Rating: 3/5

Lost References:

This book is on both Ben and Jack’s shelves. So far, it’s the only one I know of that’s on both. The villainous corporation in the book is called Cerberus, which is DHARMA’s name for the smoke monster.

Thoughts:

Brace yourselves, because I have more than usual to say. I’ll start with the one aspect of the story that I had to do research for. In the climax of this book, which was published in 2001, the villains attempt to bomb the World Trade Center, which might seem, er, tacky, but I looked it up, and this book came out almost a month before the September 11 attacks, on August 13. That said, I can move on to the actual book.

Clive Cussler has an unfortunate, removed way of writing. He prefers telling to showing, for one thing. For another, he treats huge passages like a history lesson, rushing ahead of himself (which removes the element of suspense), forcing facts into the story (to show how much research he did), and telling about events in a broad sweep. The only exception to this is when there’s something he particularly likes – usually a car or boat or something that Dirk Pitt is doing. Then he hones in and purple proses the passage to death. His fixation with eyes is almost as silly as Stephanie Meyers’s. His characters, all cardboard-cutout stereotypes are particularly irritating, from the conscienceless villains to the perfect, devotedly heroic, and far too lucky heroes. Pitt’s only “flaw” seems to be his aversion to the spotlight.

Even worse, at one point this paragon is rescued, along with his friends, by Clive Cussler, who writes himself in for an extended cameo (and it seems he’s made other visits over the course of the series, which wouldn’t surprise me). He seems to love all the same things as Pitt, who essentially serves as his author avatar anyway. They have the same hobbies, job, fondness for tequila, etc.

But you may want to know about the series of contrivances that masquerades as a plot. They include: Vikings, sabotage, pirate mercenaries, castaways, a damsel in distress, terrorism, Jules Verne’s Nautilus, and a dogfight where the hero’s passengers are fifteen disabled children. Are you sure you don’t want some ninjas to save an orphanage, Mr. Cussler?

In spite of all this, the adventure of the story was engaging for some reason I can’t explain. For this reason I checked the dvd of Sahara, a movie based on another Cussler book, out from the library and I actually really enjoyed it. It was the adventure without the boredom and without Cussler. Apparently, another Cussler movie called Raise the Titanic! came out a while before that, but Cussler hated it even though he was granted a cameo, and it was a while before he’d let anyone try again. This time around, he was a mega control freak and ended up suing some of Sahara’s filmmakers. Granted, it bombed in the box office, but the writing quality is better than his own, so he ought to be thanking them.