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3.41 AVERAGE
3.41 AVERAGE
First published in 1975, and it shows. Dirk's character traits have definitely changed between then and more recently, and I much prefer the Dirk of today. This book bears some vocabulary that was probably acceptable back then but not today. Keep that in mind!
least favorite book that I've read by this author. the character Tidi was so annoying, I just wanted to slap her and it ruined the book.
Didn't realised it was a YA novel, hence how short it was. It did the job: kept me entertained during my lunch time at work.
Very dated and definitely not one of the best Dirk Pitt adventures - possibly the worst!
adventurous
fast-paced
Jeezus Christ, this is just several hundred pages of men condescending to each other, with brief interruptions to be awful to women or to break machines. How is this author in every airport? Fuuuuuck.
You can't beat a book that randomly culminates in a shootout in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. I don't even know what to say.
I love Clive Cussler, however this was not one Dirk Pitts finest adventures.
I quite enjoyed Clive Cussler as a youngster - a Tom Clancy, James Patterson or Lee Child of his day. I've bought what feels like a metric ton of his vast catalogue of books very cheaply in local charity shops over the last year or so and think my bookshelf is about to collapse under the weight. So I'm going in…
This book, whose title sounds like a placeholder, was written in 1976 and ye gods does it constantly show it. Plenty of mentions of typewriters, big old computers and of course everyone smokes. Plus much of the book’s dialogue was… ‘of its time’.
All of the men were chiefly sex pests with our hero Major Dirk Pitt (yes, really), the most toxic. He was pretty much a supermarket own-brand James Bond and essentially Pepé Le Pew in human form. The few women characters were written terribly and treated appallingly. They were little more than weak damsels in distress to be rescued and purely there to be ogled, insulted, harassed and abused.
There were a couple of sequences where Pitt pretended to be an artist for reasons I can’t even care enough to remember and it was very difficult to read. Think of every stereotypically gay character from 1970s sitcoms and you are getting close.
The twist ending felt like it was quickly written on the bus on the way to the publishers. It made no sense and added nothing to the story, but was actually treated with more subtlety than anything else in this wretched potboiler.
I have just shy of a dozen of these to read and I intend to grit my teeth and carry on in chronological order. I’m actually fascinated to see if there is any progression and improvement over the decades - there has to be, surely? I make no promises though, many more like this and I will certainly end throwing in the towel very early.
This book, whose title sounds like a placeholder, was written in 1976 and ye gods does it constantly show it. Plenty of mentions of typewriters, big old computers and of course everyone smokes. Plus much of the book’s dialogue was… ‘of its time’.
All of the men were chiefly sex pests with our hero Major Dirk Pitt (yes, really), the most toxic. He was pretty much a supermarket own-brand James Bond and essentially Pepé Le Pew in human form. The few women characters were written terribly and treated appallingly. They were little more than weak damsels in distress to be rescued and purely there to be ogled, insulted, harassed and abused.
There were a couple of sequences where Pitt pretended to be an artist for reasons I can’t even care enough to remember and it was very difficult to read. Think of every stereotypically gay character from 1970s sitcoms and you are getting close.
The twist ending felt like it was quickly written on the bus on the way to the publishers. It made no sense and added nothing to the story, but was actually treated with more subtlety than anything else in this wretched potboiler.
I have just shy of a dozen of these to read and I intend to grit my teeth and carry on in chronological order. I’m actually fascinated to see if there is any progression and improvement over the decades - there has to be, surely? I make no promises though, many more like this and I will certainly end throwing in the towel very early.
