Clive Cussler, Author Extraordinaire!

By Jade K. (Jade4142)

Action, adventure, oceans, foreign lands, beautiful women, and a man who just will do the right thing.

Clive Cussler was born in 1931 and started writing in 1965.  He was 34 years old when he started his phenomenal writing career.  If there are errors in his books, regarding geography, anything maritime or anything having to do with food or drinks, I haven’t found them.  His research must be voluminous.  He writes mostly fiction, and every single book of his that I’ve read has been one of those you don’t want to start at 9:00 p.m., or you’ll be up all night reading. Only your knowledge that there are more books in the series can convince you as you read that your hero is going to live through this book; he must live, since there’s another one about him, but it certainly doesn’t look that way right now.

That hero, in my view, is Dirk Pitt.  Pitt works for NUMA, the National Underwater and Marine Agency, as Special Projects Director. NUMA researches the ocean, its construction, its occupants, and its habits.  They also raise lost ships.  Pitt is an extraordinary NUMA member.  He is a man who will do the right thing, whether his boss, Admiral James Sandecker, agrees or not.  If the official route won’t get the right thing done, Pitt will do it anyway.  And, of course, Mr. Pitt always succeeds.  He shuts down a Chinese slave trade ring, raises the Titanic, finds a missing treaty that can change the entire future of the North American continent, and finds the nerve gas that can kill everyone in the world in minutes.  His life is always in danger, and he’s often seriously injured.  But Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt just won’t quit.  If someone is hurting someone else, Pitt will stop it.

Cussler uses one device in his books that I don’t much like, but I guess when you’re something of the Grand Master of the action novel, you can do what you want.  Cussler himself shows up in several of the Pitt books to rescue Pitt when he’s written Pitt into a corner he can’t get out of unless Cussler arrives in his catamaran to rescue him.

There are so far 21 Dirk Pitt books, and I own them all.  I’m reading them in order this time, since each book refers to a previous book, and I want to have it all tidy.  I will tell you, though, that Mr. Cussler didn’t release the books in exactly chronological order.  He released Mediterranean Caper in 1973.  That is not, however, the first book in the series.  Pacific Vortex, published in 1983 but written before Mediterranean Caper, is actually the first book in the series.   So if you want to read all 21 in chronological order according to the story, you have to start with Pacific Vortex.

Dirk Pitt

Pacific Vortex (1983), Mediterranean Caper (1973), Iceberg (1975)

Raise the Titanic (1976), Vixen 03 (1978), Night Probe (1981), Deep Six (1984), Cyclops (1986)

Treasure (1988), Dragon (1990), Sahara (1992), Inca Gold (1994), Shockwave (1996),

Flood Tide (1997), Atlantis Found (1999)

Valhalla Rising (2001), Trojan Odyssey (2003), Black Wind (2004),

Treasure of Khan (2006), Arctic Drift (2008)

Crescent Dawn (11‐16‐2010)

Cussler has written other action/adventures series as well, and I am in the process of collecting those. I have to have them all before I start reading them, so I can read them in order.  He of course has a website and these lists can be found there, too. www.clive‐cussler‐books.com

The NUMA Files

Serpent (1999), Blue Gold (2000), Fire Ice (2002), White Death (2003)

Lost City (2004), Polar Shift (2005), The Navigator (2007), Medusa (06/2009)

Isaac Bell – Detective Series

The Chase (2007), The Wrecker (11/2009), The Spy (06/2010), The Race (09/06/2011)

The Fargo Series

Spartan Gold (09/2009), Lost Empire (08/31/2010), The Kingdom (06/06/2011)

The Oregon Files

Golden Buddha (2003), Sacred Stone (2004), Dark Watch (2005)

Skeleton Coast (2006), Plague Ship (2008), Corsair (03/2009)

The Silent Sea (03/2010), The Jungle (03/2011)

Cussler is much more than the grand master of the action/adventure novel.  He actually is the director of a real-life NUMA.  His NUMA researchers and volunteers focus on American maritime and naval history, and they do recover sunken ships.  They have brought up the C.S.S. Hunley, the first submarine to sink a ship in battle; the Housatonic, the ship the Hunley sank; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, sunk by the famous Merrimack; the Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron; the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, Texas; and the remains of the Carpathia, the ship that braved icebergs to rescue the survivors of the Titanic.  When they bring these ships up, they donate the rights to them to various non-profits, universities and governments.  Cussler takes us with him on some of those adventures in The Sea Hunters and The Sea Hunters II. (http://www.numa.net/clive_cussler.html)

Cussler is an antique car collector, knowledge he imparts to Mr. Pitt, of course.  He has his cars in a museum in Golden, Colorado.  He lives part time in the mountains of Colorado and part-time in Arizona.  He has a son named Dirk who has co-authored some the Dirk Pitt books, and you can see Cussler and his son on some of those book covers, with some of his antique cars.

Cussler’s books have been published in more than 40 languages, in more than 100 countries.  He has about 125 million avid fans, and I’m one of them.  One small voice in the wilderness, but avid in my admiration for this extraordinary man who creates extraordinary novels and devotes his life and resources to America’s maritime history.

Tags: Authors, Book Recommendations, Book Suggestions

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 20th, 2011 at 6:38 am and is filed under Author Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.