Where to start with this lamentable effort. Well, don’t buy it would be a good place. It’s dreadful and I’m going to give away quite a bit of the plot in this opinion to show you just how stupid it is. If you don’t want it spoilt for you, then stop now, but I did warn you.
Cussler has sunk to a real low by writing this book, and his biggest mistake as far as I can see is attempting to leave the confines of the narrow world he usually inhabits, to write about things in the real world, which he knows nothing about. If you’ve never read anything by Cussler, buy one of his early novels, as they are much better. They all revolve around a fellow called Dirk Pitt, an underwater secret agent, who makes Superman seem a bit like Mickey Mouse – get the picture.
The plot has more holes in it than a very holey thing (Metaphors fail me). The story goes something like this – Some bloke discovers an extraordinary artefact 9100 years old. Lots of people try to kill him and all he tells of his find, but Dirk Pitt pops up and saves them all. These artefacts have been left by the Atlanteans to warn of impending doom, but things are not so simple. Oh no, Mr Cussler has a race of super nazis living under the South Pole and plotting to take over the world. Ludicrously, he would have the poor dumb reader believe that although 275, 000 people are involved in the plot, none of the world’s intelligence agencies have been able to penetrate the organisation during its 50 years of existence. Puhleease Clive, the National Enquirer would seem to be more your speed. Fortunately for us, Pitt uncovers the plot, convinces the entire US version of the MOD of it’s genuineness in about 20 minutes, then saves our bacon pretty much single handedly.
On the back of the book, some wag has penned “From the Grand Master of adventure fiction comes heart-pounding action and intrigue – And the answer to one of the great mysteries in human history”. What a laugh. The “Answer” is that Atlantis was destroyed 9, 000 years ago by, get this, a comet greater than the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Sheesh, and nobody realised until now.
Pitt sees more combat in this book than you average Vietnam Vet, receiving in separate incidents, err, well, cuts to his hands, feet and head actually. Two of his unarmed mates successfully take on a helicopter gunship and six heavily armed mercenaries, who we are led to believe are all ex SAS or similar. This is just stupid and I was getting very bored by that point. However, this was one of my holiday books, bought for easy reading by the pool, so it had be finished, but at 7 pounds I wished I’d bought a bottle of Raki (Greek alcohol) and half poisoned myself instead.
Cussler likes to show off his technical diving knowledge, and as he has led a number of successful exploration expeditions you’d expect this to be done well. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. I suspect he is just so patronising that he assumes the reader won’t realise when BS is being waved under their nose. He has Pitt diving in mine shafts using totally ludicrous equipment just to make it sound exciting. I can genuinely say anyone who dived using the gear he suggests would be laughed at if they left the confines of a swimming pool (A solo dive in an overhead environment, using a single regulator on a twinset, for anyone that understands). In the technical diving world he would firmly be described as a “Stroke” (Origin unknown, either about to look like a stroke victim due to bad diving practice, or a total W**ker are the favourite guesses)
Name dropping and gross egotism are a couple of other of Cussler’s little faults. He has himself making two cameo appearances to aid Pitt’s bid to save the world. How arrogant can he possibly get I ask myself? Well, we all know he actually fantasises that he’s Pitt, so I suppose there’s room for him to get worse yet. He also drops in the names of expensive wines, at 60 ukpounds a throw, just to rub the readers nose in the fact that he’s loaded and we aren’t. Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon – “An excellent choice Sir, not many of our Patrons know it exists” says the waiter. Ho ho, Clive did though, didn’t he, and just had to share his expertise. Well if its anything like his diving expertise it’ll probably taste like urine, 60 pounds or not. He then goes on to denigrate Gallo, the stuff most of us in the UK would consider a decent wine at 3 to 4 pounds a bottle. Snob.
So what else was good about the book. His characters are all nearly identical, apart from the token women who wet their knickers every time Dirk enters the room. Wooden, soulless, boring, with stunted dialogue and not a swear word amongst them. It’s almost impossible to tell the difference between the Nazis and the Americans as they behave pretty much in the same fashion. They all lead a bourgeois existence that died with F Scott Fitzgerald, but at least he had the wit and feeling to mock the world he inhabited.
Cussler’s literary skills are very limited too. Quote - “A long lost race who discovered the world” said Giordino, philosophically – On that evidence Cussler wouldn’t know philosophy if it swallowed him whole. This sums up his absence of talent and lack of ability to convey emotion or thought for me, and I won’t be reading another of his books unless I wind up in jail with no other option. This dreadful offering is Mills and Boon (Trashy Romantic Ladies novels in the UK) for the boys, at its worst.