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66
| 0007205597
| 9780007205592
| 0007205597
| unknown
| 3.95
| 16,216
| Nov 01, 1988
| Jan 01, 2005
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really liked it
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Still a fun read, even after all this time! I took the time to read through the 1-star and 2-star reviews and must admit, I can see the "complaints" ( Still a fun read, even after all this time! I took the time to read through the 1-star and 2-star reviews and must admit, I can see the "complaints" (observations) made about how the book feels like two stories mashed together is probably valid after thinking it over (view spoiler)[a treasure hunt for the Library of Alexandria sandwiched around a criminal family's attempt to take over Mexico and Egypt to be followed in a few years by Brazil as the meat of the story (hide spoiler)]. Dirk actually passes the search for the treasure off on a subordinate, which is partly to blame as to why the treasure hunt is not Dirk's main focus. Another reviewer made a solid point about the diagram at the beginning of Part I (view spoiler)[how the diagram of Nebula 106's flight is a bit of a spoiler for the reader (hide spoiler)]; I never thought about it that way, so it was interesting to think about that image from a different perspective that I found myself somewhat agreeing with as well. That being said, I still did not have a problem with how the plot went myself. Granted, one probably does have to turn his or her brain off to fully enjoy it, hahahah! Fun quotes: (view spoiler)[ Gunn looked at Pitt in weary despair. Anybody who awoke from a sound sleep in a cheerful mood and instantly made bad jokes had to have come from a broken branch of evolution. (336) How's it coming? (Pitt) Fort Giordino will be finished on schedule. F before G, Fort Findley Fort Findley if we lose, Giordino if we win. (412) You do your powers of deduction an injustice, Mr. Pitt. I readily concede the coyote has run the fox to the ground. Fox? You flatter yourself. Don't you mean maggot? (422) So the fox hasn't been run to the ground. What was that? Something Ammar said about a coyote and a fox when we met. (445) He was convinced more than ever that James Bond really didn't have it all that great. (446) Ibn would draw the coyote, while Ammar's final act would be to slay the viper. (448) Mind dropping me off at Numa? You're speaking figuratively, of course. You never let me forget which side of the family my sadistic sense of humor comes from. Come on, you crazy nut, let me help you over to the helicopter. (452) (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[Suleiman Aziz Ammar is a calculating assassin who's meticulous planning fails him in this novel. He is presented as the consummate professional assassin and highly paid for his work, able to make the deaths of his targets look like accidents of some sort or another. It might have been interesting if his plan to destroy the Lady Flamborough had succeeded because of the amount of initial shock its destruction would have caused had the bombs his men placed on the glacier gone off to cause the calving glacier to collapse on the small cruise ship. Granted, he had the four most important members of the captives with him when he left the ship. But even if the plan to destroy the cruise ship had succeeded, odds are events would have gone the same way they did in the crushing mill where the escape helicopter was stored. He was quite the character, but he gets what's coming to him, so to speak, when he shoots Pitt in the back only to freeze in shock as Pitt fails to fall dead to the ground. Too late, he realizes Pitt was wearing protection under his oversized jacket, and Pitt uses this shock on Ammar's part to deadly effect, shooting Ammar four times and nearly killing him in the process (423-424). He saw the bullets tear into the middle of Pitt's ski jacket in a ragged grouping of uneven holes, watched as the concentrated impact knocked his hated enemy stumbling forward into the wall of the crushing mill. Ammar waited for Pitt to fall. His antagonist, he knew with firm certainty, was dead before striking the ground. Gradually Ammar became aware that Pitt was not acting as he should. Pitt did not fall dead. Instead, he turned, and Ammar saw the devil's own smile. Ammar survives, however, and eventually returns to Egypt to kill the man who first hired him and then tried to betray him - Akmad Yazid. That final moment for Ammar in the book was not very believable to me (which is funny to say, considering how much of the book is "unbelievable" in terms of what happens and who survives, hahahah!). But that was one of the better moments in the book, I thought, where Pitt turns, smiles, and nearly kills Ammar. I suspect had Cussler not wanted to have Ammar kill Yazid, then Pitt's shots would have killed Ammar considering how much damage they did (especially to his face and jaw). (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[Pitt smiled with the bored unconcern of the devil being threatened by a television evangelist. (513) I was surprised to come across this line, considering how many times I have read the book before. It was an amusing line to me when I read it this time, but it is also amusing to me considering how many times Pitt tells a person "Go to hell!" before he kills them. So he believes in Hell but not God or Heaven? It is an odd perspective, on the one hand. But Pitt's conversation with Topiltzin aka Robert Capesterre was pretty amusing as Pitt talks a lot of trash with the wannabe ruler of Mexico before Robert (and eventually Ibn) are killed. Capesterre's eyes searched Pitt for a moment. He slowly came back on balance and straightened to his full height. He was ten centimeters shorter than Pitt. . . . Capesterre found Pitt's free-and-easy indifference unnerving. No one had ever talked down to him before. (514, 515) - I found this sequence hilarious and it made me wonder if Cussler write it this way on purpose or accidentally. It is hilarious that Capesterre is so short (especially being ten centimeters shorter than Pitt) and yet Cussler writes that no one has ever talked down to Capesterre before. I realize ten centimeters is just shy of four inches, making Capesterre probably average in height, but the brothers are written as being shorter than those around them. So they always experience people "talking down to them" (unless they specifically hire shorter underlings), hahahah! (hide spoiler)] It is a crazy book, no doubt about it. I remember reading how Cussler loved James Bond but wanted to create a hero who was more of "the working man's James Bond" instead of the refined character created by Ian Fleming (probably more along the lines of MacGyver but more spy-based/focused then MacGyver was). I think this desire does show in how he writes, although his books do tend to be hit-and-miss at times (probably more of his "newer" books than older books). His early books tended to be pretty streamlined and shorter; they definitely become bigger and more bloated to the point that 400-600 pages was pretty normal, it seems. The "best scenes/moments" for me still remain the same. (view spoiler)[The terrorists' attack on the crushing mill and how Pitt, Giordino, and Findley are able to not just hold them off and survive but win the day. It is probably pretty far-fetched, but still the best moment in the book. The second best for me is still the car chase in Colorado where Dirk heads down a ski slope to escape his pursuers. That was just batspit crazy! Crazy, and a lot of fun. And the scene afterwards when Pitt takes his car back to the mechanic that had originally restored it was pretty funny because of how the mechanic responded. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I also still think Hala Kamil and Lily Sharp were strong characters and held their own in the book. They were smart, they did not back down, and I thought they were able to hold their own when they were on the page. Because Lily worked with Hiram to search for the treasure, she does not get as much "page time" as Hala, but I still thought both characters were decently well-developed in the book. Rudi, Dirk, and Al still make a great team of characters, too, and it is always fun to see them in action. (hide spoiler)] I still feel this book has the right bit of action intermixed with humor despite its length as well as the "goofs" and "mistakes" made throughout the book. (view spoiler)[Goofs like Kamil having a leg in a cast that suddenly disappears prior to her making love with Pitt, or Giordino having to wear a sling due to an arm injury that magically heals, or Pitt's injuries that disappear and then reappear. (hide spoiler)] It does bounce around a bit because the author decided to go a bit more "global" in this book by involving Greenland, Egypt, Mexico, and Chile. Plus, "Part III" is over 200 pages long and covers nearly 50% of the book, which is kind of nuts because that is practically the size of a novel and does lend strength to the comments that the book comes across as two separate stories mashed together. In any case, it was fun to revisit this book (and the nostalgia that came with it, hahahah!). ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 20, 2025
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65
| 0425211894
| 9780425211892
| 0425211894
| 4.17
| 11,397
| Oct 03, 2006
| Oct 03, 2006
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liked it
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This took me longer to read than I thought it would. It starts out with a story in the past to set things up for later in the book before jumping to "
This took me longer to read than I thought it would. It starts out with a story in the past to set things up for later in the book before jumping to "the present day". The technology introduced in this book is pretty cool, overall (view spoiler)[the pumps used to heat the water to help create more powerful hurricanes, the "flocculent gel" (or whatever it was called) also used to heat water while making it gelatinous in nature and able to hold its heat longer being used to force the eye of a hurricane to become smaller to create a more powerful storm (hide spoiler)]. The character development was so-so (there's rarely much room for the "major/main characters" to develop in stories like these it seems, sadly). As I said, it was a slow starting story, but it did pick up speed as it progressed (probably about halfway through the book). The villains' plan was nuts (view spoiler)[Let's force the world to recognize the danger of not protecting the environment by creating a superstorm to transport a toxic cloud across the ocean and kill untold numbers of human and non-human life when it crosses islands to reach North America! (hide spoiler)] to begin with, and I personally am not sure how believable it was (despite the right conditions being created in the book for such an event to happen). (view spoiler)[I also took some comments to mean that the increasingly violence of subsequent hurricanes were because of this group's machinations, which means they were also indirectly responsible for the growing number of lives lost with each storm. I might have misunderstood that, though, but it seemed clear to me these deaths were being placed at the feet of these ecoterrorists because of how they were trying to manipulate weather patterns and create their own "perfect storm" to force the world to acknowledge environmental problems and what humanity was doing to the environment. (hide spoiler)] It does get crazy as it progresses though. (view spoiler)[A failed hostage rescue attempt, a prison break, a battle amongst a group of oil rigs, and having to sink the tanker being used to seed the ocean so that the current hurricane will become a super-hurricane and produce tremendous amounts of damage and death. Releasing enough water from a dam into an African river to lift the Oregon ten feet so that it could make it over an elevated river bottom - I was glad the team wasn't going to blow the dam like I thought they might. There is quite a bit that happens in a very short period of time, and some fortuitous moments like Juan encountering a team of soldiers bent on rescuing their beloved leader from the same prison holding members of Juan's crew after he "wind-surfaced" (sand-surfed?) across the desert to catch up with them AFTER his initial parachute failed to open and he was forced to use his backup chute. That was probably the most fortuitous moment - Juan's superhuman strength to use the desert winds to "surf the sand" in pursuit of the African soldiers and catching up with them. The "other" would probably be when the Oregon rescues Sloan Mcintyre and Tony Reardon from a yacht that was pursuing and attempting to kill them. But that is pretty standard fare in these books - somebody from NUMA or the Oregon "just happens" to show up at the right time to save the victims from their attackers. (hide spoiler)] Regarding the characters: (view spoiler)[I am not sure how I felt about how Susan Donleavy was written. It is probably because we are not supposed to know she is an ecoterrorist until "THE BIG REVEAL" when she grabs one of Eddie Seng's pistols and shoots Merrick in the chest when the Oregon HRT finds Merrick and attempts to take the two out of the prison holding Merrick. She is written one way in the beginning of the book, and it would probably have worked better in a movie because we would not be privy to her thoughts in a movie, but we are made somewhat privy to her thoughts, and her thoughts (or what we are told about how she was thinking) when she is introduced do not match her later behavior/thoughts when it is revealed she is a traitor and ecoterrorist. I feel that if she were truly the traitor she was meant to be later in the book, then her behavior and emotions should have been described "differently" earlier in the book. It was a bit of a disconnect for me when her identity was revealed, but I do remember thinking at one point it would have been amusing if she were not a victim but a villain herself. Did not expect to be right about that! It was crazy how the ecoterrorists were all so willing to die for their cause, for their beliefs. Given the choice between capture and suicide, they always chose suicide. I am not sure how much I believed that kind of fanatical beliefs in this "kind" of terrorist. They had no issues with killing other people, though! Cabrillo was funny to me at the end of this book. At the end of the prior book, Maurice kinda pushes Tory Ballinger into Cabrillo's arms, telling her a sob story about how wounded he was and had sworn of love forever and maybe, just maybe, she could be the woman to reignite the ability to love once again in Cabrillo's heart, a job to which she embraced with gusto. Enter Sloan in this book: next "conquest" for Cabrillo