Rating: 
Summary: Hard to follow choppy action/adventure tale
Review: Like most Clive Cussler fans, I wait around for his next book like a junkie waiting for his next fix. When I heard that he was teaming with Craig Dirgo (who wrote the rather entertaining 'Einstein Papers') for another series called, 'The Oregon Files', I just KNEW it was going to be every bit as great as anything and everything Clive had already written. Unfortunately, I was wrong.'Golden Buddha' is unlike ANYTHING that Clive has done before. At least with the Kurt Austin stories, Clive & Kemprecos followed the tried & true formula which had served so well over the course of the Dirk Pitt tales...however the Oregon Files treads over different ground. I was encouraged -- at first -- that the beginning started off as so many of the Cussler novels do with a re-telling of an event that happened decades before as the Dali Lama is forced to flee into exile from Tibet -- but this is where ANY similarity to previous books ENDS. As I began chapter 1, I had the distinct feeling that I had walked into an action movie 20 minutes AFTER it had started. The story was already in motion making me feel as though I had missed some critical details into the plot. As the story unfolds, the Corporation running the Oregon are hired to steal the Golden Buddha, which had disappeared when the Dali Lama had fled from Tibet into India many years before in an attempt of a good-will gesture to gently nudge China into giving up control of the country they cannot afford to run any longer anyway. It IS an imaginative caper, I assure you -- but it is VERY difficult to follow. There are a LOT of chapters in 'Golden Buddha', and MANY even smaller segments within each chapter, forcing the story to jump from one scene to another. Now I'm certain that this was intended to move seamlessly, but unfortunately, the story moves from one location to another so often and so choppy it was quite a chore to remember where things were if you put the book down for just a few minutes, let alone pick it up after a day of sitting on the shelf. There are a LARGE assembly of characters to keep track of, and even with the help of a Cast of Character List at the beginning of the book, I found myself wondering just WHO this or that person was. Part of this problem was due to the Corporation characters taking on the alias of other people, and within certain segments of the chapters, the authors refer to them with their alias names as well as their real names, thus confusing me even MORE. I pride myself on being able to follow complicated stories and convoluted plots with reasonable ease, but 'Golden Buddha' had me wondering which way was up many times. While I have HIGH hopes that the next Oregon Files story will be easier to follow, reading this latest Cussler tale turned out to be a bit more of a challenge than I had originally figured it to be. With that said, I still found 'Golden Buddha' to be a fun story (provided you could follow what was going on) and although not on par with Dirk Pitt or Kurt Austin, the tales featuring Juan Cabrillo and the ship Oregon just might end up scoring Cussler an even larger following than he already has. I fervently look forward to the next Pitt tale, 'Trojan Odyssey'. Judge for yourself, but remember that just because this story says Clive Cussler on the front, does NOT mean that you will get a novel that even remotely resembles anything he has written before. I think that starting 'Golden Buddha' with this knowledge up front will make the story easier to digest and enjoy, which I did -- just not as much as I would've liked.
Rating: 
Summary: clive cussler didnt write this book!!
Review: The book cant have been written by Clive Cussler!! There is none of the quick witty banter, the touches of humor and fast pace story that Clive is known for. I think Clive just added his name to the book and let his co-author Craig Dirgo write the lion share of the book. Case in point: Clive manages only 3~4 main charaters with 1-4 secondary charaters, Craig has 20-30 main charaters with more secondary/main charaters coming in every chapter. The story starts out making the reader think that this is a small band of people, using a ship as a floating base, fighting to correct evil with NO goverment ties or is a shadow goverment agency.
But as the story progress, more and more charaters are introduced, every possible problem that can hinder the heroes in their quest to recover a stolen Golden Budda, is thrown in the story and soon this 'small' band of people fighting evil turns into a large multi national agency with some ties to the goverment and/or is a arm of a shadow goverment agency. I wish the auther Craig had cut out about 40 charaters and stuck with the small band of people instead of dragging the story down with so many new charaters and so many details that the reader is hard pressed to keep track of much less care about.
I hope that IF Clive Cussler allows Craig Dirgo to co-write another book or a sequel to Golden Budda that Craig cuts down on all the extra details, charaters and prodding story line and makes the story more enjoyable to the reader.
I think I will stick with Dirk Pitt and Kurt Austin adventures from now on.
Rating: 
Summary: A Sterling Start to a New Adventure Series!
Review: I listened to the unabridged version of this story and found myself waiting for the next surprise. I was very impressed by the storyline and the variety of "characters" in the Corporation. Also, things didn't always 'go according to plans' as they do in some books. I have read or listened to all of Clive Cuussler's fiction and found this book to rank right near the top, ahead of most Kurt Austin adventures and even a couple of Dirk Pitt stories. I found the main characters to be very developed and skilled with many different abilities. Mercenaries with a conscience, Robin Hood on the high seas, Pirates for Profit and Humanity. There were points in the book where it looked like their plans were headed South, only to see that they had covered all the contingencies. I found this book to be a much better effort in the adventure genre than most recent entries, including Tom Clancy's latest terrorist infested effort. I await very hopefully the next effort in this series. I would strongly recommend this book to all avid readers of Cussler, Higgins, and Clancy.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Disapointed
Review: I listened to this book on CD. I cannot comment on how it comes across in print. On the CD, it is a cross between Mission Impossible and Charlies Angels (albeit male angels). The reader must have used the same voice coach that was used in Kung Pow, the Fist of Death. Everything works perfectly, there is no tension and the dialog is insipid. I truely hope that this collaberation was just to get Mr. Cussler's name on the cover. It departs so much from his normal style of writing that I cannot see his hand in the story except in very few places. One other disadvantage to the CD version, you don't get the list of characters at the beginning as you do in the paperback edition. Thank goodness I got this at the public library and didn't plunk down hard earned cash for it. (Well, I guess my taxes paid for it.) I'll give the next book a try and hope that it is much better than this one. If not, I'm going looking for another Dirk Pitt.
