Customer Reviews

Polar Shift: A Novel From The Numa Files - A Kurt Austin Adventure

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(13)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I am a big fan of Cussler's books and have read (and re-read) all of his work. This last book, "Polar Shift", is by far his worst work to date and it is painfully obvious that Cussler did very little of the actual writing of this book. The plot, on the surface, is a typical Cussler work, but the action scenes are poorly constructed and quite boring. I do not think Austin even gets scratched in this book. Compare that to Cussler's earlier works where Pitt gets beaten half to death in every book. For that matter, I am not sure Austin even breaks a sweat. There are a couple of interesting moments in the book, but they all lead nowhere. This book reads like a quickly put together idea that just never arrived at a cohesive book. If you are like me, and are a big Cussler fan, you will buy it and read it. There is some enjoyment here, but I certainly hope Cussler pays a little more attention to what his co-writers are doing and re-establishes control of his characters before they fade into the obscure depths of poor story-telling.

The sixth Kurt Austin novel from the N.U.M.A files isn't a good as the previous primarily because it gets bogged down in character overload. It possesses all the usual Cussler and Kemprecos thriller punch as Kurt slices his way through the mystery (more with an enquiring mind than a ready fist) to save the world from the latest megalomaniacal scheme to gain power and wealth. The problem this time is it never really settles on a one or two characters around whom the plot revolves, choosing to divert equal page time between Kurt, Gamay & Trout, Karla Janos, Karl Schroeder, the various antics of the bad guys in the personages of Tris Margrave, Doyle, Spider Barrett (who is later reformed) and the corporate tyrant, Gant. The science also gets a lot more page time than normal for a Cussler novel.

None of this is bad, per se, but it'll take Austin a couple of novels to settle in if future novels intend to bulk up on content whilst retaining the light-hearted panache that accompanies the adventures.

So, Austin's sixth adventure has us following the flight of the brilliant electro-magnetic scientist, Lazlo Kovacs, as he flees a crumbling Third Reich under the guiding hand of Karl Schneider. Spending the next fifty years becoming rich in the US and having Karl godfather his granddaughter, Karla, we move to present day with the sinking of the Southern Belle in waves greater than 90ft. This, of course, immediately demolishes all current tidal theories and launches Kurt (after escaping being inexplicably attacked by an Orca pod) into a mystery that involves the late Kovacs work on electromagnetism, a couple of brilliant young software geniuses whose wayward youthful desire to be anti-establishment leads them down the dark path of the elitist and corporate overlord, Gant, and the obvious beautiful young lady in the guise of Karla who happens to be a leading authority on woolly mammoths.

So, we find ourselves underwater on the Southern Belle looking at enormous spark plugs, single-handedly saving Trout and Gamay in vast Atlantic whirlpools, avoiding capture in Bond-esque style on a remote ski-run in the Rockies, in shootouts with mercenaries in the Siberian hinterland, discovering lost civilisations that ran a dwarf woolly mammoth rearing farm, poking heads into the lion's den and convincing the US powers-that-be that the world is about to suffer an global cataclysm all before saving the world from an aeroplane with a formula worked out from a nursery rhyme.

As usual, Austin has Joe Zavala along for the ride, Trout & Gamay provide their usual diversionary cameos, and Dirk Pitt makes a brief appearance in the usual Cussler role, lending his antique replica car to Kurt for the obligatory car chase. It's all nonsense, but it's a delightful formula that has earned Cussler legions of fans and money. You get the sense that the formula is trying to expand and has failed to do so in this latest effort. There is a lot of additional verbiage that is not necessary in a Cussler novel and whilst it should be lauded, the Pitt/Austin novels are, perhaps, one mould that shouldn't be broken.

Previous Cussler novels could be summed up in the formula: Bad guys exploit ancient historical obscurity to bedevil mankind. NUMA good guys stop bad guys and get the girl.

This book has all those basic elements, but it expands the essential formula in that it has two bad guys with separate agendas, a third almost-bad guy who helps the good guys, and another good guy outsider. It sounds complicated, but it's not.

This book has the potential to be the most interesting of the series, even tossing in an intriguing arctic lost city free of charge. Unfortunately, the story starts to collapse upon itself as it nears the end. For one thing, we're never told explicitly what Gant's secret agenda is or how it's supposed to work. We're never told why Gant wants to kill Kurt Austin long after Gant's aware his secret is out; in other words, there's no point to Austin's death.

This leads to a silly gratuitous Dirk Pitt classic car scene that could have been- should have been- dropped from the book. Cussler likes to insert other characters (including himself) into his novels and I guess this was his vehicle (pun intended) of choice for this novel, but it was an unnecessary distraction. I'd rather have had more about the comeuppance of the bad guys.

Even Austin winning the girl appears half-hearted and Spider Barrett seems a more likely candidate, but I suppose the authors felt it would violate the established formula. The info about the WTO and IMF turns out to be more interesting that the romantic afterthought.

I hope Cussler's co-authors continue expanding and perhaps break out of their self-imposed formula. Unfortunately, this book is only a ghost of what could be.

Don't get me wrong, I love Clive Cussler. The first "grown-up" novel I ever read was "Raise the Titanic" back in the 70s, and I haven't missed one of his books since then.

But, lets face it, Cussler has become a "fast food" writer. No matter where you go in the country, a Burger King hamburger is a Burger King hamburger. In other words, a consistently decent meal, but hardly a great one.