only she is offered a position on his crew -it would be interesting if she did join and ever shows up in future stories. I felt it was implied she was going to join the crew, but only after she had taken Cabrillo to bed and found out whether or not she could satisfy him and his appetites. That'd be kind awkward for future encounters if she did join the crew, I would think, 'cuz she deliberately "seduced" him and copulated with him knowing full well that it could never happen again because he would be her boss and such fraternization was strongly frowned upon and discouraged in the Corporation. It was just a weird moment to me with it occurring like it does at the end of the book. It was also odd to me that Cabrillo would be so willing to engage in such behavior with what sounded like a future crewmember and employee just because of the potential for future awkwardness. But I guess we are all adults here, right? Cabrillo also seems superhuman to me at times. He endures crazy amounts of pain, punishment, and whathaveyou, and still finds some kind of "inner reserve" that allows him to dig deeper and keep on keepin' on better than the Energizer Bunny. It's whack what he endures and has to push through at times in order to complete a mission. Like being involved in a HAHO jump because, you know, he's I felt like more of the Oregon's crew were introduced in this book (mostly the gun dogs) and maybe even given names, which I think is why it stood out to me. I sometimes feel like the Oregon is nearly 100% automated in future books because there are so few names given of other crew members, which has always seemed odd to me. I do not remember the size of the crew, but it is larger than I expected it to be (I think a future book puts it between 100 and 200 crewmembers). (hide spoiler)] It is funny - this book finally has a moment I have been waiting for ever since I started reading this series of books (albeit out of order, I grant you)! (view spoiler)[It finally has a moment with Juan speaking with Dirk Pitt! Maybe such a meeting happens in one of the first two books of this series, but based on the number of times the Oregon has encountered a NUMA vessel I keep expecting Dirk to be a brief part of the story (even if only to speak with Juan for a moment or three). Juan had a great line when he called Pitt directly: "You owe me a leg but I'll call it even if you lend me a hand" (278). That was probably the best line in the book, in my opinion. It was cool, too, to see Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala also make an appearance, being the leaders of the team sent to find the Rove on behalf of Cabrillo (as he had promised a large sum of money to the African president and former general to help Cabrillo stop the ecoterrorists; the payment was in the form of the diamonds lost when the Rove was buried in a sandstorm 100 years ago). I feel like Cabrillo encountered Kurt and Austin in a later book (both men are investigating a warehouse for different reasons and help each other escape from one or two groups of gunmen), but the name of that book escapes me. (hide spoiler)] Overall, it was a good book. I'd probably rank it 2.6-2.8 stars rounded up to 3 stars. That being said, while I am glad that I read the book, I may never read it again. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 25, 2025
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Mar 03, 2025
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Mar 07, 2025
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64
| 0425205592
| 9780425205594
| 0425205592
| 4.15
| 10,082
| Oct 31, 2005
| Oct 31, 2005
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liked it
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I'll start with 3 stars and then decide if I want to change it when I finish my review. It started out so SLOW. So very slow. The book felt like it dr
I'll start with 3 stars and then decide if I want to change it when I finish my review. It started out so SLOW. So very slow. The book felt like it dragged the first 300, 350 pages, and then it kicked into high gear and the last bit of the book just flew by. It was crazy. I almost quit reading it; I am glad I did not. The characters are . . . different. I don't know if it is the way De Brul writes them, but they felt just a little "off" compared to Morrison's and Maden's works. I would not say that is necessarily a bad thing as it kind-of made the book more interesting in that regard. (view spoiler)[One of the members of the Oregon's crew (Linda, maybe?) makes what comes across as a disparaging remark about the ship's doctor, which seemed odd and out-of-place; perhaps with it being the third book in the series the characters have not completely gelled as a "unit"? (hide spoiler)] By and large, the main characters really do not deviate too much from what makes them who they are, so there is not really much development that can occur. That means most of the character development has to come from side characters amidst the crew as well as the "extras" introduced in this book for this book alone. I suppose it was decent. None of those characters really stood out to me. (view spoiler)[I was surprised at how little Maurice shows up in this book; he is constantly appearing by Juan's side like Batman's Alfred. It was actually a nice surprise when he did show up; it made his appearances that much more "special" because of how little he appears in this book. Maybe the future authors should take a lesson from De Brul's stories in that regard. (hide spoiler)] On the plus side, (view spoiler)[this book does utilize more of the Oregon's crew than later books. That is a definite plus because in the later books I keep forgetting that there is a good-size crew onboard the Oregon; I keep feeling like the ship is mostly automated due to the lack of crew members being mentioned in the stories. I actually felt like this book involved more crew members than later books. On the down side, why not give those characters names even if they do not show up again in future books? Linda is on the Maus with a team of three ex-SEALs and we are never given their names. Why not? The author could have made something up regarding their names. This happened throughout the book - other crewmembers are mentioned but never named, despite Juan supposedly knowing everybody onboard by name. (hide spoiler)] About the story. It was okay. It bounces around a lot. (view spoiler)[I as surprised at how much autonomy different crew members had throughout the story. In future stories, it seems like Juan has to be involved in every mission no matter how big or small, no matter how tired or exhausted or injured he might be. In this story, various members of the crew were able to shine showing their skills, and it was a nice change from future stories where Juan has to outshine everybody. (hide spoiler)] It did hold my interest enough for me to finish the book, and as I said above, that last 50 pages or so were page-turners. It was funny, though - despite there being a sense of tension in the book in spots, I knew nothing bad would truly happen to our band of intrepid heroes (and not just because I have read most of the books out of order, hahahah!). I think I would have been shocked if any of them had ended up with broken bones or some serious injuries. Something else I found funny (view spoiler)[is that part of this book takes place in a .... not sure what it would be called. A ship boneyard? Where ships go to be broken down into scrap metal to be recycled. I just finished reading Desolation Code not too long ago (the newest book of the NUMA Files), and part of that story takes place in a shipwrecking yard, but India and not Indonesia. I half expected Kurt and Joe to show up at one point, hahahah! (hide spoiler)] The book does have one "MAJOR" gaffe, though. (view spoiler)[Part of the scheme involving the illicit gold mine is that Germany's economy is failing, and it will cause an international crisis because Germany wants its gold back, and the gold has been sold on the open market. So the gold from the gold mine is to be used to repay Germany for its lost gold, only the gold shipment never arrives. What happens to Germany? What happens to this international economic crisis that is about to occur? We are told that if Germany falls because it is not able to regain control of its gold to shore up its faltering economy, then the rest of the world will collapse shortly thereafter. And yet, Juan steals the currently mined gold bullion from the villains who plan to use it to "save the world" (for their own ill-gotten gain, of course!) and nothing happens to Germany or the rest of the world. No economic meltdown; no collapsing of governments trying to recall their gold. Nothing. It was a huge disappointment that this event was completely ignored after we are told how devastating Germany's fall would be regionally and globally if her economy were to collapse. Another thing I found funny about this story was how things did not always work out perfectly for the Oregon crew. Some of their plans did no work out "perfectly", and it was fascinating to see them fall apart. The later books get a little annoying because it feels like their plans never fail, or the villains are omniscient and omnipotent up until the point they need to start making mistakes for Juan & Co. to win the day. This book actually felt like Juan could have failed in a few areas and possibly lost in the end. It was an interesting feeling. That fake PLO attack was kuh-RAY-zee!!!! I wasn't sure if it actually happened or not, if it was Juan's team or an actual attack. That was one of the better parts of the book, to be honest, and it had me on the edge of my seat when I read that. Probably the best part of the book. Another "good part" of the book was Juan yelling "Move, you #@$%!!!" I took it to mean one of two things; I did not think of the third option of movement (view spoiler)[the earth moving due to the quake and causing soil/sand to liquefy, thereby freeing the ocean liner from the soil's suction (hide spoiler)]. So when Tory "figure it" what Juan meant, I was, "Nice! That was very nice" because of the play on words. That specially-designed saw blade to cut ships apart was awesome! I loved it! I did find it funny how Juan used his fake leg to free himself from his captors by shoving its titanium length into the saw and getting thrown across the deck. That was nuts. Completely crazy. And I loved it 'cuz I did not expect it. Speaking of which, I completely forgot Juan was missing part of his leg. This author did not feel the need to mention it to the reader practically every moment possible like later authors do (or it feels like they do), so it made it "special" when Juan's prothesis is mentioned. Granted, I felt like it should have been too badly damaged for Juan to be able to pull out that pistol and use it, but there you go. I did not write the book. The secret gold mine was pretty cool. So was it being in the shadow of an exploding volcano. That was another crazy part of the story. That was a solid bit of development for the story, in my opinion, as I was not expecting that kind of environment/scenario to be in the book, or that the mine would be used as a prisoner camp for Chinese seeking a better life outside of China. (hide spoiler)] Some nits to pick: (view spoiler)[Juan was "wrong" when he told the bystander that nobody was hurt when they kidnapped the Swiss banker/lawyer - two Swiss officers were hurt, so I'm not sure what Juan meant when he said nobody was hurt. I did not honestly believe the Oregon was able to make it to Kamchatka in time to save Eddie and the other Chinese prisoners. I just didn't believe it. I am glad Eddie and the prisoners were saved, but I don't believe it should have happened. I found myself wishing the Shere Singh the Sikh had gotten away. The way that whole sequence went down, I was "meh" because I knew it was going to work in Juan's favor. Granted, I did not expect or anticipate the Sikh dying like he did. Well, not at first. But then I figured he was probably going to die, anyway, so it was an odd mix of "surprise! / no surprise" when he did die. And I kept reading "Shere Kahn" whenever I read his name, for some reason. Not sure why that character from The Jungle Book kept wanting to intrude upon my brain, hahahah! The ending was so dratted anticlimactic. It was like the author realized he forgot to "wrap things up" and was practically out of room (so to speak) and decided to end things abruptly. The biggest "nit" to pick I mentioned above - that international crisis spawned by Germany's coming economic meltdown and collapse - what happened with that? Or was it now what we would call "fake news" to try and manipulate the markets as well as the co-conspirators into doing something rash for the select benefit of the few? It's so annoying when authors create these "events" and then promptly forget about them or fail to address them by the end of the book. (hide spoiler)] The Oregon. She is quite the ship! After first having been introduced in the Dirk Pitt story Flood Tide, it is cool that an audience was found for telling the various adventure stories the crew experiences. It is funny how the "medical doctor" taking care of Dirk appears to have left the crew by the time the series starts, hahahah! In any case, (view spoiler)[I found myself wondering how many versions of the Oregon there are. The description of the modified cargo vessel does not match what I remember in "later" books (before she is destroyed in battle and a new Oregon is built). For example, I thought she only had one 120-mm cannon (a la an M-1 Abrams turret-like device) yet this book describes the Oregon as having Q-ship like panels that drop down to expose multiple 120-mm cannons on each side of the ship (not sure if it is one per side or multiple cannons per side). That is probably the main difference because in later novels there is only 1 120-mm turret, and it rises up from the depths of the ship (from what I remember). Also, I do not remember the 40-mm Bofors weapons being mentioned in later books, but I could be misremembering things. Its magnetohydrodynamic engine/drive is amazing! If that could ever be developed to function as described in the book, that would just blow my mind and be beyond revolutionary, I think. (hide spoiler)] All in all, a wonderful vessel! So. I think I am finished with my review. I would have rated it 2-stars but for the last 50 or so pages of the book. I would rate it either 2.7 rounded up to 3 stars or maybe 3.1 rounded down to 3 stars. I don't think it was quite good enough to be 4 stars (view spoiler)[and it just feels wrong to want to root for the villains from time-to-time when reading these books (hide spoiler)], but I am still glad I read this book (and got a different flavor of the crew during their early adventures). ...more |
Notes are private!
