Customer Reviews

Pacific Vortex!

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I have never been a big fan of military thrillers. The only author I read regularly in this genre is Nelson DeMille and I enjoy him a lot, so I decided to give Clive Cussler a try. I am happy to say I was not disappointed! Even though "Pacific Vortex" was not the first published book in the Dirk Pitt adventures series, it was the first Cussler wrote, so logically, this is the novel I picked to start my journey. I found an interesting character that lives at the edge and is passionate about his work. Also in some aspects he is similar to James Bond, women mainly, and the mix is sufficient to keep the reader thoroughly entertained.

For six months the US government has been trying to find the Starbuck, a submarine lost in the Hawaiian (Pacific) vortex. This is an area similar to the well-known Bermuda Triangle. The submarine was lost on its maiden trial and possesses the most advanced equipment, in terms of nuclear capabilities, that the US has developed so far. The last known communication from the nuclear submarine came from captain Dupree, establishing that they were lost without possibilities of recovering themselves and giving the coordinates of their location. While in his holidays in the coast of Hawaii, Dirk finds a communications capsule from the Starbuck addressed to Admiral Hunter in Pearl Harbor. Thus, he is directly involved in the search for the submarine and starts a dangerous journey in which he will face different enemies, conspiracies and uncertainty about who to trust. He also meets a mysterious woman, Summer, who will rock his world and complicate matters further.

Cussler has created a very entertaining series, with a character that has an arrogant and pedantic side, but whom also shows his pure emotions and is true to his friends and ideals. This makes the Special Project Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency a very likable character. This is a book that a reader can breeze through in a few hours making it an enjoyable way to spend a weekend's afternoon. I will surely read the next book in this series hoping for a similar experience.

Dirk Pitt is the James Bond meets John Wayne character that every guy would love to be. Pitt's a "man's man." He smokes, but he still scuba dives with the best of them. He's no pretty boy, well-mannered and cute, but he gets plenty of women. He's no fame-seeking show off, but he always saves the day. Playboy, Maxim, and GQ only WISH they could have such a chap to plaster on their covers!

Pacific Vortex! is a quick read since its a rather short book, but that's not a bad thing. A lot of popular novels contain the author's preaching to the reader or cramming pages upon pages full of verbose meandering. Not so with Cussler. Pacific Vortex is the perfect book for anyone who wants to have fun reading. Its difficult to make a novel fun (is Dan Brown a "fun" read? is Sydney Sheldon a "fun" read? are the classics "fun" reads?), but Cussler writes really fun books. I enjoyed Pacific Vortex because it moves quick - Cussler doesn't bore me by telling me every single detail about every room characters are in, what they are wearing, what they are thinking, what they ate for breakfast etc. There's a mysterious "vortex" in the Pacific? A capsule from a missing ship has been awash? Add Dirk Pitt and the story comes to life and there's not much of a pause. The ending is a bit silly (as is the villian), but good triumphs over evil, there were sexy women (but no filthy sex-scenes) involved in the storyline, and there were guns! I'm a happy reader!

At the book's beginning, Cussler points out that this was actually the first Pitt adventure, but that he was afraid of having it published. I see no reason why he should have been. Vortex is one of his finest works and is perfect for someone just getting interested in the Dirk Pitt (registered trademark) series. This book is far shorter than most of Cussler's other fare, which actaully makes it that much more enjoyabe. Cussler has a tendency to pile on the descriptions and histories of whatever the subject may be. Further, he tends also to, right as the action is getting good and tense, detour his readers onto another plot line (equally as intriging) for the next 100-200 pages before turning back to the original story line for the book's remainder. In Vortex, there is no over- describing and the sub plots (if any) take up little time, leaving the majority of the 270 pages for non stop action sequences. Granted, once a reader becomes a fan of a certain series or character, demands of the audience almost require the author to make deep indulgences in the characters and story. For Vortex, Cussler does not do this, making the action quick and believable, without getting the reader too bogged down in sometimes unnecessary details. For anyone interested in Cussler who has never read his works before, I suggest starting here, and moving on to the later, grander escapades of Dirk Pitt (registered trademark) if this one tickles your fancy.

