Thursday, March 11, 2010

Inca Gold

A classic treasure hunt involving an ancient hoard of gold, the secrets of a lost civilization, and an international ring of smugglers, all brought together in a plot that only Clive Cussler could devise. Inca Gold begins in 1532, when a fleet of ships sails in secret to an island in the middle of an inland sea. There they hide a magnificent treasure more vast than that of any pharaoh. Then they disappear, leaving only a great stone demon to guard their hoard. In 1578 the legendary Sir Francis Drake captures a Spanish galleon filled with Inca gold and silver and the key to the lost treasure, which included a gigantic chain of gold that belonged to the last Inca king, a masterpiece of ancient technology so huge that it requires two hundred men to lift it. As the galleon is sailed by Drake's crew back to England, an underwater earthquake causes a massive tidal wave that sweeps it into the jungle. Only one man survives to tell the tale... In 1998 a group of archaeologists is nearly drowned while diving into the depths of a sacrificial pool high in the Andes of Peru. They are saved by the timely arrival of Dirk Pitt, who is in the area on a marine expedition. Pitt soon finds out that his life has been placed in jeopardy as well by smugglers intent on uncovering the lost ancient Incan treasure. Soon, he, his faithful companions, and Dr. Shannon Kelsey, a beautiful young archaeologist, are plunged into a vicious, no-hold-barred struggle to survive. From then on it becomes a battle of wits in a race against time and danger to find the golden chain, as Pitt finds himself caught up in a struggle with a sinister international family syndicate that deal in stolen works of art, the smuggling of ancient artifacts, and art forgery worth many millions of dollars. The clash between the art thieves, the FBI and the Customs Service, a tribe of local Indians, and Pitt, along with his friends from NUMA, two of whom are captured and threatened with execution, rushes toward a wild climax in a subterranean world of darkness and death - for the real key to the mystery, as it turns out, is a previously unknown, unexplored underground river that runs through the ancient treasure chamber. Inca Gold is Clive Cussler - and Dirk Pitt - at their very best."

Review:This Dirk Pitt adventure gives readers that Dirk Pitt is an adventurer  on all occasions. In this treasure hunt, Dirk Pitt was able to solve the puzzle and find where the Incan treasure is. The adventure has any crisis that threathens the country or the world but it was worth reading on on first time basis.

Sahara

1996, Egypt. Searching for a treasure on the Nile, DIRK PITT thwarts the attempted assassination of a beautiful U.N. scientist investigating a disease that is driving thousands of North Africans into madness, cannibalism, and death. The suspected cause of the raging epidemic is vast, unprecedented pollution that threatens to extinguish all life in the world's seas. Racing to save the world from environmental catastrophe, Pitt and his team, equipped with an extraordinary, state-of-the-art yacht, run a gauntlet between a billionaire industrialist and a bloodthirsty West African tyrant. In the scorching desert, Pitt finds a gold mine manned by slaves and uncovers the truth behind two enduring mysteries -- the fate of a Civil War ironclad and its secret connection with Lincoln's assassination, and the last flight of a long-lost female pilot....Now, amidst the blazing, shifting sands of the Sahara, DIRK PITT will make a desperate stand -- in a battle the world cannot afford to lose!

Reiew:This is the second book of Cussler that became a movie.Unlike Raise the Titanic,it was more action packed. Even the movie didn't have that climactic feeling of the story. Though fiction, Cussler made a fictional conspiracy of the controversial assassination of Lincoln. 

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Dragon

August 1945: A lone B-29 takes off from Alaska for the long flight to Japan, bearing the third atomic bomb as back-up to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. Shot down just short of its target, the plane crashes into the sea, taking its secret to the bottom. In the aftermath of the war, its very existence is denied, then forgotten. October 1993: A new Japanese empire has emerged, one relying upon financial power rather than military prowess. An uneasy America, increasingly under siege from the economic might of its "ally," remains unaware of the lengths to which some Japanese may be willing to go to ensure Japan's dominance. Unaware, that is, until a huge Japanese auto carrier carrying thousands of "Murmoto" cars made by the mysterious Hideki Suma is destroyed - by a nuclear explosion... In Dragon, his most thrilling and entertaining novel to date, Clive Cussler deftly mixes recent history with some of our deepest fears. He has created a masterpiece of suspense, in which it is once again up to the inimitable Dirk Pitt to defuse a terrifying threat to world peace. From the icy Alaska coast to a tropical paradise in the Pacific, Dragon describes an astonishing and brutal conspiracy, aimed at forcing the West into final acceptance of Japan's world leadership. With infinite patience and ruthlessness, the conspirators have laid their plans so well that America lies helpless before the complex Japanese plot... Dirk Pitt, Cussler's brilliantly conceived hero - described by The New York Times Book Review as an "endearing blend of Boy Scout, Doc Savage, and James Bond" - is the one man who can foil the conspirators and stop the Japanese plan before Armageddon is unleashed. Whether exploring the ocean floor five kilometers below the surface, or fighting an evil samurai-inspired Japanese thug, saber against traditional katana to the death, Pitt is always one step ahead of his adversaries. From the secret underground vault where he uncovers Nazi treasurers protected for decades by instantly fatal nerve gas, to a hardware store in a suburban Maryland town where he fends off an attack by ninja-suited warriors, Pitt is a virtual one-man army of skill and daring, reacting to every crisis with his usual charm, good humor, and brilliant inventiveness, as successful with the ladies as he is in his feats of derring-do. But can any one man defeat the cunning and might of the new Japan when it mobilizes its vast technological resources and its ancient warrior traditions? For Dirk Pitt, in his biggest adventure yet, the answer could mean death. For the United States - defeat and enslavement."

My review:This was one of the most action packed stories of Clive Cussler. The intensity of the story was so high. It can also has a SciFi element because of the idea that the nuclear bomb can be set-off in automobiles across USA by a remote location and the robot guards of Hideki Suma.If you want to start reading Cussler, this is one of the best books to begin with.