RIP Clive Cussler

His adventure is over:

Clive Cussler, Best-Selling Author and Adventurer, Is Dead at 88

20 times on the NYT bestseller list. Created adventurer Dirk Pitt. Founded a group which unearthed shipwrecks. Made Eagle Scout.

 

Wow. I thought that he had died years ago, and that the new books were someone cashing in on his name the way new Tom Clancy books keep coming.

 

Pretty sure his son and others have been basically writing them. Recent books are all Clive Cussler with somebody.

 

Never read his books but I remember brainstorming a novel idea about the lost library of Alexandria — and then finding he had already written it.

 

I thought Cussler wrote "Weave World," which I have read. But, no, Clive Barker wrote it, and thus I never read anything by Cussler.

 

I read Raise the Titanic a million years ago and hadn't thought of him until I saw a woman reading one of his latest books - written with, or by, his son, I think - on the train the other day.

 

I read about 10 of Cussler's books years ago and liked them a lot, but then I got tired of the same ol' formula: Dirk Pitts takes on an exciting new mystery adventure, meets the beautiful New Perfect Love of his Life along the way, they both fall victim to the Treacherous Bad Guys, but somehow Dirk saves them both from certain death, vanquishes the Bad Guys, brings home the buried gold/diamonds/rare treasures ... and then decides that, oh no!, he and his New Perfect Love must reluctantly part ways. For the good of them both!

On to the next mystery adventure, then ... and his New Perfect Love!

But RIP to Clive Cussler. He spun some lively tales and brought home his own fortune.

 

That's similar to why I stopped reading his stuff.

When I started I thoroughly enjoyed his historical fiction; I got a sense of wonder about the things and events he wrote about. Yeah it was formulaic, but the settings were new and interesting. Then it started to get repetitive and I went elsewhere.

I will always fondly remember Clive Cussler and thank him for broadening my view of the world and history.

 

A mystery writer recycles his/her plots? That's unpossible.