Rating: 
Summary: If you don't like this book...
Review: then you're just plain crazy...or snobbish? Look, if you're looking for well written deep character driven plots that reveal something about the human condition, you're in the wrong place. But if you're looking for an entertaining, fun, exciting "page turner," this is your book. Cussler has his faults (I, too, had to physically resist rolling my eyes when he turns out to be the minor character "Dad"), but he's certainly far better than his peers of the same genre like the once decent but now insufferable Tom Clancy, Michael "Master of Banality" Crichton or the absolutely horrid Grisham.
Rating:
Summary: 4 1/2 stars: A true guilty pleasure...
Review: Oh dear oh dear. What do you say about an author whose plots would make a James Bond flick look plausible, whose villians and heroes are straight out of Saturday morning cartoons, whose writing skills are at seventh grade level, whose main character is named Dirk Pitt, and who insists on giving himself a "cameo" in every book? If somebody had told me this, my immediate response would have been to never go near the books. But, thankfully, I picked up this book without any advanced warning, and, despite myself, was hooked. The thing is, if plot (and fun) is the most important thing to you in a book, then read these. If you are such a literary snob that you refuse to have a little bit of escapist fun now and then, then stay away from these. Hey, more for the rest of us.Atlantis Found is my favorite of his Dirk Pitt novels. The plot reaches new levels of implausibility (evil cloned neo-Nazis attempting to cause global armageddon with ancient inscriptions found in Atlantis) and, oddly enough, the amount of fun one has as they read this seems to increase as well. You're not meant to walk away from this with any sort of insight into the human condition (except, perhaps, that evil cloned neo-Nazis who are trying to destroy the world are, well, evil). You're supposed to walk away happy and invigorated, and maybe go out and rent yourself "Moonraker" to bring yourself back to reality.
Rating: 
Summary: One of my Favorite Cussler Novel
Review: Atlantis Found is definatley one of my favorite Dirk Pitt Novels. I couldn't put it down after the first few chapters. Cussler is great at writing suspenseful and intriging novels. I have read all of his books and there is a new plot in each of them and all of the plots are very ingenius.
Rating: 
Summary: Ludicrous and Insulting
Review: I had never read any of Clive Cussler's books before this one, and now I will be sure it is the last. It is appalling to me that such a poor writer can make an apparently good living turning out such asinine, amateur garbage. I will brush aside the completely ridiculous plot points, since they are actually the least of Clive's problems. I wonder if the man even goes back and rereads what he has just written at all, since he contradicts himself in the most careless, I-don't-give-a-crap manner I have yet seen from an author, apparently forgetting what he himself has just written! Example: Dirk Pitt is cut by shards of glass and shrapnel on the face, which Cussler makes clear "would not require stitches". Only pages after this, Pitt's wounds are addressed again, but this time Cussler tells us that the gashes "would require stitches". I am not kidding. Is this lazy writing at its worst, or has Cussler some sort of short-term memory problem? He certainly does not respect his reader. Dirk Pitt himself is annoying- a cartoonish, corny, testosterone-laden character that is impossible for anyone on this earth to identify with, since he is in all respects, perfect. He is stubborn, snobbish, and of course never makes a mistake or shows an emotion. The metaphors in this book are particularly ghastly- "trapped like ducks in a closet." Huh? Once again, I imagine Cussler hunched over his keyboard, typing furiously, not pausing to think of a metaphor that actually makes SENSE, because he is in such a hurry to move on the the next explosion scene. I have a feeling Cussler desperately wants for his books to become action movies, since every time things get dull (frequently), something just blows up. Bad dialogue is another trademark of Cussler's, especially dialogue that sounds like it came from either Scooby Doo or Dr. Evil, such as the time worn- "This goes far deeper than any of us imagined..." Yawn. Putting himself as a character in this mess of a story was the topper for me. I can't recall any other time in my life that I physically rolled my eyes as I read a book, but I did at that moment. I cannot imagine ever reading anything by Clive Cussler again...just the name Dirk Pitt gives me hives.
Rating:
Summary: Atlantis Found
Review: Have read some of the negative reviews. I have read just about all the Cussler Dirk Pitt books. I find them fasinating and fun. I want to know when the next Dirk Pitt book is going to be out. Some of the reviews actually made me laugh. I read for entertainment. I like Pitt's style, his smoothness, and humor. Sure he is bigger than life, I live life every day and when I read a novel like this it lifts me out of every day, day after day. I don't think these books are written to teach us something. They are full of magic, adventure and romance. I don't want to read a story where the bad guy wins. Clive Cussler is the only author I collect in hard cover. I AM READY AND WAITING FOR THE NEXT DIRK PITT BOOK.
Rating:
Summary: An utter waste of time. It doesn't deserve one star.