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Feb 17, 2025
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63
| 0593719204
| 9780593719206
| 0593719204
| 4.39
| 3,209
| Nov 12, 2024
| Nov 12, 2024
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liked it
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This was a crazy fast read for me. It moved at a fast pace. It held my interest from start to finish. It has bioengineered sea life that was pretty ho
This was a crazy fast read for me. It moved at a fast pace. It held my interest from start to finish. It has bioengineered sea life that was pretty horrific in what it could do, AI gone nuts, clones, a mad scientist on an island, a chase reminiscent of Dirk Pitt, and general craziness throughout. I could not decide if there were errors in the editing of the book because some of the sentences seemed awkward to me, like they were missing words that would help complete the thought being presented. To be honest, when I first picked it up and looked at it, the cover did catch my eye but the blurb on the dust jacket almost put me off from reading it. I am glad that I did not let my trepidation keep me from reading the book, hahahah! I think there were two weaknesses for me in this book. (view spoiler)[The first is that it is getting a little old where Dirk and . . . oh, wait! I mean Juan Cabrillo . . . no, I mean Kurt and Joe keep finding "stuff" and that "stuff" quickly getting stolen from them throughout most of the book because the villains are always several steps ahead of them until it is time for the bad guys (or girls) to start making the necessary mistakes for the good guys to win. I think that is one "trope" in these books that is getting overused (that includes the Dirk Pitt books and The Oregon Files). I find myself missing the days when Dirk or Al or Kurt or Joe were able to do some kind of quick switcheroo and prevent the bad guys from stealing everything from them because of one reason or another. The second is that I felt like I had read this before. That's not the author's fault - I am sure I am just confabulating different prior plotlines into this one as I was reading it, which is why it felt familiar. The thing is, though - the premise of blending humanity with machines to live forever really sounded familiar. Not sure if it was in a prior "Cussler series" or a different series, but that was strongly familiar to me. Maybe part of it stems from Ghost Soldiers which also focused heavily on AI and how it could be used in various methods of warfare as well as controlling aircraft and other vehicles? Actually, I think there was a third weakness for me: the fact that Max was taken offline and Dirk did not know about it. In addition, that Max's being taken offline did not adversely impact NUMA missions or services. I just feel like Max has always had "her hand in the pie", so to speak, and controlled quite a bit of NUMA's operations. I could have misunderstood, and that is fine, but to have Max be hacked like she was (or believed to have been) and Dirk not be told about it seemed out-of-character to me. I don't know - maybe I was "spoiled" with how Dirk and Al always had access to Admiral Sandecker when he was in charge of NUMA despite Rudi being "second-in-command" and yet Dirk never seems to be appraised of missions or issues or setbacks like the Admiral was. Not only that, Max was taken offline - that seems to be a pretty serious thing to me and something Dirk should have known about. I realize the author does not have to write Rudi or Hiram saying, "I'd better let Dirk know about this!", but it seems like Dirk should have been involved at this point in the book. Just my opinion. Okay, okay. The ending was a bit too convenient for me. It was wrapped up a bit too nicely, on the one hand. Part of me wished "the Overseer" had escaped so he could either reappear as a later villain or face justice in a court and it be discovered what Vaughn did to Blake to "upgrade" Blake's body and mind. But, yeah, Vaughn dies because Tau messed up (or Priya killed Vaughn) in a form of poetic justice, I suppose. Tau "dies with a whimper" because it couldn't upload (download?) its "memory" ("essence"?) into backup servers somewhere else (or maybe it was just going to upload itself into Vaughn's satellite system and wreak havoc from orbit?). There was this huge buildup over the course of the book, and then, BOOM!!!!, it was over. It wasn't a very satisfying ending, on the one hand. So maybe instead of the ending being "too convenient" it wasn't satisfying. It kind of felt rushed and like the author realized he had to wrap things up, so the ending got cut up and abbreviated so he could make his deadline. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[The battle between Tau and Max was . . . interesting, I guess. Kind of a letdown, to be honest. The author did a decent job building up to it, but once it happened it was kind-of "meh" for me. The whole "Ghost in the Machine", though, was pretty cool. Tau was a crazy AI. It experimented on humans to try and better understand them and predict human behavior; I am not sure how well that came across in the book. As much as I despise the second and third book of D.F. Jone's Colossus trilogy, I think he did a better job in the 70s describing human interactions with computers than Brown did in this book. And I think such interactions have been better done in other such books that have Cussler's name on them. As much as I am struggling to try and describe my feelings about how it was written (the blending of human consciousness and A.I. on the island), I felt like the end of the book was a little too trite in saying that Tau had become "addicted" to the emotional rushes it was getting from the humans on which it experimented, so that is why it kept pursuing the experiments in the fashion it did (using pain and torture to generate the strongest emotional responses for its "fix"). (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I did like that Vaughn realized his "anti-fertility virus" had been removed from his plague of sea locusts after three or four generations, which is why he was interested in Gamay Trout's work involving mosquitos and using them as vectors to stop the spread of some plague. I did not catch that was going through Vaughn's mind when he was wanting to capture her to interrogate her about the missing information she refused to share in her reports. At the same time, the plague of sea locusts that devoured everything organic reminded me of similar "plagues" I have read about in other books. I wish I could remember their titles, hahahah! But I know I have read something similar. Too, it vaguely reminded me of "The Ladybug" episode of A Man Called Sloane from the 70s, hahahah! I also thought it was clever that Tau came across some of Hiram's old college papers and used those as the basis to create its plans of attacking Max, that it used Hiram's old work to create viruses and commands to continue smashing through Max's defenses. I was, "that is a good idea! Quite clever to come up with that!" when I read it. One of the better parts of the book. The author also did a nice job creating a word picture of the sea locusts covering the science boat transporting Gamay and Paul across the Indian Ocean. I could picture the insect-covered boat in my mind as well as what the swarm might have been like (especially when they started swarming again and going nuts when it got warm). Oh! The image of the sharks and whales swelling before their sides burst and more of the eggs were released was horrific! Those were some crazy moments, and the author did an excellent job describing them as well! I could see those images in my mind (much to my stomach's chagrin, hahahah!), and they were gruesome indeed! Perhaps Steve Alton in his Meg books helped create some of the images in my mind, hahahah! But, yeah, the egg sacks swelling and then bursting was just BLECH!!! with the right amount of horror. (hide spoiler)] I do like how the author did a nice job of balancing Kurt and Joe's story with Paul and Gamay's story (or, parts in the story). The four of them make a great team when they are together, but the author also does a nice job of writing them "separately" in this book, too. I thought it was a solid balance between the four characters. (view spoiler)[I was actually concerned about Gamay in this book; I thought the author might actually change things up a bit and write her as dying at the end when she was separated from Tau by Kurt. That was an interesting change of pace, as I normally do not worry about any of the main characters truly getting hurt let alone dying. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I was happy to see Priya in this book but sad that she died at the end. It was odd, though, 'cuz the comment is made that she had been gone from NUMA for over five years, yet it did not seem to me to have been that long since she was last in a book. But I could be wrong - I remember her being in Sea of Greed, The Rising Sea, and Nighthawk. I thought she might be in some other more recent books, but I must be wrong. Sea of Greed was published in 2018, which obviously was over five years ago, so perhaps she has been gone longer than I realized. And yet, she still "lives on" in the clone of her created by Vaughn who goes by the name of "Kai". That was pretty cool to a sad part of the ending. Stuff like this makes me miss what Clive used to do in his books - how how he would provide dates for when each book took place. Granted, he had them starting shortly after the Vietnam War, so Dirk Pitt should be much older than he is in the books, hahahah! But I do miss the use of dates in the books to create a kind of "timeline" and help with the continuity of the stories. What is really interesting is that Max was introduced a loooong time ago in Dirk's adventures, yet the comment is made in this book how Hiram created Max "over twenty years ago" and how Max has been developing, learning, and growing for the past twenty years. So that puts a bit of an interesting timeline on these stories (especially since the first NUMA Files book was written nearly thirty years ago). (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[The ending was so rushed!!!! The decision of the U.N. to declare that clones of people were real people and entitled to the same rights as "normal"/non-cloned humans was so quick! Quicker than I would have thought possible, but that decision seemed pretty clear to me. I know it is a "technothriller" and not a philosophy book, but I did think the author might have expanded a bit more on "whether or not clones of humans are truly humans themselves" or "are individuals" than he did in the book. Most of the argument seemed to be "Joe had befriended one of the clones, and then two more, and that settled things in his mind about whether or not they were human and unique individuals" more than anything else, but that is okay. The author showed a human side to them on one hand, although elements of this book did remind me of Sigmund Brouwer's book Double Helix in terms of clones. The discussion about A.I. and whether or not it Max was truly "alive" was a bit of a disappointment to me as well. I felt like the author could have doubled down a bit on this when it came to Max; perhaps he felt he could not since Max was Clive's creation and not his? In any case, Max was written in such a way it felt like she was "more alive" in this book than in prior books, and she does make the decision to disobey the last orders/instructions given to her by Hiram to try and help "save the world" by attacking Tau like she does (and nearly "dies" in the process). (hide spoiler)] I have blathered on enough. Overall, I enjoyed the book but felt like it was missing "something", some oooomph previous books have had. Too, the ending felt rushed and unsatisfying. That being said, it was still a fun read (and a fast read! I still cannot believe how fast I read this book!). The author does a good job of blending science fact with "what if?" and forecasting how things might go "in the future" (without treading too far into "sci-fi territory"). It has action, adventure, mystery, and horror in it, as well as a touch of sadness at the end. I was going to rate it 2 stars because of how unsatisfying the ending was, but I will rate it 3 stars (say, 2.7-2.9, rounded up) because, overall, I did enjoy it, and it did not bore me in the least bit. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 02, 2025
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Feb 05, 2025
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Feb 03, 2025
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Hardcover
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62
| 0593421981
| 9780593421987
| 0593421981
| 4.41
| 4,563
| Nov 08, 2022
| Nov 08, 2022
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it was ok
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To be honest, I picked this up to read exclusively because of the cover. And the title. But moreso the over. The story starts out interesting as it in
To be honest, I picked this up to read exclusively because of the cover. And the title. But moreso the over. The story starts out interesting as it involves a prison break from a French prison on an island in the tropics, and then it slows down a bit. Fortunately, it did pick up some speed at the end. The main story begins in 1914 around the period when the United States had declared itself neutral in what became WWI and takes place over a few months. Not being familiar with any of the characters, I had zero investment in most of them and felt the character development in the book was minimal at best. I cannot even say the "side characters" were well-developed, either, which was sad (or maybe more disappointing). The history of the time the story takes place is interesting, to be honest. It is an interesting mix of "the Old World" and the "New" as NYC is described as being a place that is both fairly modern yet has herds of sheep being directed through its streets at times. It was "amusing" (fun) to read about the "advances in technology" at the time, considering how new airplanes, automobiles, and even the radio was during this time (especially when considering how much we take for granted today in terms of technology and what is available to us). It is always interesting when authors incorporate historical events (disasters) into their stories because sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. (view spoiler)[In this case, the author has the heroes transporting captured German tech onboard the Lusitania to England, and that is why the liner was sunk by the Germans - to prevent this advancement in radio technology from reaching the British and thereby altering the course of the sea war in the Atlantic Ocean. I think the author did a great job at incorporating this tragedy into the story by providing a possible reason why the Germans might have attacked the liner like they did. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[Foss Guy - I was surprised to see this character in this book. I guess he showed up in a prior story as well involving Eric Bell - I have yet to read that story, although I want to because it ties into one of Clive Cussler's earliest novels - Raise the Titanic!. What surprised me was that there is a character who goes by "Foss Gly" and introduced in Night Probe! and shows up again in Cyclops but I thought his name was also "Foss Guy", hahahah. It has been a while since I have read Cussler's earlier works, but Foss Guy's physical description (before he was infected by parasites in his stomach) and character in this book strongly reminded me of Foss Gly from Cussler's earlier two novels. The muscles, the characters' general build and sizes. Both men are bald. I felt like this was some kind of descendant of the Foss Gly of the future stories (and I had totally confabulated the names of the two characters, thinking they were both "Foss Guy" and only now realized my mistake after I looked up the original character and discovered they have different last names, hahahah!). Good times! (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I liked Joe Marchetti as a character and was glad he survived until the end of the book. Were I to keep reading, it would be interesting to discover if he and Helen truly did get married, or if she moved on after the events in this book. He was an interesting character - possibly because I was not sure if he would live or die, so perhaps he had the best character development as I was probably the most concerned about his continued existence, especially after so many Van Dorn agents ended up murdered. The plot was interesting because of the twist involved. The initial spy ring was quickly foiled by accident (which was a nice touch, on the one hand), only to have a second spy ring take its place that was much harder to find. So that was probably one of the better moments of the plot. I also enjoyed Isaac Bell's interactions with Franklin D. Roosevelt - I did not expect that to take place, but they were interesting all the same. The author's bits of trivia dropped throughout the book was fun as well - such as how some of the Vanderbilts had roads built specifically so they could race their cars on those nice roads. The group of porters switching handbags in the train station was fun to read and somewhat hilarious - it strongly reminded me of the scene in 1999's The Thomas Crowne Affair where Pierce Brosnan's character hires a bunch of men to wear the same outfit as him and wander around the museum to act as decoys while he returns a painting he stole to the museum to prove his love to Renee Russo's character. It is a fun scene in the book, and the author did a great job with it. One of the better scenes in the book, to be honest. (hide spoiler)] On the one hand, the book is an interesting look back at how detective agencies might have been utilized during a time period in which I really do not know a lot about. I cannot say the book held my interest throughout - there were more than a few times I was half-tempted to give up on finishing this book because it had become so slow (and involved a lot of talking). But, I did muddle through and finish it, and now that I am on the other side, I am glad that I stayed the course and finished the book. On the one hand, it turned out better than I thought it would, but I do not know if I would ever willingly read it again. Maybe some day. In the distant future. If I am still alive at that time and have absolutely nothing better to do, or even something else to do. In any case, I am glad I took a chance and read it (although it seems The Titanic Secret has a strong tie-in to this novel, so it will be me again reading books in a series out of sequence. Ah, well) even if I never read it again. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 20, 2024
