Cyclops: 07/14/06

The Dirk Pitt series of books by Clive Cussler are often my go-to book for when I need something easy to read but still entertaining enough to keep me interested. While Cyclops accomplished that task in certain ways, the concluding chapters were so unbelievable (and not just because they were dated) that I lost interest in everything but the sunken treasure plot.

Normally I can take what ever silliness Cussler dishes at me but he doesn't (or didn't, more accurately) do Soviet driven plots well. I suppose he was trying to do a modern-day Bay of Pigs incident except with space travel instead of missiles but he doesn't appear to know enough about space travel to make the plot believeable enough even for the whacky universe of Dirk Pitt.

Here is my BookCrossing review:

Cyclops has to be the worst Dirk Pitt adventure I've read. The plot is a hokey rip-off of Moonraker which is a hokey rip-off of Thunderball. Somehow a secret moon base and a Soviet plot to take over Cuba are tied together with a missing blimp and some sunken treasure. If that's not silly enough, there is also the space shuttle that can fly to the moon and back! I only made it through the end because I wanted to see where the sunken treasure was.

For the moment I'm taking a break from Cussler. The next book for my purse is Terminal Velocity by Bob Shaw. It is much shorter than Cyclops. Hopefully it will be better too.

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