"Pacific Vortex", for those of you who don't know, was actually the first book written by Cussler for the Dirk Pitt series. He was afraid to publish it, but friends and fans persuaded him to eventually share it with the rest of the world. I'm glad he did. Even though some of the dialogue was a little cheezy at times, the storyline was very intriguing. To hear Pitt tell the "Bond girl" in this book that he loves her was surprising. After reading six of Cussler's books, I was under the assumption that Pitt used women mainly for sex. It was interesting to finally see Pitt actually care for a woman and express his feelings. Normally, he's a cool cat who rarely shares his deep thoughts with anyone. It was refreshing to see this sensitive side of him, even if it was for a brief time. Overall, the book was entertaining. The whole idea of there being habitable submarine caves is an interesting premise. I wish the book was longer. "Pacific Vortex" still does not top "Cyclops" as Cussler's best novel because of the former's weak dialogue. However, it was still a good read and I know I'll read it again. I'm glad Cussler finally published this book. Clive, if you have any more unpublished stories, please reconsider. They are probably just as enjoyable as "Pacific Vortex".

This is definitely light reading. I think many will enjoy this adventure of Dirk Pitt if you do not analyze it too closely. It tends to have a somewhat perposterous plot in the vein of James Bond novels. But if the reader knows that going into it then this book can be quite enjoyable - Cussler does an excellant job of telling a story.

Dirk Pitt is truly a modern day swashbuckler who can do it all from the physical gun and knife play to the deductive powers matching Sherlock Holmes. He comes complete with a trusty sidekick.

I found it a good book to read when I wanted to take a break from Novels with intricate plots. You can just plow full steam ahead on this novel.

I'm amazed at the glowing reviews here on this book. Cussler points out in his Foreward that this is the first Pitt novel, and apologizes for its quality. It lacks the polish and sophistication of his later entries, and contains some ridiculous situations and poor writing.

For instance, Pitt is interrogating a beautiful woman who tried to kill him, and they're in his 10th floor hotel room. She goes to the bathroom, the water is heard running, and after a while Pitt becomes suspicious. He breaks in, only to find she's tied together the towels and escaped out the window. Most hotel bathrooms don't have a window big enough to climb through, if they have a window at all. And, if you take all the towels and lay them end-to-end, they might stretch for 20 feet tops. Knot them together, and you won't make it to the 9th floor, much less the ground.

Or, at one point he's driving a Shelby AC Cobra, being chased through the mountainous Hawaiian roads by an assassin in an old Dodge truck. The truck not only keeps pace, at one point it pulls even with the Cobra! Switch the vehicles, and it becomes plausible, but as is, it's ludicrous.

The dialogue is fair in spots, but tends towards clunky. Notably, the military people tend to talk like they're in a bad TV war movie, the kind where everybody's rank is on sideways and they wear their hats backwards.

On the plus side, things perk up when Pitt's faithful sidekick, Al Giordino, makes his belated appearance towards the end of the book. The writing firms up and becomes much more entertaining. Also, I didn't notice the word "miraculously" used once. You can tell how far you've gotten in the Pitt series by how many times "miraculously" appears, with the later installments sprouting several miracles.

I greatly enjoy Cussler's books, but if you haven't read any of the Dirk Pitt series, don't start with this one. Try "Raise the Titanic", or "Vixen 03" instead. Save this until you're a true Pitt fan, and then enjoy this diamond in the rough.

I like to read series in chronological order, so I went to this Dirk Pitt adventure first. The action was non-stop, even if the mystery was something less than mysterious. The settings were somewhat exciting, in a Discovery Channel sort of way. All in all, it was simply OK. A good quick read, though some discrepancies near the end stopped me from giving it my seal of approval.

I can understand when the previous reviewer talks about missing pieces and that this book, from what I understand, may have been hastily released to cash in on the success of Dirk's other books (which took place after this one chronologically).

In one scene, Dirk comes upon a girl and her skin is creamy white and then, a few pages later, she has long tan legs...In a technical discrepancy, Dirk's depth meter reads 80 feet when he reaches an underwater cavern. Later on, when he and his compadre are leaving (sans diving gear), the depth is only 50 feet. Both these items occurred within the last 20 or 30 pages and left a bad taste in my mouth.

It bothered me that simply reading the book would have prompted any alert reader (I would hope that editors are alert readers) to the errors. I can't see that fixing these items would have stalled their big cash-in!

I've read great things about Mr. Cussler's other books, though, and will be willing to give at least one more try to the Dirk Pitt series as there were some promising things about this book. The action was well written and I hope that longer, more complicated books that followed this one will be able to draw me in more.

