Raise the Titanic [Paperback]

Clive Cussler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1990

The President's secret task force has developed an unprecedented defensive weapon that relies on an extremely rare radioactive element--and Dirk Pitt has followed a twisted trail to a secret cache of the substance. Now, racing against brutal storms, Soviet spies, and a ticking clock, Pitt begins his most thrilling mission--to raise from its watery grave the shipwreck of the century...

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Ingeniously crafted...a ripping good story. -- Minneapolis Tribune --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

The President's secret task force develops the ultimate defensive weapon. At its core: byzanium, a radioactive element so rare sufficient quantities have never been found. But a frozen American corpse on a desolate Soviet mountainside, a bizarre mining accident in Colorado, and a madman's dying message lead DlRK PITT~ to a secret cache of byzanium. Now he begins his most thrilling, daunting mission -- to raise from its watery grave the shipwreck of the century!

In a daring gamble, DIRK PITT locates the Titanic -- and suddenly his crew is in deadly jeopardy. Sabotaged by Russian spies and savage storms, Pitt must stop a diabolical plan for Soviet world supremacy -- or see the mighty Titanic blasted out of existence! --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Time Warner Paperbacks* (November 1, 1990)
• ISBN-10: 0722127510
• ISBN-13: 978-0722127513
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (116 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Clive Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt(R), in 1973. His first non-fiction, The Sea Hunters, was released in 1996. The Board of Governors of the Maritime College, State University of New York, considered The Sea Hunters in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis and awarded Cussler a Doctor of Letters degree in May, 1997. It was the first time since the College was founded in 1874 that such a degree was bestowed.
Cussler is an internationally recognized authority on shipwrecks and the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency, (NUMA) a 501C3 non-profit organization (named after the fictional Federal agency in his novels) that dedicates itself to preserving American maritime and naval history. He and his crew of marine experts and NUMA volunteers have discovered more than 60 historically significant underwater wreck sites including the first submarine to sink a ship in battle, the Confederacy's Hunley, and its victim, the Union's Housatonic; the U-20, the U-boat that sank the Lusitania; the Cumberland, which was sunk by the famous ironclad, Merrimack; the renowned Confederate raider Florida; the Navy airship, Akron, the Republic of Texas Navy warship, Zavala, found under a parking lot in Galveston, and the Carpathia, which sank almost six years to-the-day after plucking Titanic's survivors from the sea.
In September, 1998, NUMA - which turns over all artifacts to state and Federal authorities, or donates them to museums and universities - launched its own web site for those wishing more information about maritime history or wishing to make donations to the organization.
In addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler is also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration.
Cussler's books have been published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries. His past international bestsellers include Pacific Vortex, Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg, Raise the Titanic, Vixen 03, Night Probe, Deep Six, Cyclops, Treasure, Dragon, Sahara, Inca Gold, Shock Wave, Flood Tide, Atlantis Found, Valhalla Rising, Trojan Odyssey, Black Wind, Treasure of Kahn and Arctic Drift (the last three with his son, Dirk Cussler) as well as The Chase; the nonfiction books The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt (R) Revealed; the NUMA(R) Files novels Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death, Lost City, Polar Shift, The Navigator and Medusa (written with Paul Kemprecos); and the Oregon Files novels Sacred Stone and Golden Buddha (written with Craig Dirgo) and Dark Watch, Skeleton Coast, Plague Ship and Corsair (written with Jack Du Brul).
Clive Cussler lives in Arizona.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Adventure, September 11, 2006

By 

K. Fontenot "Prairie Cajun Regenerated!" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt Adventure) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Titanic - an irresistible setting for a Dirk Pitt novel, February 16, 2006

By 

Daniel Berger (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RAISE THE TITANIC (Clive Cussler) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You have to admit, this is a fun idea to take and run with, September 29, 2005

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Raise the Titanic! (Dirk Pitt Adventure) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.