otto rahn said:
Two more authors that you might like to try are Will Adams ("The Alexander Cipher", "The Exodus Quest", "the Lost Labyrinth") and James Rollins ("Map Of Bones", "Subterranean" etc) (There are several more of his, but I won't list them all here). If your taste runs to genuine "pulp era" adventure novels (written in the 1920's) then you might try Talbot Mundy's "Jimgrim" novels.
Will Adams is alright--a little bland in his writing, but his material is at the very least more grounded than Clive Cussler's stuff. I think I've only read The Alexander Cipher, though I've possibly read The Exodus Quest but have entirely forgotten about it. Even though I'm not really impressed with his novels, I feel compelled to cheer for him since at the very least he tries to add a bit of historicity to his writing, a crippling issue in most adventure fiction these days.
James Rollins, on the other hand, is an airport bookstore-level hack (in my opinion, of course). Mind you, I've only attempted to read "Sandstorm", and I haven't the slightest idea where that ranks amongst his other works, but the 30-40 pages of "Sandstorm" I read were
painful. Terrible writing, terrible character names ("Omaha Dunn," for example), terrible plot. What little I've read of Wilbur Smith is just about as headache-inducing.
Adventure novels I would recommend is not exactly in the realm of Indiana Jones-ish fiction, since most of that is either Clive Cussler or Dan Brown-esque stuff that, well, isn't very good. That said, Romolo Gessi's "Seven Years in the Soudan" and especially Winston Churchill's "The River War" are fascinating nonfiction accounts, and amongst fiction you really can't go wrong with anything by Umberto Eco. I definitely suggest "Name of the Rose," "Baudolino," or "Foucault's Pendulum." Michael Crichton's "Congo" was alright, as I recall. Daniel Leston's "The Amun Chamber" reminds me of Will Adams, being a bit bland but not offensive or irritating.
I've been meaning to finally read some Patrick O'Brien, and "Road to Samarcand" sound intriguing.