Anyone else get a Doc Savage vibe from the Dirk Pitt books?
I like Cussler. His real problem is his longevity. His first books were (for their genre) tightly written, interesting thrillers with the twist of being based upon fictionalized historical incidents. But as time went on, he had to keep getting bigger! Wilder! Faster! and now they have become almost caracaturs of themselves. He’s the Mustang of written adventure serials. (remember how the light, fast, peppy Mustang of 1965 was a big, bloated semi-muscle car by the early 70s?) Read Deep Six, if the scene with the 6th Louisiana running down the bad guys with a paddle wheeler doesn’t get your blood boiling, then his entire genre of books is not for you.
I read Raise the Titanic as a teen one summer and liked it enough to try Night Probe.
I gave up on him after that one. It had some pretty cool plot ideas, but Cussler couldn’t keep up with his own plot.
It’s been decades, so the only one I still remember is that the gold treasure kept morphing forms, but there were others.
I’ve listened to several books-on-tape of his novels on the six hour drives I am now making eight times a year. They seam to be rather formulaic, and go in four stages:
One: “Bad guys are discovered.”
Two: “Bad guys are doing bad things, and Drik (with whatever woman has fallen for him this time) is trying to stop them.”
Three: Then it turns out the bad guy is actually planning to blow up a city/otherthrow the US government/do somthing much worse than what he was doing before. Dirk, NUMA, and the girl stop the bad guy."
I can check them out from the local library. They’ve been okay, but I don’t think that I would actually buy one of his books.
I couldn’t even finish listening to Valhalla Rising…it was just so bad. Maybe I’ll try out some of his earlier stuff, but probably not. Its just too hokey.
-XT
I just rented the movie Sahara last night and was pleasantly surprised in a great way.
I liked all of it except Penelope Cruz, who has the acting range of a duck. But she’s soooo pretty!
What would be a good book of Cussler’s to start out with ?
If you must, start with The Mediterranean Caper and Raise The Titanic! Pacific Vortex is the one that wherein he meets someone who figures prominently in the last few books, but is completely un-necessary to read for background otherwise.
The movie transcended the source material. Says the guy who’s read all the Cussler novels and regrets the wasted time.
If you liked the movie, read “Sahara”. It makes little difference which book you read, they’re pretty much all the same.
He’s been going downhill steadily since Raise the Titanic! and Vixen 03, which I highly recommend - both are outlandish but lots o’ fun.
His early stuff is good. And his non-fiction books about finding shipwrecks (Sea Hunters and Sea Hunters 2) are fascinating.
But I think he’s maxed out his run. The introduction of the kids and the new hero character pretty much signaled his jumping the shark.