Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (Dirk Pitt Adventures

by Clive Cussler

Meet Clive Cussler’s beloved action adventure hero in a way you’ve never seen him before! Plus, a special Dirk Pitt short story included only in this volume!

Clive Cussler’s life parallels that of his fictional hero, Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for famous shipwrecks or cruising in classic cars from his private collection, Cussler’s spirit feeds the soul of Dirk Pitt and the NUMA series. Now with this truly unique insider’s guide, you can dive in and explore the worlds of both Clive Cussler, the grand master of adventure, and Dirk Pitt, the world’s greatest action adventure hero.

Inside Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt® Revealed you’ll
-The prologue to Clive Cussler’s next exciting Dirk Pitt novel!
-An exclusive interview with Clive Cussler—including the evolution of the Dirk Pitt novels and the close ties between Cussler and his hero
-“The Reunion”—an original short story in which Cussler crashes NUMA’s twenty-year reunion and reminisces with Dirk Pitt and all his favorite characters
-A brief synopsis of every Dirk Pitt novel, including why Pacific Vortex! —not The Mediterranean Caper —should be considered the first Pitt novel
-A concordance for the Dirk Pitt novels—complete with A-Z listings of every major character, car, ship, aircraft, weapon, locale, and more.

Complete with rare photos, dedications, the Clive Cussler car collection, and advanced Dirk Pitt trivia, Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed contains a mother lode of information every fan will treasure.

Genres: Fiction, Adventure, Thriller, Action, Ebooks, Historical Fiction, Mystery

552 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

About the author

Cussler began writing novels in 1965 and published his first work featuring his continuous series hero, Dirk Pitt, 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 was 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 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 addition to being the Chairman of NUMA, Cussler was also a fellow in both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He was 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 and Black Wind (this last with his son, Dirk Cussler); the nonfiction books The Sea Hunters, The Sea Hunters II and Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed; the NUMA® Files novels Serpent, Blue Gold, Fire Ice, White Death and Lost City (written with Paul Kemprecos); and the Oregon Files novels Sacred Stone and Golden Buddha (written with Craig Dirgo) and Dark Watch (written with Jack Du Brul).

Clive Cussler died at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona on February 24, 2020.

Reviews

[Kenny]

Excellent! Clive Cussler is my favorite author.

[Ursula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Dirk Pitt. Can there be a more perfect man?

[Birgit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked reading it. It was something different and knowledeable to read, figuring out about new things. Being told about certain happenings or believes you already knew.

A strong point of the book was the structuring - Clive Cussler introduced the ships by the time they were first put to sail and dedicated each ship one chapter. Within the chapters the order was a structured timeline from early to late.

The included maps at every chapter was a nice add on and I looked it up on the globe. So there was a geographical introduction into it too. The added pictures in the middle of the book gave a good impression on who sailed those ships or was acquainted with them.

Clive Cussler covering various wrecks was an adventure to follow back into history. I knew a few of those ships but others were completely knew for me.

Though, I usually keep books like this to look up on certain events and remind myself on it; the content wasn't enough in the end to make me put it into my bookshelf.

If you are interested in sailing, ships and history, this book is a good read and buy and definitely a keeper in your bookshelf.

So my personal bookshelf "wouldn't read again" shouldn't trouble you. I enjoyed reading it from page one to the last but I wouldn't read it again. As I am also not this interested in ships themselves (I love the general topic about sailing though), there is no need for me.

[Brentman99 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that I wish other authors would write. It tells us a lot about how he came to be a writer, his personal history, family, as well as the story behind his main characters in the novels up to that time. I love the detail and learning about the person who is one of my top three favourite authors.

[James Keel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can not say why exactly but I am always drawn to reading books where the lead character carries on through numerous books which I why I so love Clive Cussler. Between Dirk Pitt, Kurt Austin, and the rest of the NUMA group I can always open a book a find a character I am invested in.

[Tom Batalias · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any Clive Cussler fan. Insight into the author's life, as well as a detailed reference of all his books up to that point.

[Rick Waterworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed what was essentially a Dirk Pitt biography, mixed with Clive Cussler's history and the main characters fron NUMA and the books. Dirk's information is drawn from the books, with some further details added as background. That caused extra thinking of which book, and eventually re-reads of the earlier books. That fitted in well with Pitt's publishing schedule, which at that time was every two years. An essential book for the Clive Cussler collection.
It's probably time for an update, Clive.

