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FLOOD TIDE

FLOOD TIDE

List Price: $26.00
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Enjoyable read
Review: A good adventure and an enjoyable read. I am looking forward to reading the next Dirk Pitt adventure.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: wonderful! not as good as atlantis found
Review: A ship carrying priceless Chinese art treasures sinks in a storm in 1948. Decades later, locating this lost ship becomes one of the goals of a super-rich, greedy Chinaman. In walks the infallible super wonder, Dirk Pitt. He just happens upon one of the many dastardly deeds that super greedy evil Chinaman is doing in efforts to amass his immeasurable fortune: the smuggling and enslavement of Chinese immigrants to America. Pitt saves the day by fouling and exposing his smuggling operation and beating the rich, evil scumbag to the location of the lost ship.

Dear reader will recognize a predictably formulaic Cussler story, but nonetheless enjoy it, as he has all his other creations. They are a consistent source of non-stop action and adventure! There is never a straight line of chaos in a Cussler story. There always seems to be a multitude of misdeeds going on all at once. Flood Tide remains consistent, since Dirk Pitt manages to play a hand in the corruption of all these dirty deeds and save the day. It is quite an enjoyable story.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Our Hero saves the day!
Review: Blowing up the Mississippi River, finding sunken cruise ships, smuggling Chinese immigrants, and more treasure lost at sea, or IS it lost at sea? Just some of the many twists and turns in this dramatic plot of Chinese domination over the US. Where does Clive come up with this stuff!?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A book of adventure
Review: Flood Tide John Henry Beddingfield Clive Cussler

Unknown Waters. 1948. An old cruise liner the Princess Dou Wan is on its final voyage. It is caught in a violent storm the hull is ripped apart, and the ship sinks with its mysterious cargo on board.

Dirk Pitt is relaxing on a lake when he discovers an illgeal immigration project and rescues beatiful INS agent Julia Lee. Dirk Pitt and Julia Lee are on a race up the Mississippi River to stop the sinister villain Qin Shang, so he won't change the face of America. They are also racing to find the cargo of a cruise liner that sunk over fifty years ago. I give this book a four star rating becauseit is a typical Cussler book. Good guy wins, good guy gets the girl, and beats the bad guy. I liked this because of the non-stop suspense and the plot that thickens on every page you turn. If you have any comments on my book please E-mail me a henjohn@dtccom.net

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Cussler's disturbing xenophobia continues
Review: I agree with reviewer David Lim's comments that Flood Tide continues a disturbing trend in Cussler's later works of xenophobic and derogatory attitudes toward Asians. All the predictable negative stereotypes are here: ruthless human smugglers, sadistic triad gangsters, even a "dragon lady" femme fatale. To Cussler's credit, he's toned the Asia bashing down from his previous book, Dragon. In Flood Tide, the villains are evil individuals who happen to be Chinese and it's clearly implied that most Chinese people are good. In Dragon, every Japanese is portrayed as a nameless, faceless cog in a giant evil machine out to enslave the world. The Asian girl love interest in Flood Tide is, at least, a strong-willed character capable of holding her own. In Dragon she's a geisha girl/sex slave. Still, the xenophobic overtones in Flood Tide leave a bad taste in the reader's mouth and get in the way of what is otherwise a pretty good story. All the elements you expect from a Cussler/Pitt novel are here: an elusive shipwreck, hidden treasure, a 50 year old mystery, and so on. If you can look past the negative Asian sterotypes, Flood Tide is an enjoyable read. If not, go for one of Cussler's earlier novels like Raise the Titanic or Night Probe.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not CUSSLER's best
Review: I have been a CUSSLER fan for years and I will continue to read his novels, however, this is not one of Clive's strongest novels. The flow is lacking. The classic Cussler tie from history to current era does not flow well. The treasure recovery is a side bar to maintain his traditional pattern but really is secondary to the story. Even with the red herrings the plot is predictable. I think the hand was tipped early when he spoke of the Mississippi in the early chapters. After the that we didn't guess what would happen but read to find out how. I also was surprised to see Clive refer to the world famous RCMP as the "Canadian Royal Mounted Police". I would still recommend this and will continue to read his novels. Not every book will be a five.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Surprised by the xenophobic undertones
Review: I'm an Australian of Asian descent, and I've been a huge Clive Cussler (and Tom Clancy) fan since I was about 12 years old. It was Clive Cussler that introduced me to the concept of "sex scenes" within books, and because I had a fascination of the ocean, NUMA as a concept always fascinated me.