I mainly hope that his editor was awake on those later books.

Dirk Pitt. Seriously. If this book hadn't been written 30 years ago -- and ten years before it was finally published -- I would swear that Clive Cussler's name of his lead character Dirk Pitt was an obvious wink to Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg in "Boogie Nights") and Brad Pitt (in anything). I can't think of another "Dirk" or "Pitt" that comes anywhere close. He's suave, he's cool, he's -- updated for the 80s -- wearing "brief white bathing trunks" when first we meet him. And he's sunbathing, no less.

Mr. Pitt -- Dirk, not Brad -- has starred in 17 of Cussler's swashbuckling adventure thrillers. (Cussler wrote "Pacific Vortex!" first, though it was not published until 1982 when Dirk Pitt books were already a fixture on the best seller's list. According to "Dirk Pitt Revealed," Cussler's 1998 concordance/encyclopedia of all things Dirk Pitt, "Pacific Vortex!" was initially deemed a weak first effort.) I was tempted to start with "Flood Tide" (1997) or "Atlantis Found" (1999), more recent best sellers that are plentiful in paperback and in the remainder bins, but I like my genre novels to unfold in the order the author intended.

But enough exposition: Dirk Pitt is a star in "Pacific Vortex!," and a star for reasons Cussler never intended. He's rugged, debonair and likes the ladies, to be sure, but he screams '80s louder than a Boy George t-shirt. In the picturesque opening scene, Dirk Pitt is sunbathing in those brief white bathing trunks on a Hawaiian beach. As he naps, "[t]he hairy barrel chest that rose slightly with each intake of air, bore specks of sweat that rolled downward in snaillike trails and mingled with the sand." Oh, my. While I read, I alternately imagined him as Tom Selleck circa "Magnum, P.I." and Ben Stiller in "Starsky & Hutch," the real and the surreal, the yin and yang versions of the '80s man.

The obvious comparison is James Bond, and it's a fair one. Dirk Pitt is comfortable schmoozing over cocktails. In the most unintentionally hilarious scene of the book, two women are literally fighting over Dirk while he suavely sips scotch. "The bruise beneath her right eye had begun the transformation from red to purple, and a small cut on her lower lip unleashed a few drops of blood that trickled down her chin, falling with precise accuracy down the cleavage between her breasts. Pitt still thought she was the most desirably woman he'd ever seen." Enough said. Oddly, there are no bow-chick-a-wow-wow scenes, but you know Dirk's gettin' some. The "sexy" scenes are usually of the slow-motion-body-shimmering-in-the-moonlight variety. Most are hysterical.

This book successfully provided a day of entertainment! Being somewhat shorter than most of Cussler's books allows a quick emmersion into the adventures of NUMA agent Dirk Pitt.

Although this was not the first Dirk Pitt novel published, it was the first written, and thus the first in the series. One of the best aspects of these books is how older adventures are referenced in the newer books. That is why it is important to start at the begining: so that you will fully understand all of the subtlies that come up in the later story.

Beyond that, Dirk Pitt is closer to an American James Bond than Jack Ryan (in fact, the "Pacific Vortex" is remarkably similar to the underwater city in Octopussy), so don't expect reality in these books. They are meant to be fun, and not Cussler doesn't have the technical underwriters that Tom Clancy uses when he is writing his adventure novels.

But what makes Dirk Pitt even better than Bond, Ryan or pretty much any other secret agent type (other than the fact that he has two hot girls fighting over him) is the fact that he makes scuba diving sexy. I would much rather read about a scuba diving super-hero than a brittish super-hero.

I only give it a four, because we have to leave room for truly well written literature.

Anyway it is the perfect quick read for a weekend, plane ride, day at the beach, etc.

I enjoy reading the Dirk Pitt novels. Like the James Bond books you have to suspend your belief during the course of the book and not wonder how this guy could survive so many near death experiences from book to book. As with his other books this goes quick and provides ample entertainment. If you have read his other books you'll enjoy this one as well. This however doesn't deserve any more than 3 stars because it really is Cussler just getting started. The story isn't as good as his other future books. I think that "Deep Six" and "Raise the Titanic" were better. No less outlandish, but kept you at the edge of your seat all the more. So don't take this rating as anything bad, but just know it's not his best book and there's more you can expect out of him.