Rating:
Summary: Not as bad as I had expected
Review: I had read several negative reviews and, thinking Cussler had just allowed a lesser writer to use his name to sell the book, I was expecting something really bad, but it turned out a fairly good read. I was looking more for escapism than great literature, and that's what I got.
The short choppy chapters and paragraphs, and the overpopulated cast of characters, were wearying, as other critics here have noted. More irritating was that none of the characters seemed very deep--I don't mean unrealistic, just two-dimensional. Eddie Seng did not seem like an Asian, Lincoln did not come across like an African American, Cabrillo did not seem Hispanic other than in name. The female characters especially seemed fetchers of coffee, or collectors of farewell letters and last testaments (Ms. Crabtree), or else just pretty bods to sleep with the enemy for information. (Oddly, none of the heroes seem to get anything going in this line, while Cussler generally has his hero at least flirt with a trophy woman.)
Also annoying were the blatant giveaways. "Rhee had no way of knowing it, but he'd just made the biggest error of his life." "President Putin had been promised the meeting would be worth the effort. Cabrillo would not fail to deliver." "And Winston Spencer had no way to know he had less than a fortnight to live." This frequently leaves the technology the only point of interest, since the reader knows how the chapter will end.
I did like, however, the fact that so much of the action took place away from the sea; this allows much more scope for sequels.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Yarn, Unravelling
Review: Mr. Cussler's literary efforts have helped me across the Atlantic and Pacific and Indian Oceans numerous times. They are quick, fun reading stories, with usually some darn good research and writing to boot. Any of Mr. Cussler's books are entertaining. Yes, the topics may seem improbable, but that is what makes good entertainment...Jules Verne and H.G. Wells wrote with the same optimism. My criticism of Golden Buddha is the glaring inconsistencies that a good editor should have caught. For example - in one chapter, the ship Oregon is moored, dockside, Macau Harbor; a chapter later, the Oregon is at anchor; and 5 pages after that, the ship is again moored. It is these type inconsistencies that cause me to rate Golden Buddha less than it should have earned. Mr. Cussler - your legion of fans is deep. We share your enthusiasm and optimism, but when your attention to detail slips, our unbridled support may start to wane.
Rating:
Summary: A Sterling Start to a New Adventure Series!
Review: I listened to the unabridged version of this story and found myself waiting for the next surprise. I was very impressed by the storyline and the variety of "characters" in the Corporation. Also, things didn't always 'go according to plans' as they do in some books. I have read or listened to all of Clive Cuussler's fiction and found this book to rank right near the top, ahead of most Kurt Austin adventures and even a couple of Dirk Pitt stories. I found the main characters to be very developed and skilled with many different abilities. Mercenaries with a conscience, Robin Hood on the high seas, Pirates for Profit and Humanity. There were points in the book where it looked like their plans were headed South, only to see that they had covered all the contingencies. I found this book to be a much better effort in the adventure genre than most recent entries, including Tom Clancy's latest terrorist infested effort. I await very hopefully the next effort in this series. I would strongly recommend this book to all avid readers of Cussler, Higgins, and Clancy.
Rating:
Summary: Like a bad Mission Impossible
Review: Clive Cussler is generally a fun read, even if the author has marginal writing skills. This is clearly NOT written by Clive Cussler, and it shows in being the thinnest plot - like a bad Mission Impossible episode. How do you write characters where "good guys" have sex with a "villain" to earn their high-dollar pay checks? The gizmos, "in the nick of time" rescues, and the rest are just ludicrous. With one "bad guy" who was a cardboard charicature of Larry Ellison, all that this needed was the Chinese "bad guys" being outfitted in MI-like Nazi surplus uniforms and a self-destructing audio tape. If you ever hear Tom Cruise signed up for the movie rights to this, you know his career is over. Clive's sure is...
Rating:
Summary: Golden Buda a disappointment
Review: Clive Cussler is one of my favorite authors. I read anything he writes and anything he endorses. Golden Buda is my first Cussler disappointment. As is typical of Cussler's style, the story is fast paced and richly detailed. The story however is far too predictable and lacks the excitement and raw emotion I have become accustomed to. Portions of the book obviously had Cussler's polished touch, but other sections were substandard. Had I bothered to thumb through the pages before I bought it, the book would have remained in the store. The phrase "he said" fails to set the tone of a conversation. Its frequent use in Golden Buda is possibly the second biggest reason for my dissappointment.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting new venture by Cussler
Review: I am a HUGE Clive Cussler fan and read every work of fiction he writes. So it was with great trepidation that I read "Golden Buddha," with its intro explaining that this book is not a NUMA files book or a Dirk Pitt adventure but something entirely different. And indeed it is different. I don't know why so many other reviewers gave this book such a low rating, but I found it very entertaining. It certainly isn't a NUMA adventure and is not in the style of Cussler's previous works, which tie a moment in history to present-day adventures. In fact, this book is more along the vein of "Mission Impossible," but so what? I like "Mission Impossible," and so I liked "Golden Buddha." Certainly if you're going to read this book and you're a Cussler fan, don't expect it to read like his Dirk Pitt or Kurt Austin series. There's still a lot of detail about ships (as is to be expected, with Cussler's expertise in this area), but the adventures are different and with different purpose. While it's true that the story seems to hang more on the surface than to delve deeply, this does not make it a bad book. Just different. I am a Cussler fan who likes this effort and am looking forward to future Oregon Files books.
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