Customer Reviews

RAISE THE TITANIC (Clive Cussler)

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

My introduction to Clive Cussler was through the film, "Sahara." I really enjoyed that film and being a lover of the works of another adventure writer, Steve Alten, I decided to give Cussler's books a try. A friend of mine loaned me this book as well as two others written by Cussler.

I really enjoyed "Raise the Titanic!" It's got plenty of adventure, espionage, sabotage, and even a little romance in it. Cussler goes into great, but not too boring, detail of how his hero, Dirk Pitt, and the gang from NUMA manage to lift the Titanic from its watery grave in order to solve a mystery dating back to 1912, when the Titanic made its fateful voyage. The U.S. Government is interested in a mineral, byzanium, that may be aboard the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. They hope to find the byzanium and use it to complete a nuclear defense weapon's construction under the codename, Sicilian Project.

Of course, adventure just wouldn't be adventure without bad guys. For this particular book, Cussler uses the tried and true U.S.S.R. as the enemy. Primary bad guy, Prevlov, is the perfect foil to the slick, almost carefree, Dirk Pitt.

Overall, this book carries itself quite well from beginning to end. The only place that Cussler stumbles is with the sweet talk. The "romance" that occurs between Pitt and the heroine of this book, Dana Seagram, comes across as forced, awkward, and entirely pointless to the story. To be honest, had Cussler completely left the sex out of this book, it would probably be five-star worthy. Unfortunately, Cussler writes sex scenes and romantic interludes like a fourteen-year-old--all climax, no build-up.

Don't let this one hang-up of mine keep you from reading this book. It really is a great, fast-paced read and is perfect for people who only have a few minutes at a time to read a book. Not much thinking is necessary to tear this pocketbook up.

Recommended to fans of fast-paced thrillers, military fiction, and authors like Steve Alten.

Cussler's prescience with this - proposing that the Titanic could not only be located but raised off the North Atlantic's bottom - led to the wreck's discovery and the making of the 1990s blockbuster film. It was only natural that Cussler should use it as the basis for one of his Dirk Pitt novels.

In it, the U.S. government becomes interested in the wreck when it's determined that the world's only stockpile of a rare radioactive element - one suddenly critical to an proposed missile defense program - may have gone down with it. The plot takes us back nearly a century in time to a mysterious Colorado mining disaster, to the snowy wastes of Arctic Russia, to a harrowing chase across England and to the night in 1912, etched into popular legend, that the grand ship sunk on its maiden voyage. Pitt plays less of a role in this one than in most of his books, but emerges in the second half of the book to not only raise the wreck but to save it, with his usual ingenuity, from a hurricane and a dastardly Soviet plot. I can't say whether Cussler's method of raising the ship is actually plausible; it's safe to say that in most of his books he stretches the limits of existing science and technology. According to this book, metal corrodes less than expected or little at all at the deep bottom of the ocean, corrosion apparently being retarded by the cold, the scarcity of deep ocean life and of oxygen. I'd love to know if that's actually true, but then again, the well preserved state of the Titanic wreck suggests it might be.

Cussler's writing, particularly about men and women, is highly dated now - 70s-style talk of "libbers" - and probably sounded 15 years behind the times in the late 1980s when this was published. He got a handle on it in later novels, where women are scientists but still swoon for Pitt, and where Pitt is chivalrous but not quite so 13th century about it; where the sex scenes are implied rather than depicted - one scene here, when our NUMA crew including one woman is being held captive by the bad guys, is a bit lurid - and where sex politics aren't really discussed. Here, they are in the foreground as the marriage of beautiful but obnoxiously feminist Dana Seagram, one of Pitt's NUMA colleagues, and her wrapped-too-tight husband Gene, erodes as both become involved in the Titanic adventure. Pitt is not entirely convincing at the end talking to the mentally vulnerable Gene.

For Pitt fans, no Dirk Pitt book is a bad read. This one is no different. Cussler's writing improved after this but, really, one can't resist the combination of him, Pitt and the Titanic.

When Robert Ballard discovered the two halves of the H.M.S. Titanic on the floor of the Northern Atlantic any fanciful ideas of raising the ship were dashed. But Clive Cussler's novel and the movie based on it were responsible to some degree for the renewed interest in the Titanic and the underwater expeditions that eventually located the wreck. In term, Ballard's footage of the Titanic 13,000 feet below the surface of the ocean in turn inspired James Cameron's movie. So we had a real event, that inspired a novel that became a film, that led to discovering the actual wreck, which inspired the biggest money making movie of all time.

This matters because it is the relationship between fact and fantasy that makes Cussler's idea of raising the Titanic so fascinating. "Raise the Titanic!" begins the night in April 1912 when the ship sank, as one of the ship's officers, John Bigalow, has a confrontation with a desperate man who ends up locking himself in the ship's vault as it sinks beneath the waves. The secret of the Titanic's vault becomes of national importance when some clues from a frozen corpse and the record of a century-old mining accident in Colorado lead to the conclusions that a rare mineral, necessary to fuel the ultimate weapon, is what is to be found inside. In the name of national security the Titanic has to be raised from its watery grave. If that was not enough of a challenge, there are Soviet spies intent on sabotaging the mission and a big hurricane that can also resink the ship.

