws were equipped with three rows of long, sharp tusks (Burroughs A Princess of Mars pp. 30-1).

Highlights:

In most action novels, one can usually figure what might happen around the next corner, but in Burroughs’s case, his imaginary characters meet with creatures and beings not normally standing just around the corner. His vivid works have made him one of the top writers of the 20­^th century and Walt Disney has gained another moneymaker in their rights to the Tarzan dynasty.

Questions:

Will action stories ever push Shakespeare’s plays out of the way?

How do action novels compare or differ from the ancient stories of Homer and other Greek storytellers?