Review: Honestly, it didn't start out bad, (If you don't mind egotistical, macho, womanizing, alpha-male main characters). That is expected in most of Mr. Cussler's work. However, I lost all interest in the book when my eyes fell upon the words "Hitler's sperm". I picked up this book because I enjoy adventure books. It's a nice way to escape the dullness of everyday life. A book about "discovering Atlantis" seemed particularly captivating. We had gotten as far as escaping flooding mineshafts, near death shoot outs, and chases, shooting down choppers, and exploring ancient ships encased in ice (which I enjoyed, actually). I even stuck with the plot when Nazis were introduced into the story. However...in this particular novel, Pitt's enemy is a family of rich, cunning criminals.....who are essentially genetically engineered from Adolf Hitler's sperm that was collected, frozen and transported via U-boat to an ancient Amenes cavern in the middle of Antarctica, before the fall of the Nazi party. Their main goal was to disrupt the Earth's rotation causing massive floods and devastating ecological changes by drilling through, and detaching the Ross Ice Shelf, as to throw off the Earth's sensitive rotation based on the poles. I mean, come on. A super rich, evil powerful family of genetically engineered Hitlers planning to destroy the earth, and survive "Noah" style by building gargantuan ships that would supposedly survive the cataclysm. By the time it hits you what a sodding piece of crap this book is, you're already more than half way through it, and it's too late. Just too late. I did finish the book. I forced myself to. I cannot stand to not finish a book, once I've read more than 10 chapters. I hoped that something would happen near the ending that would resurrect my faith in Mr. Cussler's writing...however, I was sadly let down. If you want to read this book, I would recommend a library, because if you purchase it...you're going to want a refund.
Rating:
Summary: Cussler Found
Review: ...Then you'll find Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt adventures a bit silly, too. I actually had to begin reading a second book in the series to make sure he really intended to write the way he does. Atlantis Found is a little Indiana Jones, a little James Bond (Roger Moore days) and a bit of a spoof on both of them. Let's see, greedy rich people don't care if what they do to further their own dreams causes chaos on a global level, so government employed adventurer Dirk Pitt shows up in the nick of time to save the day with wit and uncanny reflexes and endless knowledge of how to survive almost anything. How many other titles are this same story line? Who cares? Despite putting himself in each story like Hitchcock popping up in his own films, I'm starting to find Cussler almost annoyingly likeable and his fast-reading tales wryly enjoyable. You may roll your eyes and say, "Nuh-uh!" a lot, but once you've read Clive's opaline green-eyed alter ego and his exploits, I'd be surprised if you didn't find yourself hooked, too. Atlantis Found is well crafted, intriguing, and just plain fun.
...
Rating:
Summary: Good fantasy fiction of a particularly masculine variety
Review: The geological descriptions, mirroring those of the catastrophic meteor impact at Chicxulub off the North coast of Yucatan implicated in the extinction of the dinosaurs, caught my attention with the first page of Atlantis Found and kept me reading to the end. Although I really don't care for the Dirk Pitt persona-he seems too much of a comic book character-I did enjoy the pace and shear adventure of the tale. It is certainly very imaginative. Like the Bond series, every woman is a beauty of one type or another, every bad guy (or gal) is totally reprehensible, their demise justly deserved, and every "good guy" from 8 to 80 exhibits intelligence, fortitude, cavalier indifference in the face of physical danger, and the comic repertoire of a Bill Cosby. Each one is a hero at whichever of the different stages of the male life cycle he may be. If middle aged fathers have fantasies, they are undoubtedly of exploits similar to the Dirk Pitt series: their hair "maturely" greying at the temples, their muscles aching but undaunted by their travails, and just their very life experience able to outwit even the most brilliant of the bad guys. (Too bad, though, that we don't give the guys in our lives the credit they are very much due for reading us to sleep as children, helping us with math problems as adolescents, and forgiving us our arrogance as young adults, and for the very much braver task of being there day after day when they might possibly have realized more of their own dreams instead!) I was glad for once to find the oft repeated Atlantis story told in a more light hearted vein. I've studied ancient history, including early Greek history, and have come across the persistent modern belief in Atlantis often enough to cringe when I meet it again. The author's treatment certainly made it much more fun to contemplate. Like some of those mainstream geologists mentioned by Cussler in the book, whose stodgy concepts of earth science forbade them to believe in a continent that sank beneath the sea, I too am skeptical. But then I've studied geology extensively, too. Continents are really too light to sink. They float. Not on water, but on the much denser but more plastic magma that lies beneath them. Cussler's concept of a transgressing sea is almost the only way that Atlantis might be considered remotely possible. (Though I too believe that the Greek island of Santorini, ancient Thera, is a more likely candidate.) Although a little pedantic, the information that the scientists in the book provide Pitt about history, geology, astronomy, and anthropology is, for the most part, quite accurate. The reader gets to learn a little bit about these subjects along with the adventure (and just might develop a new interest, following up on one of them). Cussler's own background in underwater archaeology (he participated in the search for the CSS Hunley, the world's first successful submarine lost during the Civil War) and in deep sea diving make the oceanographic descriptions and the underwater exploits of his characters seem more real. Certainly his widely traveled life has given him a talent for describing the details of the world's different cities, landscapes and cultures. The pacing of the story is superb. One hardly has a chance to get in sync with any one adventure before the heros are off chasing the bad guys again in some other part of the world. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions and adventures in the gold mines of Colorado, and the description of the Opera House in Buenos Aires. Enjoyable too is the fact that the book does not take itself seriously enough to try to place itself in any "real" time. The President is a fictional character. Technology that for us is just beyond the horizon and therefore familiar only as buzz words (nanotechnology) is in the present tense for Pitt and his peers. That leaves the door wide open for the author to let ancient Atlantis and its artifacts survive the end of the story. Unlike similar stories where all traces of the discovery must be "lost" to keep the story "true" to our times, Cussler lets the reader glory in the relicts of the ancient city preserved beneath the ice. We get to imagine the treasures as existing for our enjoyment, not forever lost. Much more satisfying. The book presents itself as good fantasy fiction of a particularly masculine variety.