[Bill Donhiser · Rating 2 out of 5]

The "reunion" was great!! The interview with Clive was wonderful, the remaining 440+ pages could only be loved by a CC geek of the highest magnitude. Kinda like those 30 year old Trekkers or Star Wars nuts who live in their mom's basement and have never been on a date. This review has been written by a Clive Cussler aficionado who has read every single book (fiction and non-fiction and liked them all. It was still more detail than I could use

[Georiscs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Informative -- I enjoyed the interview with Cussler and the synopsis' of his books, alshough list of his antique autos didn't interest me. I also enjoyed reviewing the "cast of characters" in his books, but wasn't interested in the retelling of data i.e., locations, props, etc. I also learned of the Cussler books I have yet to read.

[Toby · Rating 1 out of 5]

A longtime Cussler fan, I'd looked forward to reading this. As it turns out, only the first hundred pages or so are about Cussler and Dirk Pitt. The rest is a quasi reference work listing all the characters ever to appear in the novels, the dedications of each novel. . .

I'll continue to love the novels, but this seemed like a contrived book, aimed at finding a few buyers.

[Kay Green · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of an encyclopedia of Cussler books - but I really enjoyed his "life story". He had so many adventures in real life and always kept reinventing himself. I love hearing about how authors get published.

[Magdalena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I skimmed through it to be more honest and did not found it to be very interesting. I finished reading after the interview and found the rest of the book to be rather pointless (to read). Granted for some die-hard fans it may be a pleasure

[Nathan Beck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure what I was expecting with this. I enjoyed the Q&A with Cussler, learning about him and how he got started. The short story was cheesy even for him. I'm going to hang on to it as a reference guide though.

[Toby Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved reading this book with my dad because he loves them and that's what got me to love them. I read this one because it was the newest one he got. This book includes lots of tense moments like all of his books but this one includes nice cars and sea exploration .Would highly recommend!

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is just a overview and its cool at the end.

[Jeff Bloomquist · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first 75 pages were outstanding. His rise to success was very cool.

[Kathy Davie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting reading.

[Charlesjr Waldie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has information that was nice to learn about.

[Chris van Nieuwenhuizen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

[Terry Schmidt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great!!!

[Gary Barrentine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is better to have read Clive Cussler's books up to this time first.

[David Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Must admit I never really wished to read this but son Howard bought it for me and Boy am I glad he did!! Thank You Howard

[James Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

....

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started reading Cussler's books with my grandsons. Great adventure with historical facts and little sex exploits.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun look at Clive Cussler.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just read the interview and short story at the beginning. Skipped the whole glossary/bibliography of the books.

[Wunderdrugged · Rating 2 out of 5]

For die-hard fans only. Enjoyed learning more about the man behind the story, could have done without the summarization of the series to date (I skipped a lot).

[Ray S · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Cussler junkie, this is just what I needed as a fix.

[Maria Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book based on conversations with the author and Craig Dirgo, a co-author with Cussler, about how Cussler developed his Dirk Pitt character and how much of Dirk Pitt is based on his view of his life. There is a synopsis of the first adventures of Dirk Pitt and how he changed publishers to get the best exposure and money for his books. It explained why it was so hard for me to find a hardback edition of Raising the Titanic book and The Iceberg books. I am, as I am writing this review, watching the one movie made of one of his books in 1980. It would be nice to see a remake combining the three books which put the whole tale together, possibly a series. We also learn that Clive Cussler appears periodically in the Dirk Pitt novels and interacts with the character, sort of like Stan Lee in his appearances in Marvel movies.
I highly recommend anyone who has read Clive Cussler books, especially the Dirk Pitt series to read this book.

[Haley Kilgour · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was lent to me by a friend for the opening scene alone. So not only did I expect the book to focus more on that, but it to not be a synopsis of the Pitt series.

The book in total is like 550 pages. Realistically only 100 of those are really readable (the opening party scene and the interview). Most everything else is here’s a synopsis of each of the Pitt books (if I want to read the books, well can’t read that cause of spoilers. And if I have read the book, I already know what’s happened so why do I need the synopsis?). The other large portion of the book (easily 400+ pages) was just a breakdown of every character and their description/important, places, and companies in the book. For my thoughts on this read the parenthesis for the synopses again.

This book had so much potential bust just fell so flat.