DANGER ON HIGH - AND ON HIGH SEAS.

Byline: Rich Martin Special to the Daily News

With the popularity of extreme (and extremely dangerous) sports, it is natural that accounts about heart-pumping outdoor activities will also flourish.

But beware: Just as peril awaits mountaineers and boaters who ignore safety rules, epic failure can await those who ignore writing guidelines.

Doing it the right way are two works from Adrenaline Books edited by Clint Willis: ``High: Stories of Survival From Everest and K2'' and ``Rough Water: Stories of Survival From the Sea'' (both $16.95). Willis has included stories that are not only riveting but well-written, and he intersperses modern narratives with classical works such as excerpts from ``Two Years Before the Mast'' by Richard Henry Dana and ``The Caine Mutiny'' by Herman Wouk.

The common thread to all the stories is gritty realism that portrays the horror of danger at high altitude and on the ocean. The accounts are so powerful that anyone afraid of heights or who gets seasick should stay away - the tales are that gripping.

One of the best features of the two books is that some of the stories tread on unfamiliar ground. Steven Callahan's ``Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea'' describes his hatred of a situation that requires him to repeatedly ``haul aboard lovely creatures and tear into their flesh like a beast,'' but he also finds perspective alone into the Atlantic: ``In these rare moments of peace, deprivation seems a strange sort of gift. . . . For the first time, I see the vast difference between human needs and human wants.''

Another excellent selection in the 354-page ``Rough Water'' is Tony Farrington's ``Rescue in the Pacific,'' an account of yachts heading from New Zealand to Tonga in 1996 caught in a hurricane-strength storm with 100-foot waves that made rescue almost impossible. A more familiar tale titled ``The Loss of the S.S. Titanic,'' by a survivor, provides a different viewpoint than the film version.

In its 321 pages, ``High'' also strives for harsh realism that never falls into melodrama. Matt Dickinson, in ``The Other Side of Everest,'' shows how difficult every part of life is at 26,000 feet and above: Toilet visits are lengthy and excruciating, while awakening is comparable to arising with a killer hangover. He describes the many ways the Death Zone can claim strong, healthy mountaineers and how one mistake can lead to death.

Jim Haberl's ``K2: Dreams and Reality'' offers a description of watching a climbing partner fall to his death: ``I spun around to see Dan cartwheeling violently through the snow, rolling by me at high speed. I stared in horror. All I could see was Dan tumbling faster and faster, his blonde hair in the tangle of the fall. As he hit the hard snow below me his limp body began gaining momentum.''

Each selection is long enough to draw the reader in by telling a story. Organization helped as well: Packaging worked in both books. Our rating: three stars

What a shame this formula for success - organization, strong writing and riveting stories - was not followed in ``Danger! - True stories of Trouble and Survival'' edited by James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger & Sean O'Reilly (Travelers' Tales, $17.95).

It's not that the tales are boring. Some are worthy of telling, but the writing is uneven and the editing is often not evident.

Peter Potterfield's ``Chimney Rock'' is an account of a climber's fall in the Cascades and his success getting onto a ledge and out of the sun despite severe injuries. But the story ends in doubt. How in the hell did he get out of there? Did he have a handy parachute? Or, Hollywood style, was it all a dream?

Graham Mackintosh's ``Baja Bites Back'' suffers from editing mistakes of a different type. He gets lost during a hike and can't find his way out - good so far. He's hot and thirsty and near panic. Then, strangely, he picks up a religious station on his radio and launches into a two-page speech about Christianity, tolerance and the Sermon on the Mount as it applies to current events. It's out of left field. The author should have saved it for a devotional book, and the editors should have trimmed it.

A similar problem is evident in other stories. The authors decided they needed a bear story. Unfortunately, ``The `Friendly' Bear'' does not capture the reader. The author survived a bear charge by running; telling the reader about the companion who had to play possum doesn't evoke fear. It's just another story told around a campfire, and not particularly well.

Similarly, ``Buried,'' by Peter Whittaker and Andrea Gabbard, does not compare to stories in the two Adrenaline books either in excitement in quality of writing.

One great selection in ``Danger!'' is an excerpt from Sebastian Junger's ``The Perfect Storm'' in which the rescuers must be rescued. (The same book is excerpted in Adrenaline's ``Rough Water.'') More such selections were needed.

The editors tried to pack too much into 309-page ``Danger!'' - 28 stories, some of them no more than four or five pages. And the audience that might enjoy outdoor adventures might not want to read about journalists confronting death, and vice versa. Adrenaline is not an appropriate unifying theme for a book.

Fewer stories - organized around a common theme - and stronger writing would have rescued ``Danger!'' This looks like a rush job, the kind of approach that would lead to disaster at high altitude or at sea. Here it leads to mediocrity. Our rating: one and a half stars.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) no caption (cover of Danger!)

(2 -- color) no caption (cover of High)