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Dec 29, 2024
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Dec 22, 2024
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Hardcover
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60
| 0399184015
| 9780399184017
| 0399184015
| 4.26
| 7,722
| May 30, 2017
| May 30, 2017
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liked it
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This was a fun book to read, and I was a bit surprised by the ending (or, maybe the direction the narrative went). It moved at a fast pace and held my
This was a fun book to read, and I was a bit surprised by the ending (or, maybe the direction the narrative went). It moved at a fast pace and held my interest from start-to-finish. It felt like it was going to go down the road of the “omniscient, omnipotent villain” but fortunately veered away from that to head in a better direction. The character development was okay; I can’t say too of the “new” characters had much character development in the book (other than the villain and Priya Kashmir, a computer expert who works with Hiram Yaeger with Max in this novel). The technology described in the book is crazy and scads of fun; I don’t know how truly feasible it is to create some of the technology described in the book, but it still is fun to read about how it might be used today. I thought the author did have some interesting tones in this book I don’t recall coming across very often in prior such books in Cussler’s various series. (view spoiler)[The author starts out by describing how the death of a small Spaniard force left behind in a village in South America had a large impact upon the local indigenous population(s) because of the diseases brought with them to the South American continent, how it nearly wiped out the various tribes and made it easier for them to be conquered by Spain in the end. This theme in the opening chapter ties into what happens at the end of the story, and I thought the author did a solid job with this painful topic. Granted, he made the villain a descendant of one of these tribes that had been wiped out, so it does make one wonder if perhaps the author is trying to say that Indigenous Peoples are “still a problem” and should be wiped out from the modern world (or forced to assimilate)? Actually, that is a thought that came to my mind as I was typing this paragraph when I “realized” the villain is an Indigenous person who wishes to destroy the modern world and return the world to the state of living off just the land and zero technology. Intellectually, I “knew it” from reading the book, but reviewing what I read put it into a different perspective. I don’t think that was the author’s intent, nor do I see Indigenous People as “the problem”, but we in “the modern world” (or maybe “first world nations” would be a better way to put it) do need to be better at how we interact with the world around us. The book seemed to be filled with “conspiracy theories” about how we cannot trust “the Government” or any government agency because they will never tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I am not disputing we should not trust the government 100%, but the “villain” is a survivor of a failed assassination attempt by the United States because he was opposing the policies of the American government at the time and planning to release information into the general public so that everybody had access to his knowledge and ideas about . . . something (I think it was using the combined state of matter/antimatter that occurs in outer space over the North and South Poles during the Aurora Borealis and other such cosmic events. I know I am not explaining it very well, and that is fine. The gist of it is that the U.S. of A. government decided to harvest a unique form of energy from outer space despite there being various laws in place that are supposed to prevent such a thing from occurring. But as nobody was really able to oppose the U.S. in this endeavor, we went and did it anyway while ignoring the opposition as to why we should do it. The NSA was lying to NUMA about why the Nighthawk needed to be found. NUMA was playing it close to the vest as Hiram hacked into NASA to hack into the NSA. Comments were regularly made about how we cannot trust government agents or agencies or representatives because they do not have the best interests of humanity at their heart. Also, it had an interesting “discussion” about pacifism and how pacifism does not work towards the end. Emma, the NSA agent, was originally a pacifist who went to work at NASA but became disillusioned when a close friend was killed by terrorists in a bombing incident aboard a commercial aircraft. Because of this disillusionment, she joined the NSA because she realized the only way to combat violence was with violence, that “bad/evil people” had to be physically opposed (my paraphrase). THEN we find out her friend survived the bombing and that it was actually an assassination attempt by the U.S. government to silence him when he threatened to go public with what he knew. He was also a former pacifist who turned to violence; however, his level of violence was the intended destruction of the modern world (i.e. – the U.S. of A, Europe, and China) through the destruction of the containment units housing the matter/anti-matter “mixtures” (sorry, not sure what else to call it) that each country would have. The ensuing destruction would ensure that the only survivors would be those Indigenous people living on the margins, living off of the land, and not needing technology to survive. It was expected the Southern Hemisphere would survive, but most of the Northern Hemisphere would be destroyed in “his” cataclysm. But the villain also had an “epiphany” in that he realized pacifism would not work, could not work, and would never work because force was needed to combat force, to make changes. And the “only way” long lasting change can take place is through the use of violent, deadly force. So he decides to take revenge when he discovers the U.S. government is using his plans to harvest this new “material” from space and plans accordingly. (hide spoiler)] Best line of the book: (view spoiler)[Feed these to the mole. Best regards, Kurt Austin. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I thought it was crazy that the Russians and Chinese worked together to fund a project to hijack the Nighthawk on its return to Earth to get the new, unique form of exotic matter collected from space by modifying two supersonic bombers (I don’t think the author ever identifies these bombers as existing Russian aircraft or some kind of new, experimental model, but I assume they are Tupolev Tu-22M Backfire bombers) so that they can chase the Nighthawk and force it to land on the back of the first Backfire chase aircraft. The plan works until the NSA “mole” reactivates Nighthawk’s computer systems. As the Nighthawk comes back to life, it tears away from the Russian bomber and flees towards South America. The second Russian chase bomber follows and is forced to land on a dirt runway while the Nighthawk lands in a mountaintop lake. The Typhoon submarine modified for underwater salvage was an awesome idea! I loved it! It was pretty cool to read about how this underwater salvage vessel might have worked, and I could see it being done in reaction to the Glomar Explorer’s mission of lifting the remains of the Russian missile submarine from the bottom of the ocean for intelligence purposes. I thought it was a most excellent idea of taking the idea of the Glomar Explorer one step further and creating a submerged machine capable of salvaging a wreck completely underwater and thereby never revealing the fact that a salvage mission was being performed. It was a perfect idea, and I could see something like that being done. (hide spoiler)] Plot points: (view spoiler)[An interesting point is made in the book how the Russians and Chinese knew where the American spacecraft supposedly went down because both nations had salvage fleets already on the way to the crash site. Which is weird, because the objective was never for the Russian bomber to crash into the ocean with its prize but for it to . . . fly to some land occupied by both Russians and Chinese so that the exotic matter could be split evenly between the two nations AND both nations could acquire the technical knowledge to re-engineer the American spacecraft. So were the fleets on their way in case there was some kind of technical damage, anyway? It’s a major “plot point” in that it allows Kurt to deduce that the NSA still has a mole inside the agency that is feeding the Russians and Chinese information (mainly because it would have taken a week or so for the two fleets of salvage vehicles to be quickly put together and then sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the crash site, but they were already on their way before the crash occurred, so something was going on). Not only that, but the modified Russian Typhoon is practically onsite and ready to collect the debris from the downed aircraft. How could it have already been onsite if the expectation was for the American craft to be captured intact and flown to a secret base? These two opposing salvage fleets make no sense to me whatsoever as I think some more about this plot point/hole. This is picking a nit, but the flap of the book claims that the downed aircraft is the X-37 when that is not the case. While the Nighthawk is based upon the X-37 space plane, it is in fact much larger and can carry a larger payload. This spacecraft was in orbit for nearly three years, which is pretty cool to think about, but it would have been nice of the dustjacket was correct about the type of aircraft that went down. I find myself wondering if the “command structure” of NUMA has changed now that Dirk Pitt is in the top seat of this government agency. In the Dirk Pitt books, whenever there was some kind of serious palaver going on between government agencies that wanted to use NUMA’s resources, Vice-Admiral (now V.P.) Sandecker was always involved in those meetings. He never missed them, no matter how “minor” they might have been because he was always looking out for the turf of his beloved agency. However, Dirk Pitt does not show up at these meetings that I can recall. I would have expected Dirk to make an appearance because of the nature of this top secret emergency where only NUMA can get the job done – if they fail, then the planet could literally be destroyed because of the interstellar exotic matter captured by the NSA and brought down to Earth. Instead, Rudi Gunn represents NUMA at the meeting between the NSA, NUMA, and whatever other agencies are involved in the search-and-recover operation. I don’t know; I know Rudi is the Assistant Director, but I still felt like Dirk should have been involved in at least this meeting. It did not strike me as believable that Dirk would not have been involved. Also, have the ages of Rudi and Hiram been lowered? They are described as being in their forties in this novel; logically they should be much, much older because of when these books were first written (and the dates the stories were to have taken place in those early stories). Dirk alone should be in his sixties, but he’s not. So it is funny that the ages of the characters have been somewhat “frozen in time” because of how long these characters have been around, hahahah. But this is not unlike James Bond, who has been active since the early fifties and his age has not really changed. Or superheroes in comic books – they remain fairly ageless, all things considered. I always find it funny when NUMA has more advanced technology that the U.S. military (or any other military); in this case, the SOSUS system. Not only that, but that NUMA now has their own SOSUS system scattered around the world in waters that nobody else has. Pretty convenient that they have this level of technology available in this book (now) when it was never previously available to them when it might have helped them and their teams in other novels/adventures. Be interesting if this super sonar system of theirs will appear (or has appeared) in any future novels. I kinda doubt it – that is one of the weaker points in these books. Some kind of advanced technology is introduced in one story to help solve the mystery or provide the answer and then rarely, if ever, used again in future novels even though it would have proved to be most useful in some future story. Also, I could not decide if Kurt was joking about “old football injuries” when he and Joe were racing to reach the Russian bomber’s ladder located in the wheelwell of the forward landing gear. I think I decided he was joking because of the abuse he received before rescuing his teammates and then chasing after the Russians. He had been slightly wounded while fighting underwater, pummeled by a waterfall, had to scale a cliff, and then survive a pitched battle with Urco’s men. I would say he was probably fairly winded by that point, hahahah, but his comment about “old football injuries” just felt . . . “weird” to me. Not sure why. (hide spoiler)] The last chapter of the book is truly hilarious. (view spoiler)[Kurt, Joe, and the Russians are on a Caribbean beach playing poker using real gold as chips and drinking twenty-year-old Scotch hoping a passing ship will see their signal fire and rescue them. They have assumed the island they reached is uninhabited after ditching from the Russian bomber. However, a twenty-foot fiberglass security boat approaches them and the security officer tells them they are trespassing on a private island and cannot be lighting fires on the beach. That is when the survivors discover there is a Ritz-Carlton on the other side of the island. It’s one of the better endings I have read in this series, and I loved how much humor the author used to end the book. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[ The two Chinese agents were crazy! Not “insane” crazy but “kinda cool” crazy. Daiyu (Black Jade) was something else, and I thought she was well-written. I don’t know how “strong” of a character she was in terms of development over the course of the novel, but I still thought she was a believable character (in terms of a person so totally focused on their cause or mission that nothing else matters included with the little amount of emotion that is shown), and I thought she was also a ‘strong character” because she was smart, intelligent, resourceful, capable, and able to think quickly and adjust to changing situations. Her partner Jian seemed almost too thug-like and was a lesser character, in my mind, than she was. Or maybe “weaker” character even though he had phenomenal strength and was just as highly trained as she was. Daiyu was the one who “took charge” and told Jian what to do over the course of their mission; I don’t think Daiyu was made to be weak to make Daiyu look strong, but I did get the sense that Daiyu was the stronger of the two characters (perhaps because she was willing to bend the rules if not break them to accomplish her mission. Kinda like Kurt Austin and even Dirk Pitt. I thought the author had a great idea for his plot. I thought it was clever how the Falconeer (aka Urco aka Beric) was playing the Russians, Americans, and Chinese off each other to create the best terms for himself and his people in terms of passing out the exotic matter from space. He planned to give some of the exotic matter to the Chinese, who left right away in their supersonic transport aircraft (the FN 190) with Vargas, his right-hand man, as his “eyes” on the Chinese to make sure they did not try to double-cross Urco. The Russians were given two containers and the Americans two containers, which left two containers to be given to whatever group or country Urco decided. I thought that was a novel and clever idea on the author’s part, and I could kinda seeing it happen. But then, the plot twist! After finding empty containment units and Semtex explosives in a cave, Kurt deduced that Urco has placed bombs in the replacement containment units used to store the exotic matter and plans to destroy the Northern Hemisphere once the exotic matter reaches the appropriate destinations. China, the U.S., and Europe would be devastated by the initial blast, and the ensuing debris field would essentially wipe out modern life in the Northern Hemisphere. Aiding in the devastation would be whatever group Urco would have given the last two containers. Kurt believes that Urco will not destroy the last two containers because the other six containers were not yet far enough away from the remaining containment units and the destruction of the last two would cause the other six units to fail and cause catastrophic damage to South America and kill the people Urco claims to be trying to protect. Urco is crazy and decides to kill the planet. Gamay kills Urco before he can shoot Kurt, which allows Kurt and Joe to chase after the Russians. I don’t know what happened to the 7th and 8th containers; maybe they were left behind at the camp after all of Urco’s men were killed? Emma (an NSA agent teamed with Kurt to find the Nighthawk had taken the two containers for the Americans with her when she left the camp. Or, maybe Gamay and Paul Trout went back for the last two containers after aiding in rescuing Emma from her predicament? Anyway. I loved that plot twist. I was wondering what was going to happen in the remaining 100 pages when Urco started talking about how he was going to split up the exotic matter between three major world powers and a fourth group of his choice. (hide spoiler)] It was a fun story to read with a twist at the end I did not expect. I could see myself reading this again at some point in the future (so many books to read, so little time, however). I am glad I took a chance and read this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 19, 2024
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Jul 22, 2024
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Jul 19, 2024
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Hardcover
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61
| 0593719247
| 9780593719244
| 0593719247
| 4.51
| 4,044
| Sep 03, 2024
| Sep 03, 2024
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liked it
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This was a fast read for me, especially considering how many pages the book is (granted, the print seems kind of "big" compared to the books from the
