Rating: 
Summary: Welcome to the cold, mean Pitt
Review: There are several things missing from this book - Al Giordino, Rudi Gunn, a historical prologue, and a nice Dirk Pitt. Pitt stumbles all over Iceland in this ridiculous adventure, seeking some bad guys whose motives are to take over banana republics. Oh yeah - that's a compelling theme. I couldn't help but notice how much I disliked this version of Dirk Pitt. He's definitely not the heroic figure in the first half of the book that I enjoy in most of Cussler's adventures. At one point, a kindly old man helps Pitt, and I expected his name to be ... you know who ... but it wasn't. And the end is supposed to stun the reader, but it only nauseated me. This is definitely the worst of this otherwise, excellent series.
Rating: 
Summary: Uninspiring, predictable, drone drone drone...
Review: There's not much to say about this novel, other than that the author displayed a complete lack of inspiration, the main twist of the book revolving around a sex change. The plot was predictably simple, characters one-dimensional, I could go on. The more Cussler you read, the more you see that it follows a regimented formula: suave and comic hero, multiple love interests bombarded by macho displays of affection, a near death experience or two, and an unbelievable scheme to save the day... (...)
Rating: 
Summary: A book to be read when you are extremely bored!
Review: This book is one of those novels where you want to find out what happens next, but can wait. This is the first Dirk Pitt book that I have read and it is pretty good (but it is no indiana jones). BUT DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THE COVER, IT IS NOT A NONSTOP ACTION THRILLER! It is all around, a non-suspensful book, with a little bit of action. I think it is a book you should get from the library. The story plot was thin, but it did start out ok!
Rating: 
Summary: One good book
Review: This book was a really good book full of action and excitement... And it's not as long as all of the other Clive Cussler books.
Rating:
Summary: Unintentionally Funny As Hell
Review: This book was pretty darn funny. When I described what it to a friend over dinner we couldn't stop laughing. The best part is when Dirk Pitt (I love that name, it sounds like a name for a parody spy like Maxwell Smart) is lost and makes his own compass, a laugh riot! Utterly ridiculous and without any social value at all, but if you need a good laugh.....
Rating: 
Summary: Clive Cussler never ceases to amaze me!
Review: This is classic Cussler at it's best. The hero, the girl, and the bad guy......what more is there? To my fellow Cussler fans, I have read ALL of them now, and I'm looking for an author that is very similar in style and content. If you can E-mail me some names, I'll order them right a way!
Rating:
Summary: Bad first impressions
Review: This was my first Clive Cussler book, so I was not influenced by anything else he has written.
Cussler is competent with regard to descriptions and basic narrative skills. However, key elements in his storytelling and his characterizations are seriously flawed.For example, I must confess I quite easily guessed the nature of a key character in this book which was suppose to be only understood in the final pages. It may as well have been written in 72 point bold type in Chapter two or three, in fact! Such predictabilty is a huge strike against a story that depends on surprises to be succcessful. It also seems to me the main hero in a story of this genre needs to be respected and believable in order for the reader to want to sympathize with, and root for, him. See the novels of Len Deighton, John LeCarre, or even Ian Fleming (novels I emphasize, not movies). While the Dirk Pitt character has some qualities that present him as sympathetic and capable, he is much too smarmy to be likeable. Not only that, but masquerading him as a flamboyant gay in Austin Powers garb, or as the Big Bad Wolf in the novel's climactic showdown with the main baddie in Disneyland, present him more as a clown than a hero. By the way, I am not making that last bit up! We are suppose to take this seriously, Clive? Sorry, but imagining the main hero smugly traipsing about in such ridiculous trappings, or as a person that would allow himself to be so degraded, makes the reader actually enjoy it when Pitt gets the snot thoroughly beat out of him. With such irksome personality traits, this reader was hoping that Pitt's antagonists would win in the end! Further, one can perhaps cut Cussler a slight bit of slack for the time period in which he wrote this book (mid seventies). Picturing Dirk Pitt garbed in brown turtleneck sweaters and plaid pants can be easily forgiven. Nevertheless, one must wonder why his female characters are such shallow, one dimensional spy-genre stereotypes that by comparison make the females from 1960s spy farces like "In Like Flint" or the Matt Helm series appear as fully fleshed out characters. I am not a sympathizer of liberal feminists by any means, but the degree of condescension that the male characters, especially Pitt, have toward the females in this book is startling, especially coming from a successful writer. These male/female relationships are not depicted in a way that is amusing nor charming. One can't help be distracted, while attempting to be engrossed in the story, with thoughts speculating if the author is inflicted with some strange psychosis which causes him to detest women. Even Ian Fleming, who began writing his Bond books about two decades earlier, and whose main character was an obvious chauvinist, never treated women in his stories so contemptuously. I certainly hope that Mr. Cussler improved his storytelling, as well as his characterizations, as
the Dirk Pitt series progressed.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Read!
Review: This was my first Clive Cussler book. It was a page turner from start to finish! Yes, it did seem somewhat far-fetched, but Cussler puts you at the action and you seem to be there with the characters! The ending was surprising, and a great twist! At the end of this book was the first chapter of Cyclops - ever since then, I've become a Clive Cussler fan! Don't miss Cyclops and Night Probe - both excellent books!
Rating:
Summary: My favorite Pitt adventure
Review: This was the very first 'real' novel I read from cover to cover (6th grade?) back in the early 80s. It was my buddy who had this book with a cover showing a bloodied (so I thought) iceberg that caught my attention. It did not dissappoint. I wanted to be Dirk Pitt after I read it! I've enjoyed all of his novels since (I have missed a few of his latests). But this remains my all time favorite. Thanks to Jay, who had the book at the bus stop.
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