Whether its Kurt and Joe, or Dirk and Al, these books follow a cookie cutter routine. Through a series of coincidences, a diabolical villian out to destroy the world comes to the attention of NUMA. Rather than bring the complete resources of the U.S. Government to bear on the villian, Kurt (or Dirk), along with an unbelievably hot female with some sort of advanced degree, saves the day. Throw in an unbelievable escape (or two) from the villian along the way, and you have a Clive Cussler novel.

Like I said, a decent literary meal, but hardly a great one. This book, in particular, has a fairly weak villian and conclusion.

It is sad to see that Cussler is becoming jaded with his own books. Kurt Austin (Dirk Pitt clone) is a ho-hum character, and the whole NUMA expeience has run out of steam. There are now three or four series that Cussler, with co-authors are pounding out at so rapid a pace I wonder if they actually care anymore about creating great adventures, or is making money the motive. The recent books all read like comic books, stilted, no characterization, no depth, no interesting plot twists and a whole lot of description that amounts to nothing but formulaic writing at its worst. Cussler has entered the world of the famous writer living off past success - like Tom Clancy. Novel factories is what you get. I am mad at myself that I gave him yet another chance and found myself reading the same book as his last Austin/Pitt efforts.

I have just finished reading this book in january 2006. I have read almost all of Clive Cussler's fiction books which are far better than his non fiction books. What I found interesting on this last few books I have read is that he mixes true facts with fiction. I have checked the concepts involved in this book in www.google.com and was amazed to find out that they are all true and exist and that is what makes this book so interest to read. I encourage reading it.

Kurt Austin is back in the latest installment by Clive Cussler and Paul Kemprecos... Polar Shift. It's a nice "mind candy" bit of diversion...

Austin and the NUMA crew are once again pulled into breaking up a plot that threatens to destroy the earth. A group of anarchists (well-funded ones) have discovered a way to force a polar shift of the magnetic north and south pole. By doing so, they hope to destroy the world's navigation and communication infrastructure, allowing their heavily shielded replacements to survive as the only game in town. The only thing that can stop them is a young woman who is the granddaughter of the original scientist who learned about the shift decades. She doesn't know that she holds the key to reversing the polarity, but NUMA and Austin have to find her before the others get there first...

I didn't expect blockbuster material here, just a fun read. And basically that's what I got. The Austin series isn't quite as frenetic a pace as the Dirk Pitt series, nor is the dialog between Austin and his sidekick quite as entertaining. Still, it was a book I enjoyed picking up each evening before I went to bed. I'm not sure I would have wanted to pay $27 for it, but as a library book it was fine.

The subject matter of Polar Shift promised scientific intrigue and a storyline full of techno-thrills. What the novel delivered was a hodge-podge of gappy scientific reasoning, implausible circumstances, repetitive phrasing, random romance, excruciatingly over-detailed descriptions of alcoholic consumption, and excruciatingly under-developed stereotypical characters. (How often can one heroine be called `beautiful and intelligent' before the first piece of evidence is presented to make the case? Answer: 32 and still counting.)

As a vehicle for learning anything about polar shift, I think the book exhibited just enough research to be dangerous. If a magnetic shift really can cause geological shift of plate tectonics - which seems unlikely but perhaps there is some scientific merit here - how does this occur? How would an `antidote' work? Is it through wave cancellation? If so, why not go down that path a little further, both to be informative and to help the plausibility of the plot line? And what of the code/cipher nonsense that housed the critical Kovacs equations in a nursery rhyme? (What ARE these equations? I thought they were frequencies.) Either explain the code fully or not at all, but please spare the half-hearted attempt at a dialog-based explanation of ciphers and code-breaking that gets wrapped up prematurely by our hero's, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

So if Paul Kemprecos is, in fact, the ghost writer for this book, it feels a bit disingenuous. Is this true and does it explain why such a touted writer as Clive Cussler would have produced (or merely signed off on) such a tour-de-farce? Can anyone rise to Cussler's defense before I resign to this being the first and last book of his I will ever read?

Kurt Austin is not Dirk Pitt; I think we can all agree on that.

Having said that, let's be charitable and allow that the story has a certain Pitt factor. It's reasonably well thought out (a bit outlandish, but oh well, aren't they all), and the return of a familiar character is its own reward.

What left me cold, though, were 1) inadequate proofreading, 2) too much compression of the action, and 3) an unnecessarily red herring.

First, the proofing. There were a few glaring errors in puntuation. That was bad enough, but one of the characters, on a brief assignment in Rio, speaks "perfect Spanish." Uhm.... 'scuse me, there, but don't they speak Portuguese in Brazil?

Second, the compression. A lot of time is spent noodling around in locales which seem secondary to the story, and then, all of a sudden, a lot of time passes and tasks are miraculously already done.

Third, there is a discovery -- no spoiler here, you'll have to read it and see -- which, while it would be sufficient to warrant an entire novel, or at least a major subplot, ultimately feels gratuitous or worse. This is the reddest of red herrings, and I felt a little cheated.

None of what I write will deter the hardcore Cusslerian from devouring this book, and I'm not unhappy that I bought it. As an introduction to Cussler's work, it's substandard, and might deter a first-time reader from pursuing his better works.

I have been a Cussler fan for years. However, it is obvious that he is running out of unique ways to write and now all books under his name (yes I understand he doesn't actually write the Kurt Austin series) are formulaic. However, this bookd nor this series deserve the criticism they get. It is a fantasy/adventure nove and yes after so many books with the same formula it is getting a bit old but Cussler books are like your favorite old clothes, not always fashionable but always a good fit. If you are a first time Cussler fan then start with the Pitt series (preferably an early book before Dirk decided he was going to bloodily kill the evil villain).