This was a fast read for me, especially considering how many pages the book is (granted, the print seems kind of "big" compared to the books from the 70s and 80s, and the spacing seems to be wider, too, between the lines). The author introduces a new character - we'll see if she sticks around or is just introduced for this book only. The book held my interest from start to finish. I think it was weak in moments, though, because some of the things the author writes took me out of the story. It did not happen a lot, but it happened four times, which is five times too many. It was an interesting look (view spoiler)[at the use of drones, AI, and robots in some respects. I felt like the author did a nice job of taking people's concerns and extrapolating how a situation might arise from the extensive use of drones and AI in combat situations. Overall, I thought the author did a solid job describing how certain combat situations might go. I know Dale Brown has used drones and AI an many of his books for years, but this book seemed like a step up from what Dale Brown has written in the past. Granted, it has been a few years since I've read any of Brown's books, so perhaps he has stepped up his game as well. But the drones and robots in this book were really crazy and almost scary. The AI-controlled cargo planes were crazy, too! I don't know how I feel about that, hahahah! It's one thing to read about it in sci-fi, where it often seems like a good thing. But then you read about an AI-controlled plane or other vehicle being used for nefarious purposes in a book like this and it makes you go, "Hmmm . . . . maybe it's not such a good idea after all" (hide spoiler)]. There were a couple of things that stood out to me: (view spoiler)[Cabrillo using the pallets dropped by the cargo plane to survive falling from that same airplane without a parachute sounded like it was heavily influenced by the Uncharged movie from a couple of years ago. What happens in the book is not quite what happens in the movie, but I felt the two scenes were very similar. It did not bother me, though, as imitation is said to be one of the sincerest forms of flattery. I felt it was a nice homage to what happened in the movie, and it was fairly well done by the author. Not sure how survivable it truly was, but it was exciting to read about. Gomez Adams being described as "draped over one of the couches like an abandoned beach towel" (169) was a beautiful word picture. I loved it! I could picture this dude being comfortably sprawled across a couch, not a care in the world. It was great! The two tech guys (Murph and Eric) are always described as being "immediately smitten" every time they meet or see a new attractive woman. It's kind of hilarious how they are struck down so quickly each time they encounter an attractive female because it has gotten so common as to be expected. "Oh! The two tech guys are smitten again? Yawn Tell me something new, next time." I bet the author could just mention the two dudes seeing an attractive female and leave it at that; the reader will probably automatically fill in "and they were immediately smitten" and not notice it was not included in the actual novel, hahahah. I also liked that the author talked about the cache of American weapons and vehicles left behind in Afghanistan and captured by the Taliban when we pulled out. I had forgotten about that, and the author created some chilling scenarios where American weapons could be used to cause confusion and delay and death amongst American allies. This oversight has not been mentioned in the news in the last three years, so it was good to be reminded of this potential threat. I also thought the planned battle between the mixed bag of special forces soldiers and the robots was crazy. Part of me would have liked for it to have lasted a little longer, but I don't know how well it would have worked. In any case, but for Cabrillo's "MacGuffin", I think the humans would have lost. As it was, it made for some pretty tense moments in the book in my opinion. Using drones to create a lightning conductor to attack the Oregon was crazy! Cool, and crazy. Kind of a joke, too, because the reader knows the odds of the ship actually being sunk are nil (even though it has happened two other times). But it was pretty cool how it happened. (hide spoiler)] These were the specific moments that took me out of the story: (view spoiler)[ p. 145 - “some poor slob stuck in the head”? - that took me out of the story because I do not remember that kind of descriptive verbiage being used in prior stories. Maybe if somebody had actually spoken that phrase, but not used as a written description of a high speed turn taking place and the potential aftermath. p. 164 - “This Vendor cat”? - are we back in the 70’s? When did Cabrillo start talking like that? It was foreign to me and felt out of place in the story. p. 215 - “shoved the rest of the churro into his piehole”? - did the author forget which series he is writing for? It was rough and abrasive and did not seem to fit the story. Also, there was a blurb about alarms going off onboard Callie's Spook Fish 5000 submersible as she was taking Cabrillo and Linda down to the wreckage of the cargo plane to find its black box. The blurb takes place on page 127. Then there is essentially another page-and-a-half of "stuff" that takes place, and then another alarm goes off on page 129 (the issue being the submersible's 4,000 foot depth being reached and then passed). I felt the two blurbs about the alarms going off around 4,000 feet should have been together. The way I read it, the trio had already descended below 4,000 feet when the second batch of alarms went off, so it through me to realize they were still above the submersible's potential "crush depth". And then, on pages 65-67, the Vendor is fighting a robot programmed to kill him, so he has to move exceptionally fast to stay alive. And he does. He survives and defeats (kills) the robot. He moves around after the fight with skill, grace, and strength. And then, on page 137, the Vendor is described as hobbling and struggling to move. Which is it? That was really weird to me, how the Vendor was described as (or came across as) being in top physical shape only to have him hobbling a few pages later. I was wondering if it were two different characters. I didn't like how the Vendor felt like he was omniscient for as long as he needed to be, for as long as the story needed him to be, and then he was no longer omniscient. It is a common weakness in these books, sadly, and I wish the authors would stop doing that. It takes away from the villain, and it takes away from the story. The ending was both cool and bogus. Bogus, because now the Americans have control of the Vendor's fleet of automated shipping vessels that are floating factories but nothing will probably come of it. The "best thing" that could happen would be that the Vendor was supposed to send a code to these ships that was never received, and they all self-destructed to avoid falling into "enemy hands." Otherwise, these grand machines will go the way of every other unique and powerful bit of technology introduced in Cussler's books - ultimately forgotten even thought it would be of use in later stories. I did not believe that Cabrillo could defeat the Vendor. I felt like the Vendor should have killed Cabrillo fairly easily. It was one of the weaker fights, in my opinion, because of how outclassed Cabrillo was. And while I understand the Vendor's desire for revenge against Cabrillo for upsetting his plans like Cabrillo did, I still think the Vendor would have been able to set his emotions and passions aside to, if not outright kill Cabrillo, wound Cabrillo in such a way that he could take out his revenge on Cabrillo without Cabrillo being able to "win the fight". Also, when Raven and . . . MacD (I think it was MacD; I forgot to make a note of it) go to Central Europe to find some dude in response to an attack that occurred on some Italian peacekeepers/police officers. It was really weird and out in left field. Perhaps the Corporation's private transport is faster than I realized, but it only seems to be as fast as the story needs it to be, but it was "superfast" in this story. I would have expected it to take them longer to reach Croatia (or wherever they were going), perform their search, and then return to the Oregon in the . . . South Pacific-ish. That whole thing felt forced to me; maybe it is because I recently read his Jack Ryan, Jr., novel Line of Sight where the author goes on at length about the history of that region of Europe. I felt like he did that at little bit, too, in this book, but not to the same degree as the Jack Ryan Universe novel. And then you have the "MacGuffin" that Cabrillo uses to take over the drone network and kill the drone's operator, spoiling the Vendor's weapons demonstration. Part of me expected something like that to happen, and it was just too convenient and coincidental for me to appreciate it. I think I would have appreciated Cabrillo and Link accidentally coming upon the controller and taking him out or something instead of Cabrillo using tech from the Oregon to take over the drone network. I guess it goes back to my annoyance with the "omniscient-thing" that goes on. The Oregon's tech is not good enough to crack the Vendor's tech until it needs to be, and then the Oregon's tech can crack everything. It just gets annoying, especially when it feels like the author may have written himself into a hole but has a "get out of the hole free" card because of these MacGuffins. The device is probably more important than a "MacGuffin", but it still feels cheap and takes away from the story because it takes away from the heroes truly rising to the occasion and winning "honorably". I know it's stupid, but it bugged me when it happened in this story (moreso in this story, for some reason). Maybe because I felt the Vendor was fairly well-written as a villain, overall, and his end was not very satisfying. (hide spoiler)] The ending involving Callie is kuh-RAY-zee!!!! (view spoiler)[I figured he was not going to have this female character die, that he would not have the stones to have her die a heroic death. Granted, the author would probably have been accused of "fridging the girlfriend" if he had done that, but the way she was behaving and the cold, hard decision she made to sacrifice her life to save the island of Guam from the viral bomb onboard the Japanese drone submarine was powerfully written. That had to be one of the best moments in the book, and I could not believe the author had her sacrifice her life like she did to save essentially the world. And then it turned out she didn't die after all. Which I expected, and was torn about because it would have been a truly heroic death. But I would not have wanted her death to be a means of generating character development amongst the crew of the Oregon. So I am glad she survived, but had she died, what a way to go! (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[It's funny to read about these flying airplanes and shipping vessels that are completely automated floating factories. It's like the epitome of what we want technology to be - to perform all of this work for us, perfectly, every time, so that we can focus on other things in life. And yet, life is not like that. We see problems with technology and AI today where it does not function nearly as well as it does in this book - not even close. But it is still fun to read about, about technology working as well as it does in these books like we would prefer it to work in the real world, hahahah! (hide spoiler)] Overall, I enjoyed the book. I could maybe see myself reading it again in some distant future. I might have rated it 4 stars but for those moments I was pulled out of the story followed by some other issues that cropped up for me by the end of the book. I might rate it 3.5 stars, rounded down to 3 stars, but I did feel the author was a bit prescient in some of the material and scenes he presented, how he used technology in some of those moments. I am glad that I read this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 07, 2024
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Sep 08, 2024
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May 27, 2024
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Hardcover
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59
| 0399175962
| 9780399175961
| 0399175962
| 4.29
| 8,727
| May 31, 2016
| May 31, 2016
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really liked it
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This was a fun book and a relatively fast read for me. The way the book started off, I fully expected it to be one of "those books" where the villains
This was a fun book and a relatively fast read for me. The way the book started off, I fully expected it to be one of "those books" where the villains are omniscient and omnipresent the entire book right up until the moment they no longer are to allow the heroes to save the day. I was pleasantly surprised that the book veered away from that direction and surprised me in the end (well, other than the heroes saving the day, hahahah). The character development was decent (as much as these types of books can be that are a part of a series of books written by multiple authors); there was some development in terms of Juan Cabrillo's character, some development in terms of other members of the main cast, but most of the character development is in the form of side characters - the villains and/or peripheral characters who join the team for just the one book and then tend to disappear "forever" (unless they are brought back in a future book if they survive the current book). I love the technological aspects of these books, how they take either known technology or theoretical technology and then apply it to the narrative of the story. (view spoiler)[This book references Russian torpedoes capable of traveling well over 100 mph underwater because they release air bubbles that completely surround the torpedo so that it is like the torpedo is traveling through air and not water, rail guns, close-in defense lasers, superfast yachts, and some other bric-a-brac that makes its way into the book. It's a lot of fun to read, and I also enjoyed the means by which the author came up with ways to overcome the superior firepower and defenses of the Achilles so that the Oregon and crew could "win" in the end. (hide spoiler)] I think the author does a good job of explaining how the technology works without bogging down the story, and it is fun to read about the described technology in action. (view spoiler)[I also enjoyed the discussion about different types of coding that can be used, especially using various letters from certain words to spell out other words (especially in terms of phonetics). Like spelling "ghoti" spelling "fish" (pronounced like gh in tough, o in women, and ti in nation). It was described as a non-traditional spelling of words, but it is still a type of code, and it was pretty cool to learn about that. I never realized something like that existed, but it does make perfect sense. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I was surprised that one of the Oregon's crew members dies in this book. It does not happen very often, so I was not expecting Mike Trono to die in this book. So, in a way, the whole crew does undergo "character development" with the death of this character. I would not say it was a "meaningless death" or done for the purposes of shocking the reader or "character development", but it was still a surprise. I was not emotionally invested enough with the character for it to truly mean anything to me, and while I have not read the books in order, I don't recall anything in Typhoon Fury referencing Mike's death or how the crew was handling their grief. It has been a while since I read that book (maybe a year or so), which would also account for why I don't remember how the crew reacted or responded in the next book or so. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[The villains were suitably bloodthirsty, and there was plenty of "double-crossing" going on. It does start out with the villains appearing to be "everywhere" in terms of ensuring their plan to throw Europe into chaos and cast the blame on the Russians, but then their best-laid plans begin to slowly unravel and they obviously fail in the end. For the most part, I guess it was believable to me. Right up until the Russian treasure was discovered and then saved. Cabrillo and Co. are deliberately sent on a wild goose chase using digitally altered photos. They take the bait and fall for the faulty information. NUMA's contacts with the Lithuanian Maritime Academy ensures a Sea Ray powerboat would be ready for them in Vilnius "by dawn the next day" to explore the Neris River. You'd think that Golov and his daughter Ivana would have provided "better coordinates" to send them off course instead of being within eleven miles of the cathedral in Vilnius where the treasure was buried. I didn't believe that Cabrillo and Co. should have been able to make it in time to stop the villains from destroying the treasure stolen by Napoleon during his retreat from Russia back to France. I felt the treasure should have been destroyed. Part of me also felt the overall plan of Golov and Ivana should have succeeded but for the need for them to fail and Europe be saved from disaster. I did not believe that Golov's "mole" in the Lithuanian national gas utility company could not have shut down access to the cathedral "that night" or that Golov would have been wiling to wait until the next day. Plus, the false information given is supposed to be so believable that Cabrillo and Co. would have been too far away to make a difference. Sh'ah! Fat chance on that one! We are told that Cabrillo's two main "tech guys" are savvy enough to get through some of Shadowfoxe's encryption, but they still struggle to find a breakthrough until the right time when a breakthrough is necessary so that Cabrillo can supposedly make it to the cathedral in time to stop the Russian treasure from being destroyed. So, yeah, the whole scenario at the cathedral with Cabrillo and Co. making it "just in the nick of time" was not believable to me, which ruined the rest of the book for be because the rest of the book essentially hinges upon the success of Cabrillo and Co. keeping the treasure from being destroyed. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I did like that Joe Zavala and Kurt Austin make an appearance in this story. It was a fun "Easter egg" and tie-in to the NUMA Files stories; it did make me wonder if there is a story I haven't read that tells of this encounter from Kurt and Joe's points-of-view. That would be fun to read! In any case, I enjoyed the witty banter and repartee between Joe, Kurt, Juan, and Gretchen as they fought their way through the warehouse to finish their respective missions while working together to assist each other. It was a fun moment in the story. (hide spoiler)] I know I rated this 4 stars, but the fact remains that other than some of my gripes with the plot (and plot devices), I did enjoy this book quite a bit. It was a fun read, and I liked how it tied in some historical event with the narrative of the main story itself. I am glad that I read this book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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May 21, 2024
