The fantasy/fantasy adventure genre has long enjoyed a lot of fanfare in books, but movies are a little bit harder to come by. While the trend is changing, I wanted to make a list of the top ten fantasy adventure movies.

There are bound to be a pile of films that you would like to see on this list - so please feel free to suggest them - and give reasons for why you think it should be added.

As a note: fantasy adventure means there has to be something beyond the human realm (so sorry to fans of Princess Bride and the 13th Warrior, but there just wasn’t enough to make that jump). So here’s the list of the top ten fantasy adventure movies.

It’s the original. A wizard, good and bad witches, flying monkeys, this movie has it all. A classic story and a classic film, this movie is way beyond classic: it’s an inherent part of the culture. My favorite story about this film was when my grandfather as a boy watched it in the theatre, and was so amazed when it switched to color that he stayed for a second show…and was grounded the moment he came out to see his father who had been waiting over two hours for him.

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It’s hard to find great travel writing, but it’s out there. Part of the reason for this is that so much travel writing is also considered nature writing or narrative non-fiction. Part of the reason is that the field is so competitive because of a lot of good authors competing for a relatively small market space. But there is a wide array of great travel fiction out there, and here is my list of the best ten travel novels I’ve read over the past couple years.

This is one I actually found in the “Christian” Non-Fiction section, which can be unfair. There’s no question Miller is a Christian, but he’s a writer first and foremost, he’s not preachy, and his questioning of his own faith, of reasons for existence, of who and what he is or is becoming is reminiscent of the fantastic soul searching that came from the travel writing of the Beat generation. Miller’s account of his trip is great, going through the moments of beauty, the necessity of good road trip music, and admitting his moments of embarrassment and fear as freely as any other part of his journey.

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This is a list of entheogens - which, according to Wikipedia are: in the strictest sense, psychoactive substances used in a religious or shamanic context. Plants and herbs have been used for many centuries in religious contexts due to their mind altering nature. In recent times many have been taken up by the “casual drug user” as a cheap alternative to chemical based drugs.

If you have had any experiences with the following plants, be sure to tell us about it in the comments - we are always interested in hearing about our readers experiences in areas like this. So, onward, the list:

Active Constituents: Ergoline alkaloids

This is a species of morning glory native to the New World tropics, and widely cultivated and naturalized elsewhere.
The seeds have been used for centuries by many Mexican Native American cultures as an hallucinogen; they were known to the Aztecs as ‘tlitliltzin’, the Nahuatl word for “black”. Their traditional use by Mexican Native Americans was first discovered in 1941, brought to light in a report documenting use going back to Aztec times. It was reported in 1960 that the seeds of Ipomoea tricolor were used as sacraments by certain Zapotecs, sometimes in conjunction with the seeds of Rivea corymbosa, another species which has a similar chemical composition. Hallucinations are the predominant effect after ingesting morning glory seeds. Vivid visual and tactile hallucinations, as well as increased awareness of colors have been described.

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Everyone loves a good swordfight and thankfully there have been an enormous number of movies with brilliant fighting scenes in them. This is a selection of ten of the best from some of my favorite movies. You will definitely not be disappointed by the selection given here.

Remember, if you have your own favorites that you think might deserve a place on this list, be sure to tell us so we can do a follow up at a later date. Be sure to tell us your reasons for your picks.

The “Pirates” series may have overstayed its welcome, but the first entry gave us some of the most inspired and thrilling action sequences in recent memory. Like any respectable blood-and-thunder epic, it comes with some mighty fancy swordplay. The high-flying acrobatics of Depp and Bloom strike just the right balance of adventure and comedy. Interestingly, if Depp had played Jack Sparrow as a classic hero instead of a rum-addled fop, it probably wouldn’t be worth mentioning.

Buy it at Amazon

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