Rating: 
Summary: Not To Be Repetitive, But...
Review: This is my second Cussler novel. I don't know if I would have read a second one, but I already had this one. In fact, I have yet another waiting on my shelf -- a gift from someone. The first one didn't impress me that much and this one, ATLANTIS FOUND, is just more of the same. On the positive side, there's lots of action. The story never slows down, which is probably all most Cussler fans are looking for. Character and plausibility take a back seat to fast-paced action, and if that's all you want, then ATLANTIS FOUND is great stuff. Beyond the action, however, the characters here ARE wooden. Dirk Pitt, the hero, is always flawless and never experiences a moment of doubt or uncertainty. Someone has described him as a combination of James Bond and Indiana Jones, and he's every bit of that and more. He's the ultimate hero. The nasties are of the cookie-cutter variety. Further, the plot verges on the ridiculous. This is typical of the genre and many are okay with it, but it can get difficult to swallow, even for a reader like me, who is comfortable with fantasy and science fiction. It's my opinion that if a writer sets a story in the real world, then there are limits to how far the bounds of reality can comfortably be stretched. Cussler skirts my limit very closely. The worst thing about this, and the other Cussler novel I've read, is that the writing simply isn't very good. Other reviewers have made the same point. Cussler's metaphors often clanged in my mind. For example, he writes "The waning stars in the early-morning sky blazed like a theater marquee when seen from 9,000 feet above sea level." Huh? Not only does it read clumsily, but the idea of comparing stars to a theater marquee must have Shakespeare turning over in his grave. Also, words are often simply misused. Cussler writes "The day was typical for the nation's capital, the climate hot and sultry." The "day" may have been "hot and sultry", but the term "weather" would be more appropriate in this statement than "climate". If lightweight, fast-paced action is all you want, Cussler's books will work fine for you, and ATLANTIS FOUND is no exception to that. This book will NOT put you to sleep. But, if you seek a small degree of plausibility, character development, or simply competent writing, my advice is to look elsewhere. I zipped through this book quickly and was entertained, but was mildly disappointed by the time it was over. Things got further and further over the top as I got nearer to the end. Overall, ATLANTIS FOUND was entertaining enough to rate four stars, but flawed enough to hold back to three.
Rating: 
Summary: Do you love Clive Cussler, or dou you hate him?
Review: There are two kinds of people: the ones who love Clive Cussler and his books and the ones who despise him and his books. After reading 'The mediterranean caper', 'Inca gold' and 'Raise the Titanic', I was struggling not to be part of the second group. After reading 'Atlantis found', I'm more convinced to be part of the second. These four books made me understand the following: A) Clive Cussler's characters have enormous potential to be unforgettable. B) His plots, though mainly implausible, can be cool. C) Cussler doesn't know how to write. D) Cussler is becoming megalomaniac, like, say, Tom Clancy. 'The mediterranean caper' is one of Cussler's first books. In it, the set is confined, the plot is OK, Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino are amusing and even interesting characters, sort of (cliché coming) a blend of James Bond with Indiana Jones. That's OK. People like their heros to be undestructible, women falling all over them, etc. I supposed Cussler, along the years, would improve his writing style, develop more his characters and plots. 'Inca gold' was clearly an improvement compared to 'The mediterranean caper' and 'Raise the Titanic'. But 'Atlantis found' is something else. Dirk Pitt and Giordino are still immortal, superior human beings. All other characters, no exception, in 'Atlantis found', are sadly poor. The plot and its premises are laughable. Neo-nazis responsible for a great world-wide catastrophe in order to rule the world is nothing new. The beginning of the book is good and gets the reader hooked, but after a hundred pages everything falls apart. In fact, some passages of the book were interesting, but this only made the worst parts of the book more visible. In the end, I just wanted the book to finish fast. Still, I would give 'Atlantis found' three stars, but two things made it drop to two:
1) Cussler's mania in giving every object its complete specifications, characteristics, etc. Example:
'This is the new german Glock Super .358 Caliber Two Chambers Silver Reloadable Master I just got.'
Or 'I'd like a bottle of Chateau Perriere Sauvignon Dandini Zidane Alain Prost Cabernet 76 please. If you have one of them, of course'.
2) Cussler in fact is a character in his own book! This is ridiculous! To sum it up, in my opinion, Dirk Pitt is a great character in the hands of a bad writer. Grade 4.5/10
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