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May 25, 2024
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May 25, 2024
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Hardcover
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58
| 0399154973
| 9780399154973
| 0399154973
| 4.09
| 12,609
| Jun 03, 2008
| Jun 03, 2008
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it was ok
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This was okay. On the one hand, it does start out a bit slow, but the pace does pick up for a bit. However, the ending of the book feels very abrupt;
This was okay. On the one hand, it does start out a bit slow, but the pace does pick up for a bit. However, the ending of the book feels very abrupt; not that I really wanted the book to go on for any longer, it still felt like the author realized he was running out of pages and wasn't ready to finish, so he opted for a quick-and-easy solution (as it were) to end the book. The character development is so-so; it's hard to develop the main characters so most of the development has to come in the form of the villains or other side characters. I definitely felt like the book was riffing on Scientology, although I never picked up on Tom Cruise and the elements of the story involving "Cruise" ships - that was a nice tie-in that another reviewer noticed. I also felt like the story was either a bit of a "rip-off" or homage to Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (his story involves a group trying to wipe out most of humanity via a plague by introducing the virus at the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, and the infected spectators removing home to infect the respective populations of their countries and cities). (view spoiler)[At the same time, the whole "sterilizing the population" felt like an adaptation of a Dirk Pitt book in which I seem to recall a corporation run by exclusively beautiful women intended to sterilize men to reduce the male population on the planet, but I could be misremembering that book's plot or getting some different plots mixed up. Still, it was pretty diabolical - infecting the passengers and crew via the sheets and bedding that have to be washed nearly every day. I thought that was pretty solid. (hide spoiler)] The story jumps around quite a bit in terms of "time". I will get the impression that "a lot of time has elapsed" and it turns out it is only a single day (view spoiler)[mostly in terms of Linda and Mark on the cruise ship at the end of the book. The author describes how they are initially worried about being discovered as stowaways because they don't have a room in their name, so instead they hang out in the casinos all night playing the tables and find time and places to sleep during the day - and then the comment is made they have only been on board for a single day. If they've only been on board for a day, then what was with that whole segment implying they'd been on board for several days and found a workable system to avoid being discovered?!? It was idiotic. And then I do not remember Lydell Cooper aka Dr. Jenson leaving the island before the island is destroyed. It's not a huge deal, on the one hand, except that it feels like the author had him survive just so Cabrillo could throw him onto a glacier to die at the end of the book. It was a pretty unsatisfying, ending, to be honest. It felt like the Oregon was all over the place in this book. it felt like the vessel was practically teleporting from one place to another. I know it is a fast ship, but it felt like it could give the Millennium Falcon a run for its money in this story. Also, what happened to the people exposed on the Golden Sky? Are they infected or not? What were they initially infected with? It was such a weird ending, because you get the impression everybody is infected with something and it just might be more than a "common virus", and then that whole plot thread fails to pan out and go anywhere. It was such an odd ending to the boat. Also Cabrillo is so careful to hide the capabilities of his cargo ship to the rest of the world, yet he reveals how fast it is and some of its capabilities to the crew and passengers of the G0olden Sky? That made very little sense to me, and I won't buy any claims that nobody supposedly saw the Oregon coming up fast like it did or continue speeding along beside the fleeing cruise ship. It was a poor ending to the book. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I was shocked that Cabrillo actually had a team of 10-12 individuals with him when he boarded the second cruise ship at the end of the book. I was ecstatic to learn the names of some other crew members! Another disappointment as the author does not provide them with any names. Just a bunch of nameless, blank faces who have a brief moment of "glory" as a part of Cabrillo's boarding team. I thought Huxley's calling Juan to tell him to stop blaming himself for the death of the ship's officer thrown overboard to be a bunch of hooey. I would fully blame Cabrillo for what happened, as Kovac did not kill anybody until he saw the Oregon charging at him like the modified cargo ship did. Yeah, that dude's death was Cabrillo's fault. Cabrillo admitted he charged in recklessly and did not think about the consequences of his actions; Huxley's speech was as bunch of crap and completely untrue because it is possible Cabrillo could have gotten a team onboard to retake the cruise ship without so many ships' officers getting killed in the process. (hide spoiler)] There were a couple of moments I did like: (view spoiler)[ The first was using Stalin's Fist to drop a ginormous tungsten rod onto the island to destroy the island and save the world. That was pretty hard core! I liked Link taking the shot from the Oregon with his 50-cal to take out Kovac onboard the Golden Sky's bridge. That was pretty cool and a solid scene! I half-expected Cabrillo to do some kind of fancy shooting to save the day and the hostages, so it was nice when another character is able to take the shot and be the hero. Although Cabrillo firing with both of his pistols to take out different bad guys was pretty cool, too. There were a couple of solid moments in the book, too. The rescue team from Oregon exploring the Golden Dawn until the cruise ship started blowing itself apart. Good times! Or Eddie's escape in Rome - that was pretty good, too. I also liked their deciding to reach out to Kurt Austin at NUMA creating an excuse so Noah's Ark could be "found" and researched further. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[Now, I did think it was an interesting idea and good idea that the Japanese use bodies from "the Ark" for their medical experiments during WWII. That, and the cuneiform tablets that were found, were a welcome addition to the story, on the one hand. I was wondering how some of the disparate threads were to be wound together, and I was not disappointed, on the one hand. I thought that was also one of the better ideas behind the story. Whereas the first 100 pages or so was like a Mission Impossible/James Bond stunt to get the reader ready for the story but did not really fit into the rest of the narrative, using the mummified bodies of the dead crew onboard this ancient vessel was nicely done. The trip into space to regain control of the Russian weapons defense system was pretty cool - no lie there. I was surprised that the two sisters (Heidi and Hannah) survived and were not arrested at the end of the book. I found myself wondering if they would ever return as new villains seeking revenge against the Oregon and its crew for foiling their plans and killing both their father and Heidi's husband. (hide spoiler)] I find myself struggling to rate the book. I am torn between 2-stars and 3-stars (like, 2.5 rounded up), but I find myself disliking how it ended. It felt anticlimactic and frustrating, in some levels (mostly because of the Oregon - such as it surviving the tidal wave and my trying to figure out if other vessels would have been sunk by the wave or not, or how it would have affected the mainland of Turkey, or just how the Oregon was able to get to so many disparate places in such a short amount of time - it felt like the cargo ship was traveling faster than an airplane at times). I just felt like the book was lacking . . . something that would keep it at 3-stars for me (it did slide up from 2- to 3-stars about halfway through the book, and then started sliding back down after Max was captured). I don't know - I'll rate it 2-stars for now. Perhaps if I reread it again, I'll bump it up to 3-stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 24, 2024
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Mar 02, 2024
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Feb 24, 2024
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Hardcover
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57
| 0735219079
| 9780735219076
| B07911Z3W3
| 4.26
| 7,395
| Sep 11, 2018
| Sep 11, 2018
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liked it
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This one is a 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for me. I liked the throwback to D.F. Jones and his Colossus trilogy (about how two supercomputers (U.S. and U
This one is a 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 for me. I liked the throwback to D.F. Jones and his Colossus trilogy (about how two supercomputers (U.S. and U.S.S.R.) merged into one entity and took over the world; while that series spiraled downwards into garbage with each book, the first book [Colossus: The Forbin Project] was made into a movie). It was a pretty decent book until the very end when the crew of the Oregon had to get it together and save the world. The character development is so-so. The action is about par for the course for this series of stories. The technology is always a mix of fun, cool, and "futuristic" in nature. I actually kinda liked the villains more than I did the heroes in some respects - mostly because they were actually more interesting in this book (view spoiler)[and I liked the idea of the group of nine splintering into two factions opposing each other's plans of how to dominate the world. It was crazy how most of the group was murdered right away in the beginning of the book and the rest of the book involves the surviving two groups of villains trying to stop each other while the Oregon crew plays catchup. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I think the coolest idea in this story for me was the living biocomputer, how Colossus was "organically" grown and fed off plankton in the ocean. That was a pretty cool concept to me, and I thought it was pretty original. I don't know how feasible it might be, but it was still an interesting concept and not something I recall having read about before. Too, it was pretty cool when Colossus came online and started trying to figure out how to protect itself and use its "human master(s)" to try and save itself. That section of the book was pretty cool. I liked how it interacted with Carlton and how Dr. Chen became concerned about how quickly Colossus became not only self-aware but started exhibiting signs of independence. It was a somewhat interesting dynamic, and probably the most interesting part of the book for me. It definitely generated the most "suspense" for me when it came online and immediately detected the Oregon and the minisub and deduced both were hostile threats in such a short period of time. But I also knew it was not going to last (especially considering that Colossus would no doubt have shortly disposed of its human "masters" and begun trying to take control of the planet. I also liked the idea of satellites being used to "shoot" EMPs at targets around the globe was an interesting and fascinating idea; I enjoyed it quite a bit. It was interesting how Colossus and Vajra (the name of the satellite network) were such polar opposites to each other and it was like a mini-MAD race to see which "weapons system platform" would come online first and win the race for dominance. Granted, the idea behind Vajra also reminded me of the concept behind The Last Carrier series of books (about how some satellite weapon wipes out post-1950s technology and recreates global society as a result; there was also a recent series of books that had the same idea, but I don't remember the name of that series. Granted, my use of "MAD" is incorrect, and I realize it - each technology is radically different and could destroy the other technology. The goal of the Colossus project was to create a living AI that would remain subservient to humanity (well, the human "master" who controlled it) while allowing that human to control life on the planet by controlling technology (because of how much humanity has come to rely upon technology today, especially technology that requires computer chips and simpler forms of AI to exist and to function) whereas the goal of the Vajra project was to return the world to pre-1950s technology and insure that India would come out of the global change as the new, dominant world power because of how much of its industry and technology was not as computer/AI-based as the rest of the world. The description of the attack on Diego Garcia and the B-1 bomber coming in for a crash landing was pretty cool, too. Another well-written part of the book. Juan Cabrillo, the Chairman of the Corporation, getting shot in the chest like he did was a shock to me; I did not expect that, either. But he was wearing a bulletproof vest, so of course he survived. It was believable, but his getting shot like he did was still a surprise, and a nice job at that. I liked that McD destroyed all twenty of the Vajra satellites in orbit to ensure they could never be used again. Granted, it was pretty freaking convenient that all records of Colossus and the Vajra system were conveniently destroyed so that nobody else could ever replicate either system. The giant library of scrolls at the end of the book was pretty interesting and very reminiscent of Treasure to me. It was a fun way to end the book. (hide spoiler)] The latter part of the book kinda killed it for me. I just didn't believe the way it went down; I couldn't suspend my sense of disbelief enough to accept the ending. It was pretty weak to me, and felt both rushed and like the author was trying to wrap it up because he had written himself into a hole and could not figure out how to get out of the hole. (view spoiler)[I don't really believe the Oregon crew could have defeated the forces at the launch ship like they did let alone reach them in time in the Arabian Sea. I supposed the case could be made the Oregon was traveling on the backside of the monsoon, but it still did not sit right with me. Also, why wouldn't one of the Indian satellites pick up the Oregon if each satellite that flew overhead was performing a protective overwatch of the launch site? It did not make sense to me, but I could be making some assumptions I shouldn't be making (but for the ending being the weakest part of the book). Nor could I understand why Torkan didn't just fire the RPG into the control room of the command ship; it seemed bizarre to me he got into a speedboat. He could have destroyed the bridge of the command ship and then gone after Cabrillo and Co. at his leisure. But, noooo! After making smart choices the entire book, the author had him suddenly become stupid in order fore the story to progress. Granted, I must have skipped the part of him getting into a speedboat with multiple RPGs stashed aboard, but I was surprised to discover he had somehow transferred from the helicopter landing pad on the command ship to being in a helicopter. Mallik was supposed to be surrounded by an "army of ex-special forces" / mercenary characters who were among the best of the best (or so it was implied), yet they completely sucked at doing their job when it mattered the most versus a smaller group of "attackers" at the end of the book. (hide spoiler)] I really felt like the author had written himself into a whole by the end of the book and chose the most expedient and regrettable way out of the hole despite it not making any sense whatsoever (in my opinion). (view spoiler)[Nicole getting knocked out of the cargo hold of the A-380 by Carlton's Bugatti Chiron STRONGLY reminded me of Uncharted, hahahah! I am pretty sure this came out before the movie, but it still reminded me of Drake getting knocked out of the back of the C-17. It was a crazy scene, though, of Nicole popping open the cargo door to try and cause explosive decompression and yet Juan and Eddie not getting sucked out. I half expected the crew of the Oregon to take Carlton's green 1959 Cadillac convertible back to the United States and give it to Dirk Pitt, for some reason, hahahah. I thought it would have been fitting 'cuz of how it reminded me of the way Dirk always found exotic cars during his adventures and found ways to get them back to his garage outside of D.C. (hide spoiler)] Part of me wants to knock this down to a 2-star-book because of how unhappy I was with the ending and how everything resolved itself. But I hate to dock a book too much because of how badly parts of it were written (or the ending was written) when other parts of the book were actually good and held my interest throughout. I will leave it three stars for now (because there were moments I really liked and enjoyed) and adjust it later if I reread the book and thinks it needs to be a two star instead. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 28, 2024
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Feb 03, 2024
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Jan 28, 2024
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Kindle Edition
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56
| 059354398X
| 9780593543986
| B0BP72L4K6
| 4.41
| 4,427
| Sep 05, 2023
| Sep 05, 2023
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really liked it
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I enjoyed this book. It was fun to read; it had a good mix of mystery, humor, and action. The character development is decent (mostly the new characte