Up til' now, I'd always assumed that Dirk Pitt as a character was fighting for the freedom of everyone around the world, regardless of their race. This isn't the first time Clive Cussler has used Asian villains in his novels (Deep Six), but it's the first time he's ever expressed any antipathy or animosity towards Asians in general.

Both Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler formed an integral part of my childhood reading. Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Raise the Titanic, Deep Six - these were all books I loved reading. But now that I'm aware of their antipathy towards Asians, I feel like I've been unceremoniously excluded from an important club. I want to love Cussler's novels, but I just can't if he's not going to extend the same respect towards me as a reader.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dirk Pitt Ad Nauseum
Review: Maybe I'm getting jaded. I used to like these novels back some time ago, with the silly preposterous chases and the historical settings and artifacts. You get everything from a battleship turned into a monument turning its guns on the capital to the ghost of a WW1 flying ace strafing a U.S. Air Force base and getting revenge. I mean everything. The main character is a cross between Jacques Cousteau and Indiana Jones, except he has more sex appeal than James Bond. Everything's always very lurid, with the hero (Dirk Pitt) getting horribly upset and desiring revenge at the expense of the villain.

The plot doesn't make much sense, or really matter that much. In this instance, Pitt's vacationing at a lake in Oregon when a billionaire Chinese lunatic tries to use the lake as a dumping ground for useless illegal Chinese immigrants (I kid you not) and of course Pitt rescues them. It turns out that the government wants Pitt and his team to explore the billionaire's operations (by one of Cussler's patented preposterous coincidences) and so off we go.

There are many adventurous things in this book, chases involving boats, cars, submarines, ultralight gliders, and so forth. Gunfire and sex abound (though the sex is tastefully done, I will say that) and the humor is kind of lame.

If you're into this sort of thing I suppose this was fun. Somehow, I think I've reached my threshhold of disbelief.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The book was great, it wouldn't let you put it down.
Review: The book Flood Tide, by Clive Cussler was a non- stop action mystery, with a never ending suspense. I could't put it down. The book was about a Chinese billionaire- Qin Shang- who was smuggling illegal immigrants into the country. He was doing well until the hero, Dirk Pitt, stepped into his operation. The book goes on like this, having Pitt and his partner Al Giordino incountering dilemmas, which Pitt and his partner, have to overcome. Of course, Pitt meets a girl during one of his adventures- Julia Lee who is part of the INS ( Immigration and Naturalization Service)- and almost instantly, they fall in love. I would hardly call this book trite, because it has new aspects to it. After Pitt stops Qin Shangs operation, he still has to look for the long lost liner, the Princess Dou Wan. He has to uncover the ship that was sunken in 1948, and retrieve the Peking Man. The Peking Man lived about 700,000, to 1,000,000 years ago, and is consitered priceless. I will not tell you the outcome, so you can find out for yourself. In the end Pitt and Julia live happily ever after, and plan a vacation to Mazatlan, Mexico. I would certinly recommend this book to anyone who likes action, or who can read. The only age limit I would say would be that you have to at least be 12 or 13 to read it. This is because it's long, and has a little profanity and graphic violence. Other than that, it would probably be a great book to anyone that reads it, and understands it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Clive Cussler's Flood Tide
Review: This is another of Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels. While not fine reading, it is extremely entertaining. All the Dirk Pitt novels follow the same basic storyline, but that doesn't mean you know how Dirk will solve the mystery or defeat the bad guy (which he always does)!

This story starts out (after the chapter describing a scene from the past that figures into the culmination of the book) with Pitt vacationing on a small lake in Washington State (I especially like that since I am a native Washingtonian). Immediately he is pulled into trying to discover the secret behind a Chinese shipping mogul's secret resort. After finding the lakebed is covered with dead bodies, Pitt predictably tries to find the answer to the mystery. This only pulls him in deeper and he ends up rescuing the heroin of the story, an INS agent posing as an illegal Chinese immigrant who is destined for the bottom on the lake.

Through many twists and turns (literally) and close calls, Dirk and Julia (the INS agent) end up breaking the smuggling ring, solving the mystery of lost treasure, and destroying the "bad guy." What more could you ask for?

For light reading that gets you away from reality and even gives you a laugh sometimes it's a great book. If you're looking for serious reading I wouldn't recommend it.


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