The problem with "Raise the Titanic!" is that both the plan and its execution are over simplified. Maybe it is because I am a fan of Tom Clancy's techno-thrillers and the level of detail he provide. True, those are invariably beyond me, but I appreciate the attempt to explain what is going on and Cussler keeps things really simple here. I do not require Clancy's sense of detail in this regard, but a bit more of the nuts and bolts of the process would have nice. All the months of preparation are glossed and in the end the best laid plans go by the wayside, leaving it to Pitt to do things by the seat of his pants, which is just how he likes to do it. But if the sense of technological accomplishment is kept to a minimum Cussler does go overboard with piling on the action and keeping up the pace so that this novel is a fun read that pretty much delivers the bigger than life adventure it promises.

This is the fourth of Cussler's Dirk Pitt adventures and the second that I have read, but it is really not until the last part of the book that Pitt becomes a major actor in the drama. Granted, the nature of the adventure puts him in a minor role until the time comes to actually raise the Titanic, but it does seem strange there is so little of the hero in the first half of the book. Besides, I am waiting to read one of these adventures where the rest of the gang at NUMA have as much to do in a novel as they did in the movie "Sahara," which is what inspired me to start reading these stories in the first place.

This was also my first Clive Cussler book. I have read all ofhis previous and subsequent books but this one still stands out as thebest.(It was also the first time in my life that I experienced the dread of all readers...starting a book and realizing at 4:30 in the morning that you have to go to work the next day, but you have only 3 chapters left to go!!)

The situations that his hero, Dirk Pitt and the other regulars, Rudy, Admiral Sandecker et al. experience is always intriguing. Even though you know that they will somehow survive, it is thrilling none-the-less.

We all know that the fascination people have with disasters is contagious(witness the gawkers at an automobile accident), the thought of bringing the recipient of one of the world's worst disasters back to the surface is a fascinating proposal.

I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially anyone who is looking for a new favorite author or a hero to put most to shame.
Kerry Hutsler
Denver, CO

This book was written before they found Titanic. That didn't take anything out of the story though. It was action packed, and had a great twist ending. This is my first Cussler book and I feel that I will read more adventures of Dirk Pitt!

As always Dirk Pitt is there in all his glory. The mixture of fact with fiction, and impossible elements make a Cussler novel all you are looking for. I read the book 15 or 20 years ago and just read it again without realizing until I was well into it. It did not matter, a good read never grows old, please keep going Mr. Cussler, your fans are waiting.

Knowing what really happened to the Titanic didn't ruin this book for me in the least. I found it exciting, filled with spies, intrigue and non-stop action. It was very, very hard to put down. The end is magnificent, truly Dirk Pitt at his finest. If you love Cussler don't skip over this one!

I am relatively new to Clive Cussler, having only started in on his books following the movie adaptation of "Sahara." However, even from the few titles I have read I can see a clear delineation between "Old" Pitt and "New" Pitt. The Newer Pitt is very 007-esque, with wildly improbable schemes of world domination and vivid scenes of derring-do that would make Michael Bay blush. Older Pitt on the other hand, whilst still having some unbelievable elements is much closer to an old school espionage thriller or Alistair MacLean type novel.

So, "Raise the Titanic" is definitely "Old" Pitt, and is also my favorite of the Cusslers I have read this far. It was written before the Titanic was actually found, unsalvagable on the bottom of the sea, by Bob Ballard. The plot concerns that most vital of thriller MacGuffins, the rare mineral, believed contained on board the ill-fated ocean liner. With Russian spies moving in, Dirk Pitt and trusty pal Al Giordino have to do the unimaginable: raise the Titanic!

This book flies by, despite the fact that there is relatively little action until the end. Dirk Pitt does occupy quite a bit of the book, but he seems less present than in the later volumes, instead appearing just long enough to interest us before disappearing again. Instead, a side-plot concerning the political angle of the Titanic's raising provides a lot of the suspense in the book, as Kremlin head games escalate. But never fear, there are plenty of show-stopping moments in the book as well. The actual attempt to raise the Titanic, the hurricane, the showdown with the Russians... It's all very well handled in this marvelous nautical thriller.

'Raise the Titanic' is the best of the Dirk Pitt books. Not that I'm slamming the rest of them, but this one has it all: mystery, adventure, espionage, with a dash of romance for seasoning. At the height of the Cold War, America lives under the threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. A brilliant American scientist has designed a defensive shield that can make the U.S. invulnerable to nuclear attack. To make it operational, he needs large quantities of a rare mineral. Unfortunately, the only stockpile large enough went down with the Titanic. To recover it, Dirk Pitt must bring the famously ill-fated ocean liner back to the surface. He must raise the Titanic. Needless to say, the Soviets aren't crazy about the idea. They'll do anything to stop him, including send the Titanic back to her watery grave. The story should feel dated, now that the Cold War has ended and the Titanic really has been discovered. It doesn't, at least not to me. 'Raise the Titanic' is still a good old fashioned page-turner. Speaking of which, it's about time for me to dust off my old copy and read it again...

Jeff Edwards, Author of "Torpedo: A Surface Warfare Thriller"

I love Clive Cussler's works, and this is certainly one that will be one of my favorites. And though I still consider "Cyclops" one os his best, this is certainly up there on quality. It has that wonderful action adventure sense to it that only a true novel can give. And although it starts kind of slow at the beggining, it certainly picks up - and in the end, the excitment of the climax makes up for the slow start. I loved how Cussler had those wonderful descriptions about the Titanic, even though he was writing these in the mid-seventies. I also loved the wonderful pace to it. It also had a different perceiption than usually Clive Cussler, especially on Dirk Pitt. He's not the rugged, dashing hero-type. He's much more down-to-earth and sophisticated. Overall, though, it's a wonderful book, and I will consider it one of my favorites. I would certainly recommend it to not only Cussler fans, but all readers of action and suspense.