I enjoyed this book. It was fun to read; it had a good mix of mystery, humor, and action. The character development is decent (mostly the new characters; Kurt and Joe remain pretty true to form throughout the book). I liked how the idea of using airships in the modern world was introduced and developed over the course of the novel; I could see something like that happening (maybe). The other bits of technology (view spoiler)[the various drones, the solid-state battery, and the ability to create nearly microscopic wafers in the form of "silicone dust particles" that allowed a person to be controlled once inhaled (hide spoiler)] "scattered" throughout the book helped make the book fun to read as well; I thought the author did a solid job of blending the technology in with the story and not overwhelming the reader with information dumps. The book held my interest from start-to-finish, and it was a fast read for me. It was interesting - I felt like the book focused almost exclusively on Kurt and Joe, that Gamay and Paul were strongly sidelined in this story. I don't think they showed up until nearly halfway through the book, and even then, they do not appear very much afterwards, either. Considering how an important part they have played in previous stories, I was surprised at how little they played in this book. (view spoiler)[I wasn't sure how Kurt was going to beat being injected with the silicone dust particles, but I thought the author did a reasonable job explaining how Kurt was able to beat the villainous programming and retain his own mental faculties. On the one hand, he overrode some of the initial 'programming" through sheer force of will, and then once he regained control of his thoughts, he was able to create his own "mental programming" that allowed him to overcome the foes around him and then free his friend Joe from the mental programming. I think he may have jolted himself with electricity, too, which helped disrupt the initial effects of the attempts at mind control. It was pretty hard-core, though how Kurt ensured the particles inside of him were "shut down" - he zapped himself several times with electricity to ensure the dust-sized miniature control panels were completely short-circuited and no longer an issue. Joe got the electroshock treatment as well, which was somewhat humorous in its own way. I also thought it was interesting how the two airships at the end (Condor and Eagle) fought their "air battle" before the "good guys" won in the end. It was a crazy idea on the part of the Cuban officer/master spy - to take control of a U.S. nuclear submarine to blackmail the United States into acquiescing to Cuban demands while Cuba rewrote their future. He intended to create an incident at Guantanamo Bay using the dust to distract the Americans while he used some sleight of hand to capture a ballistic submarine and swap out the crew. The prize in the form of the submarine waited on the surface as the two airships battled overhead. It was a well-written segment of the book. I thought at first all of the villains were going to be captured by the end of the book, so I was a little surprised when Kurt uses either a grenade launcher or heat-seeking missile to take out the main villain has he fled in a motorboat. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I strongly enjoyed that the enemies were not "omniscient" in this book like has seemed to be the case in other books. Those kinds of stories are always frustrating, when the enemy is "always" omniscient and omnipotent throughout the entire story, except for the moments where the villain cannot be omniscient or omnipotent in order to give the heroes a chance. That was not the case in this book, for which I was grateful because I felt it improved the book. The heroes were not given "cheats" that insulted the reader to win in the end, to overcome the villain's villainy. Instead, the heroes were able to win based on their smarts, their skills, and their grit (determination). (hide spoiler)] The last line of the book is fun: when asked, "where should we go?", he replies "to wherever the next adventure begins!" A solid ending for a fun book. (view spoiler)[One thing that is somewhat funny to me is how the authors introduce some women into the mix for either Kurt or Joe, but it never really seems to go anywhere. There are two women introduced in this book as potential partners for Joe and Kurt, and only Joe seems to end up with a promise of a future "date" from the NUMA doctor (Dr. Pascal) upon his return to NYC. I thought Kurt might develop more of a relationship with Commander Wells, but it was not to be. Also, it was odd having Commander Wells in the story - there were times it felt like the author forgot he had included her in the escapades of Kurt and Joe. She would "be there" in the mix with them, and then just suddenly seem to disappear, only to reappear when her presence was most needed. I kinda felt bad for her - she was a pretty cool character, and it seemed a shame the author did not utilize her more than he did and even forgot she was with Kurt and Joe at times it would have been beneficial for her to be there and be a part of their team. It was fun seeing Rudy and Hiram in the story, too. I liked the parts they played, and I felt that Rudi got a bit more character development in this story than he usually does because we were introduced to an old Navy friend of his who was still in the Navy, but in Naval Intelligence. (view spoiler)[And kudos to the author on making Rudi's Navy friend an unwilling mole and spy; I felt something was off about him when he was introduced, but then I decided the author was just messing with me about this Navy officer's status, but then the author pulled a nice "triple cross" and introduced this commander as a brainwashed flunky. I wasn't "surprised"-surprised, but still thought it was nicely done. (hide spoiler)] it is always funny to me to read Kurt and Joe interacting with these two characters. I think it is because Dirk and Al always interacted with Admiral Sandecker directly as well as Rudi and Hiram in nearly every story, and yet Kurt and Joe rarely seem to interact with Dirk and Al anymore. It feels like something is "missing", sometimes, but I also understand the dynamics "have changed" with Dirk now being in charge of NUMA and Sandecker being the V-P of the United States. (hide spoiler)] It was a fast read; it was a fun read. It held my attention from start to finish, and I am glad that I read this book. I could see myself reading it again. Next time I might bump it down to 3-stars, but for now, 4-stars it is. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 27, 2023
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Dec 03, 2023
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Dec 03, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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55
| 059354417X
| 9780593544174
| 059354417X
| 4.35
| 6,245
| Nov 07, 2023
| Nov 07, 2023
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really liked it
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I enjoyed this book. A lot more than I thought I would. It moved at a fast pace; however, it was almost funny in how the plot went - it was like every
I enjoyed this book. A lot more than I thought I would. It moved at a fast pace; however, it was almost funny in how the plot went - it was like every action let to a comical reaction of sorts. I am not sure how to describe it, but the way the circumstances kept laying out made me laugh more than once while reading. In some ways, it felt like a return to the Dirk Pitt of old in how the story progressed. In other ways, it was definitely not the Dirk of old (view spoiler)[considering how much trouble he has with guns, still, and how he does not carry his 1911 Colt .45 pistol. Then you have Brigitte, who would clearly have been Dirk's love interest were he not married; instead. there is a scene involving Brigitte and her lover that is reminiscent of Dirk in his younger days (hide spoiler)]. (view spoiler)[It really is comical, how much trouble he and Al have with guns. It seemed like every time either one of them picked up a gun that had been fired by a henchman, the weapon was "magically" out of bullets whereas before there was usually always plenty of rounds left in the magazine for either Al or Dirk to use. I guessed the "plot twist" by accident. A character reacted oddly (to me) and made me wonder if said person was "a villain" (or unwilling accomplice). Turns out I was right, for once, hahahah.. I also liked how Dirk has his father be the Commandant at West Point; that was a fun throwback to me regarding how Clive started inserting himself into his stories. It was a little corny, but it was still a nice touch in the book. I enjoyed the West Point cadets being volunteered to help Dirk and Al save the day. It was amusing to read a book about Dirk being in the field despite being the head of NUMA. One would think he would stop going in the field at some point, that his responsibilities as the head of NUMA would force him to remain bound to his desk. I guess not. Going back to the author's disdain for guns: the author refuses to have Dirk carrying around his .45 pistol or being able to use the enemy's weapons (guns) against them, but he (the author) has no issues whatsoever about Dirk setting off a gas-based explosion that blows the main villain's body into meaty chunks that land all over the landscape. Guns: bad. Explosively blowing a human body part so that it rains body parts from the sky: GOOD! It is an odd dichotomy to me, hahahahah. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[Summer and Dirk, Jr., are hardly in this book it seemed. Dirk, Jr., is arrested and placed in jail for a crime he did not commit. This gets him out of the way for the rest of the book. Summer goes onto a pirate vessel to look for her brother and fails to realize he has escaped; she is trapped for most of the remainder of the book on this cargo vessel. I forget at what point she was captured, but it was still funny how the author pretty much removed Dirk's children from the story. (hide spoiler)] Four stars is probably too high for this book, but I really enjoyed it. I did not put a lot of mental effort into the book; I actually had a pretty low bar for it. Perhaps that low bar is why I enjoyed it so much and the next time I read the book I will grade it differently. In any case, it was a fun book to read and reminded me of Dirk's old adventures in a wistful sort of way. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 25, 2023
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Nov 26, 2023
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Nov 26, 2023
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Hardcover
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54
| 0593543947
| 9780593543948
| B0BBQ46VJ6
| 4.41
| 6,476
| Jun 06, 2023
| Jun 06, 2023
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really liked it
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This book was a lot of fun to read, overall. Granted, the "super soldiers" plot kinda reminded me of Typhoon Fury (view spoiler)[except that the super
This book was a lot of fun to read, overall. Granted, the "super soldiers" plot kinda reminded me of Typhoon Fury (view spoiler)[except that the super soldiers in this story were altered using CRISPR technology as well as other alterations to their body based upon transhumanism, trying to shift certain groups of humans to "Humanity 2.0" yet being able to control those who are genetically enhanced (hide spoiler)]. It moved at a fast pace; it held my interest; it was a lot of fun to read. The character development was decent, I guess. It is always hard to "develop" an existing character or team of characters in a series of books because they still have to remain true to their core identities so that the readers do not lose interest in them; in addition, there are so many different authors in the books that it can become difficult to keep track of true character development in prior novels. (view spoiler)[I half-expected some of the team members to die in this novel, especially "minor" or "supporting" characters onboard the Oregon because the author has "the unthinkable" happen - the Oregon is boarded by a hostile force of four enhanced individuals; I expected a bloodbath to occur at one point but it never happened. And then you had the "mobile attack group" attacking a camp "filled" with these enhanced soldiers and the camp is easily taken out with zero casualties to the Oregon's team(s). Had any team members actually died, that would have led to some strong character growth as each surviving member of the crew would have had to process those losses. (hide spoiler)] Actually, I did forget some amazing character development. (view spoiler)[Maurice, the ship's steward, has always been an enigma to me; I have read the books haphazardly, so I have do not know if more about Maurice's background was revealed in prior books. In this book, we get the intro chapter of the book to discover some of Maurice's earlier military history before he retired from the British Navy and joined Juan Cabrillo's crew. That was pretty cool. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I did not really believe that Juan could have survived the beating he took from Hightower's subject onboard her research vessel. He gets beaten badly, has some broken ribs as well as other bruised bones and tissue, but ends up leading a mission. The way it was described, I don't think he could have survived his fight. But that is just my opinion. I felt that the author took Cabrillo to an unbelievable "level" of survivability in this book and it took me out of the moment. Maybe he could have; I have read military biographies and military history books that have described military personnel undergoing crazy extreme wounds and surviving, so anything is possible, I guess. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I think I had looked up a C-130 landing and taking off of an aircraft carrier before, because that was mentioned in this book, too, and I was, "Bunk! That could never happen!" And then I looked it up and discovered it did happen! That would have been pretty crazy, to be on an aircraft carrier and watching a C-130 coming in to not only land but take off multiple times with its payload being increased for the next time it landed. That was pretty cool to revisit! I also liked how Juan used one of the stolen missiles to take out the other stolen missile (hidden onboard a cargo vessel in an Iranian port. It was sad to read about the damage done to the port as I can only assume numerous innocent civilians and military personnel going about their normal business were killed, but it was still a cool moment. Granted, I "saw it coming" and figured he would probably use the one missile to take out the other. I loved that he was able to use the shotgun shell in the heal of his boot to help him win a later fight. That was pretty cool to read about, and funny as well. At the same time, it was interesting to read about how Juan and his team sought to use non-lethal methods to attack the secret training camp at the abandoned monastery; that was pretty cool and well-written, I thought. Juan and his team went to some lengths to make sure nobody was killed unless there was no other option despite it putting themselves at greater risk (because the bad guys would clearly not be holding back on trying to kill Oregon's crew. (hide spoiler)] The book did have a lot of humor scattered throughout; I remember laughing at times while reading, but I do not remember what I found funny. I feel like I wanted to say more about the book, but I cannot remember what it would have been. if it comes back to me and I feel is worth telling, I will add it to my review with a note. It was a good book; it was a fun read and a fast read. I enjoyed the blending of current technological levels with advanced theories and advanced levels of technology to extrapolate how things might turn out if such technology was more prevalent today. (view spoiler)[I also liked that one of the villains survived. Maybe they will show up again in a later book but deadlier than ever? (hide spoiler)] I am glad I started reading this series as it has been a lot of fun to read and I do feel fairly invested in this series of books (maybe not quite like the Dirk Pitt books, but still invested enough). It was a fun read. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 20, 2023
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Jun 25, 2023
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Mar 26, 2023
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Kindle Edition
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53
| 0399167323
| 9780399167324
| 0399167323
| 4.25
| 8,056
| May 26, 2015
| May 26, 2015
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liked it
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This was a frustrating book. I wanted to like it more than I did, but throughout most of the book the villain(s) are "omniscient" and practically omni
