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A review by ricksilva
Dragon by Clive Cussler
1.0
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the Cold War was winding down, you would sometimes see bumper stickers that said things like, "We're not going to be nuked by Russia. We're going to be evicted by Japan."
That is the plot of this novel.
Actually it also involves Japan nuking the US, or trying to, anyway. See, the Japanese are smuggling nuclear bombs into the US in imported cars. Get it? Cheap Japanese imported products are going to destroy us!
Thankfully underwater adventurer Dirk Pitt is on the job.
Pitt is a mostly likeable hero with a tiny bit of low-grade sexism, but generally entertaining in the other books I've read from this series. He's got all the heroic traits, some decent wit, and a fun hobby restoring antique cars, which the author writes about with clearly a lot of love (in addition the author writing himself into the books in cute cameo bits).
The plot is ridiculous, and both the villains and the US intelligence agencies do some incredibly stupid things, but judged purely on action this was two-star popcorn fare.
Unfortunately the continuous stream of anti-Asian racism, and an exceptionally sexist/racist resolution for one character's arc made the whole thing feel gross. Every Asian character is a negative stereotype, and there are recurring bits of dialogue with characters simply acting as talking heads to put out xenophobic arguments that are clearly meant more for the reader than the villains.
There was nothing in this book that was all that great, and there was too much that was outright toxic.
That is the plot of this novel.
Actually it also involves Japan nuking the US, or trying to, anyway. See, the Japanese are smuggling nuclear bombs into the US in imported cars. Get it? Cheap Japanese imported products are going to destroy us!
Thankfully underwater adventurer Dirk Pitt is on the job.
Pitt is a mostly likeable hero with a tiny bit of low-grade sexism, but generally entertaining in the other books I've read from this series. He's got all the heroic traits, some decent wit, and a fun hobby restoring antique cars, which the author writes about with clearly a lot of love (in addition the author writing himself into the books in cute cameo bits).
The plot is ridiculous, and both the villains and the US intelligence agencies do some incredibly stupid things, but judged purely on action this was two-star popcorn fare.
Unfortunately the continuous stream of anti-Asian racism, and an exceptionally sexist/racist resolution for one character's arc made the whole thing feel gross. Every Asian character is a negative stereotype, and there are recurring bits of dialogue with characters simply acting as talking heads to put out xenophobic arguments that are clearly meant more for the reader than the villains.
There was nothing in this book that was all that great, and there was too much that was outright toxic.