Clive Cussler Pulp

[Smokeyrone]

As you may or may not know, Cussler has a new series, a new period,  and a new hero, a 1930's Detective.

"The Chase" about a 1930's serial killer and the wreck of the old '97 started the series off.

Just saw the latest novel, "The Spy", and on the cover, is the coolest pulp, German sub I've seen (neat.  Iron Cross (or is it the Maltese Cross? on the sides, very cool, as it surfaces against the Golden gate bridge).  I will for sure get it when it goes paperback.

Clive writes some fun stories.  Most are very good for a pulp game, especially if you love the Sea, and exoticv jungle, forzen, desert locales.

I've got every book he's written, so if anyone needs inspiration or info, let me know



LINK to photo:


http://www.amazon.com/Spy-Isaac-Bell-Clive-Cussler/dp/0399156437

[bc99]

Interesting, thanks. I've read many of Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels. They are okay.

This looks good as well.

[Smokeyrone]

Interesting, thanks. I've read many of Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels. They are okay.

This looks good as well.

I love that name.  Had an uncle named Dirk Flic, but he was a Good Old Boy.   

UPDATE:  I had retired for the evening with a Cussler book, but had to share:

Dirk's  unarmed, being chased by two dozen Special Ops bad guys, in Anarctica, with no cold weather clothing (he just escaped a sinking mini sub).  But, as luck would have it, he ran smack into a perfectly preserved 19th Century British Frigate, frozen in the ice!

"He noticed the Brown Bess on the  wall in the Captain's quarters , loaded, and in pristine condition"
 

 

What do you call Dirk Pitt, suffwering from hypothermia, with a Brown Bess loaded 175 years ago, and frozen in ice, against 24 heavily armed professionals? 


A fair fight!!!!

 

[Big Sexy]

I saw that on the shelves today at the grocery store and figured it for another Pitt novel.  Maybe I'll check it out.  Thanks for the tip.

[The Dozing Dragon]

I find he has got a bit 'samey' along the way. Generally a good read though! Hope these work out.

[Poiter50]

I find Clive Cussler to be a formulaic writer in a similar manner to Wilbur Smith. At lease WS departs from his formula to write such as Bird of Prey and Monsoon (one other in that series, I think) which are nicely related to Swashbuckling.Far prefer WS to CC.

[Smokeyrone]

As the "Samey" quote, and your formula notion are no doubt accurate, I don't risk spoiling the novel I finshed last night, when I tell you that Dirk managed to wipe out the entire 24 man sqaud.

Inexplicably, the commandoes choose to enter the old sailing vessel one at a time, giving Dirk the time to fire the Brown Bess, reload, and

"pop up from the Orlop Deck, fire the accurate weapon, duck from the automatic weapons fire, and repeat"

( H & K MP5s being no match for the brown Bess in close combat, especially in Anarctic conditions, evidently?  )

besides, you don't know which novel it is (if you answered "Could be any or all of them" you are correct!)


If THAT doesn't sound like your typical pulp game, your doing something wrong   


Great stuff! 

[JollyBob]

While I can enjoy the sheer batshit daftness of Cussler's plots (ACW ironclad discovered miles inland in the Shahara!), and overlook the adolescent qualities of his style (have you ever read a description where something or someone isn't the absolute tops in quality/fitness/ability/power etc etc) I simply cannot forgive him the unbearable conceit of writing himself into his books, usually as some deus ex machina character that turns up at the most desperate of moments, provides some useful information and then toddles off into the sunset with a twinkle in his bluest of blue eyes.

Fair play that he keeps getting away with it though.
 

[Smokeyrone]

LOL!   

You know what's funny?  I buy his books when they are on discount, have stacks of them.  I can't remember which ones I have read.  I read the descriptions, even read a chapter or two, and still don't know if I read them 'cause they are all the so familiar.   

But this is the Pulp Board , And Cussler fits the description in all ways, especially his new 1930's super detective stuff, eh?

And if cheesy fun doesn't belong here, your doing something wrong! 

[Tacgnol]

I seem to remember Dirk Pitt walking from Japan to Hawaii in a reinforced diving suit or something similarly bonkers in a Cussler I read as a young lad. :-D

[Smokeyrone]

I seem to remember Dirk Pitt walking from Japan to Hawaii in a reinforced diving suit or something similarly bonkers in a Cussler I read as a young lad. :-D

Yep.  he attacked  that Japanese secret island base

 (remember, he happened to find a sunken B-29 with an active atomic bomb on it, that was supposed to be the Enola Gay's backup but crashed? ),

 he nuked the island and the bad guys,  they thought he was killed i the blast, and 6 months later he walks up on the beach in hawaii and orders a Crab Louis and a tequilla from the cabana boy.


(You know, we might not even be talking about the same book.   I recall he did that twice  )

[JollyBob]

But this is the Pulp Board , And Cussler fits the description in all ways, especially his new 1930's super detective stuff, eh?

And if cheesy fun doesn't belong here, your doing something wrong! 

Oh absolutely, no argument there. I just wonder what a decent writer could make of some of his more gloriously preposterous ideas. I'd love to read a spy book with his concepts but Elmore Leonard providing the prose.

...he nuked the island and the bad guys,  they thought he was killed i the blast, and 6 months later he walks up on the beach in hawaii and orders a Crab Louis and a tequilla from the cabana boy.

I mean, that is geni-arse of the highest quality. 

[Smokeyrone]

Your an Elmore leonard fan?

Didn't know anyone else reads him.

he's great!

You know, Carl Hiaasen (I count him in the Leonard class) lives near me.  I see him on the beach a lot.  VERY funny and quirky guy (he is just like his books)

[moif]

I love Elmore!

BTW the sub in the image mentioned in the opening post, reminds me of a Holland class submarine.

[Smokeyrone]

I love Elmore!

BTW the sub in the image mentioned in the opening post, reminds me of a Holland class submarine.

yeah, it does, now that you mention it.

Cussler's Moon base and US vs Cosmonaut moon battle was a classic, for Pulp. I think.

 That book, "Cyclops",  also had a great zeppelin side story, when Pitt attacked Cuba in the dirigible, and overtrhew the Castros AND the Russian military.


Another good pulp scenario:

 rememeber the book when the long lost descendant of Czar Nicholas was trying to take over Russia, and attacked Boston Harbor in the Kirov?  And Pitt commandeered the Constitution, which  fortunately had all it's canons loaded for the upcoming 4th of July celebration, and he sailed it single handedly into battle and sank the Kirov (the world's greatest modern battlecruiser)That HAS to be gamed!   


One thing, all cheesiness aside, Cussler has done a great service by uncovering all those famous ships of history.    His two non fiction works, The Sea Hunters I and 2, are my favorites of his.