This was a frustrating book. I wanted to like it more than I did, but throughout most of the book the villain(s) are "omniscient" and practically omnipresent to the point of ridiculousness, right up to the point where they needed to start failing and the Oregon crew started faking them out and tricking them lest the bad guys win in the end. The concept behind the villains being "omniscient-until-they-just-weren't-anymore" was pretty cool, in my opinion, and had me scratching my head throughout the entire book as to how they knew what they knew and were able to practically be one step ahead of everybody else. But then it falls apart and the Oregon crew is able to save the day and save the world. The latter part of the book was a lot of fun, though, and did keep me on the edge of my seat, so that was a good thing. The title is misleading, too, in some ways. (view spoiler)[We eventually discover that Piranha is a new submersible drone that drills into the sides of ships to sink them. It was another cool concept in the book, to be honest, but then about halfway through the book they are no longer a factor because of how the "main villain" of the book has them all either self-destruct or dive to the bottom of the ocean to avoid being captured and studied. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I think the biggest flaw in the book is that the villain's device appears to be omnipresent in terms of the information it can absorb and reveal to the bad guy (I don't remember his name and my book is . . . somewhere else at the moment so I cannot look up the dude's name) whatever he wants to know. And this guy knows scads and scads of information, of dirty laundry, of loathsome secrets, of things people want kept hidden, of top secret information, throughout the first half of the book. It got really old, really quick, how the villain knew "everything" there was to know and yet when it came time to kill the main characters of the Oregon's version of an "A-Team", of the ship's leadership, suddenly that omniscience fails and now, suddenly, the villain can only focus on one person or one specific location at a time. That kinda killed the book for me, on the one hand, because of how dramatically it changed the focus and tempo of the book. The other "biggest flaw" is how the villain's "henchmen" are always where they need to be, several steps ahead of the heroes, until such time when it is no longer "convenient" for them to remain ahead of the heroes and the heroes start catching up or catching the villains unaware. I strongly dislike it when authors do that - make the villains so much smarter and ten-to-fifteen steps ahead until the villains suddenly have to lose their intelligence and heads start and become extremely stupid and idiotic and start making stupid mistakes so that the good guys can win. That is the way it was in this book - the heroes were always behind until the villains suddenly took a bunch of stupid pills or hit ever branch in the stupid tree while falling to the ground. (hide spoiler)] There were some moments in the book that I liked. I remember liking them as I read the book. Now, though, I cannot remember what those moments were, hahahah! (view spoiler)[One thing that was crazy-cool was when this one cargo vessel is attacked. In order to save her cargo ship, the captain essentially floods part of the ship so that it is floating on its side so that the damaged part of the hull is above water. References are made to other cargo ships that also had mishaps and ended up floating "on their sides" in the water, so I looked those moments up AND THEY TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE!!!! It was CRAZY!!!! I could scarcely believe some of the images I saw of these massive cargo ships floating on their sides. So that was pretty cool to read about. It was also crazy that the villain was able to co-opt a flight of F-16 drones that were to be used in a demonstration and plan to use them to attack Air Force II. That was pretty crazy to me! The idea stemmed from the Iranians claiming they shot down and captured a U.S. drone a year or two before this book was written; I did not remember hearing about that in the news so I looked it up and educated myself. Lo and behold, it was true as well! But the plan works and I don't remember exactly how the Oregon's crew saves the day, but they do indeed save the day and VP (Admiral) Sandecker lives to face another day. Another thing that was cool was the Metal Storm guns onboard the Oregon. They are primarily a defensive weapon but can be used offensively against close-in targets if the need arises. I first remember hearing (reading) about Metal Storm "guns" in John Ringo's When the Devil Dances and Hell's Faire sci-fi novels. And then I find out that there was such a weapon that was built by an Australian inventor! How cool is that! This gun is crazy and completely bad to the bone; it uses electricity to fire each layer of rounds explosively out of the barrel, and it can create a crazy protective screen of metal between the ship and an incoming warhead (in this book's case, missiles). It's a cool concept (that I did a poor job explaining) and the author does a great job describing how it works in the book as well as the aftermath of it being fired. I cannot explain the concept behind the device that is used by the villain to be able to zoom in on any place or person he so desires except that it works at "the quantum level" and some theories about how being able to tap into a kind of "quantum vibration" on a specific frequency gives the villain his apparent omnipresence and omnipotence because it allows him to "watch" whatever or whoever he wants in "real time." I'm not doing the concept justice, but it was still pretty cool. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[It is funny how St. Julien Perlmutter is sometimes described in such a way as sounding incredibly fat in some books and other books it must be a mix of fat and muscle; in this book it seems like he is described as being 400 pounds of solid mass (I assume most of it muscle with a thick layer of cushion?). Then I vaguely remember reading some Dirk Pitt books that make it sound like he has become so large that he cannot exit his unique home and so has all of his food either cooked-and-catered or groceries delivered, and yet in many of the NUMA Files and Oregon Files books he can be found outside of his home and even in other countries; one time he actually participates in an "adventure" on the Rock of Gibraltar, crazily enough! But he does take a bit of an active part in this book, too (as he also had an important role in Corsair and the events that transpired in that novel). (hide spoiler)] I'll rate it three stars because the ending saved the book. I disliked most of it enough to give it two stars. But the last one eighty, one hundred pages were really, really good and would bump it up to 2.5, 2.6 stars. So I will round it up to 3 stars. In any case, I am glad that I read the book. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 22, 2023
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Mar 07, 2023
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Mar 05, 2023
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Hardcover
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52
| 0399155392
| 9780399155390
| 0399155392
| 4.14
| 10,434
| Mar 10, 2009
| Mar 10, 2009
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liked it
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It's funny; I liked this book but felt like it took longer to read than it did. It started out kind-of slow for me, but then the pace did pick up towa
It's funny; I liked this book but felt like it took longer to read than it did. It started out kind-of slow for me, but then the pace did pick up towards the end. I would say it has three stories going on in parallel, if you will, but it all comes together at the end (it felt like three stories; maybe it was two that split into three before coming together . . . ). The character development is decent; the action gets pretty crazy(-good) in parts throughout the book; most importantly, it held my interest enough for me to finish the book. Actually, the best part was the ending (and not because the book was "finally over!" but because of how it ended - I expected it to go in one direction and it went in a different direction, but it was still a cool ending). The "action" parts that I liked were reminiscent of some crazy moments in the earlier Dirk Pitt books. It's been long enough since I read the book (and I foolishly read a second book and started a third before working on this review), so we'll see if I can keep it straight in my head. (view spoiler)[Actually, the "beginning" of the book was pretty nuts. The Oregon and crew are posing as down-on-their-luck sailors in order to catch a wanted terrorist. They allow the ship to be captured and piloted through a swamp to the leader's camp. After the leader boards the ship, all purgatory breaks loose as most of the terrorists and all of the villagers onboard are driven off the ship. The leader is trapped inside the Oregon as the ship backs its way out of the swamp to escape. I truly expected that moment in the book to be "over with" and did not expect the terrorists to attack the larger cargo vessel with smaller vessels and then from the shore with armed vehicles. It was a good moment. Juan Cabrillo and crew are sent to Libya to search for a downed U.S. government aircraft; he and three others enter the country under assumed identities. Once they discover the crash site, they realize that the site has been tampered with and a group has made the crash look worse than it was when it happened. A group of soldiers lands and Cabrillo knocks one out and takes his place on the chopper after the soldiers further desecrate the site. The other three team members are given a new mission and continue their search for some other missing Americans. While being transported to a secret terrorist training camp, Cabrillo sees another camp for prisoners, escapes from the training camp, and makes his way to this prison camp. He rescues an American woman who had been captured and escapes with her; they encounter an escaped Libyan prisoner who aids them. The other three members of Cabrillo's team meets up with them and they go to rescue the prisoners from the camp. For some reason, what comes next really reminded me of a cross between the escape down the Colorado ski slope in Treasure and the train scene in Sahara. The camp is attacked and all of the surviving prisoners loaded into cargo carrier cars. They go through all sorts of crazy, short battles as they flee for the coast and are saved by the Oregon at the end of the line. I am not doing the moment justice, but it was crazy cool in the book. The "third" crazy moment for me was when the Oregon attacked a Libyan Navy frigate in an attempt to board the vessel and free the beautiful American Secretary of State. Cabrillo is the only one who makes the jump to the Libyan ship and he manages to rescue the American official all by his lonesome. The whole naval battle was nuts and cool at the same time. Actually, there was a fourth moment I can't believe I forgot about. Two of the Oregon crew are sent into a port city to keep an eye on this "informant." When they are told to rescue this guy, the crewmembers are separated. As it turns out, the man they "rescue" is actually the leader of the terrorist group that captured the American Secretary-of-State and the other crewman driving the getaway car is shot sideways through the chest and nearly dies for his troubles! I did not see that one coming! It was an epic moment and caught me completely by surprise; definitely one of the better moments in the book. (hide spoiler)] There are two "goals" that must be accomplished by the end of the book. (view spoiler)[There is a big gunfight, too, before the second "main goal" is accomplished. There are two goals: (1) find Secretary of State Fiona Katamora and rescue her in time to get her to a peace conference being held in Tripoli because it is believed she is the only one who can bring peace to the Middle East, and (2) find some ancient manuscripts written by a revered Muslim religious leader-turned-pirate because it is believed he turned from his violent methods and embraced peace, discovering how Christianity, Islam, and possibly Judaism can co-exist in peace and harmony. The first goal is accomplished when Cabrillo boards the Libyan vessel and rescues Katamora. The second goal involves finding the burial site/resting place of the former pirate and his vessel, the Sidra. The location is found by a search team from the Oregon, but the team ends up being split in two (a team of four and a team of one). The four find the burial site buried in a cavern under the desert, but the Libyan terrorists also searching for the site are hard on their heels. A gunfight ensues inside the cavern and the members of the Oregon crew nearly die. They are instead rescued by their "missing" teammember who joined the party late but wiped out the remaining terrorists in the cave. The lost manuscripts have been found, and this could be a turning point in relations between the three Western religions. I am not sure why, but this "giant gunfight" was kind-of disappointing to me; I am not sure why. Perhaps because I felt like there should have been two more "gun dogs" with this party, at the very least, but it still worked out in the end. (hide spoiler)] Why did I like the ending so much? (view spoiler)[It involves a "myth" (for lack of a better word) that when Thomas removed his hands from Jesus' open wounds when Jesus appeared before the disciples after His resurrection, his hands were covered in blood. He carefully removed the blood and kept it in a vial or some kind of container. It was eventually stored in some kind of crystal (a heart-shaped crystal, I think), and this crystal container was eventually captured as booty by this Muslim pirate-king. The crystal is found but damaged from the gunfight. The remaining blood spills onto the wounds of one of the "gun dogs" as well as into the sand, and the wounded gun dog immediately scoops up the bloody sand as best as he can and puts it into a container to try and preserve it. Now, I fully expected the blood that intermingled with his to heal his wounds immediately (he does seem to heal faster than normal). However, the direction the author(s) went was to say that there was enough surviving blood to run a test. Nothing that could be conclusively proved (and, of course, there is no more blood to test or study), but there was enough blood to indicate that this was probably male blood but that all of the blood "DNA" contained female mitochondrial DNA. The chromosomes proved it was male blood, but the male blood had one hundred percent mitochondrial DNA; there was no DNA from the father as it was all from His mother. so that was pretty cool and not the way I expected the authors to go. (hide spoiler)] I liked it more than 2 stars; I'd probably rate it 2.5-2.8 stars (as it did seem to drag a little bit in places, and I felt like it could have been a little shorter) rounded up to 3 stars. I am glad I took a chance on reading it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 04, 2023
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Feb 08, 2023
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Feb 04, 2023
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Hardcover
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51
| 0399575588
| 9780399575587
| B06WRQG5NS
| 4.32
| 7,385
| Nov 07, 2017
| Nov 07, 2017
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liked it
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This was a fun book to read. It starts off fast right away and never really lets up. It held my attention throughout and really was a fast read for me
This was a fun book to read. It starts off fast right away and never really lets up. It held my attention throughout and really was a fast read for me (such are the joys of reading when on break at work); I had a hard time putting it down. (view spoiler)[The opening chapter was crazy, especially how it ends. Some of the paperwork captured by the American forces indicates the Japanese have moved mass production of the Typhoon drug to Hiroshima. A few days later: BOOOM! I was "holy cow!" as the author(s) managed to add a new layer to the bombing of Hiroshima. It was also interesting that the Americans designed this "super soldier serum" and the Japanese took the material they found and expanded on it. In many ways, it did really remind me of Captain America and all that, but I also recognize that governments and militaries constantly seek ways to improve their soldiers and the ability of their soldiers to fight and survive wounds received while fighting. I did not expect the drug to be as addictive as it turned out to be, or that the "user" had to take regular doses lest their body start devouring itself while going through withdrawals. It was realistic take on this experimental drug, and I liked that the Juan decided it was best if the information remaining regarding this drug never saw the light of day; it was reasonable decision on his part, I felt, and he took the best possible action that could be taken. The U.S. military and government might have decided in the 1940s that this drug was not the best way to go because of the immediate consequences they could see when it was taken over an extended period of time; in today's world, government and military leaders are cocky enough to think they could control the side effects of taking the drug and cause long-term problems down the road they could not foresee. I looked up the art heist mentioned in the book that also helps introduce two of the main characters in the book who are not part of the Oregon's crew (the 1990 robbery of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston). That was nuts! I don't remember if the book mentioned it, but I discovered that the frames holding the stolen works of art remain in place in the museum as a sign of hope that these precious, priceless works of art will be returned and able to be put back on display. Three of the stolen pieces were cut out of their frames; I cannot even imagine the damage done to them in the process! I also learned that one Earl Tupper actually did create Tupperware in 1942 and it was not released to the public until 1946. So it is entirely possible that he could have created containers to be used by the U.S. military to store materials and protect them while in-transit from any kind of environmental damage or contamination. That was pretty cool to learn, too. I liked that NUMA was mentioned, albeit in passing. A U.S. destroyer from WWII had been found offshore of one of the Philippine Islands and NUMA was going to investigate the sunken vessel to make sure it was (relatively) safe and there were no dangers of unexploded ammunition onboard the sunken vessel. I found myself wishing that Gerhard Bekker had survived the explosion of his ship. I thought he was an interesting villain and far more interesting than Locsin. I am not sure why - he just struck me as an interesting character and foil for Cabrillo. Granted, he was also a good foil for Locsin as well. There were some fun chase scenes in the book. Two main ones, I guess. Raven chases after Beth's kidnappers in a large vehicle used at airports. That was nuts! And then you have the helicopter chase through a gigantically enormous cavern system that extends out of the cavern and into the path of a typhoon. I also liked that the Oregon had to move with the typhoon's eye to ensure their helicopter could safely land onboard the vessel. Now that was crazy! And pretty cool to read, too. But not as cool as the chase in the caverns (even though the chase in the caverns culminated in the villain's copter crashing into the eye wall whereas Cabrillo's chopper had exited the cavern with enough time to make it safely to the Oregon. The authors did a nice job with that part of the book. I also enjoyed reading how they used their "main cannon" to take out a Jeep 4x4 filled with the Typhoon drug during the calm of the storm in the typhoon's eye. Pretty cool stuff! I also liked the play on words regarding the drug called “Typhoon” and the book ending with the Oregon’s crew trying to stop the villains, rescue a captive team member, and save the stolen pieces of art all at the same time from an approaching typhoon. That was a fun play on words. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[For some reason, there were parts of the book that did slow down. Or the pacing seemed to slow down. I am not sure why, other than it did seem to get a little bit repetitive. One thing that got really old, really quick, was constantly being told how addictive the drug was and what would happen once a person addicted to the drug had it taken away from them, how they suffered in pain and agony as their body devoured itself. Locsin got to be annoying by the end of the book. I am not sure why he got annoying to me. Perhaps it was because he seemed to start "losing his mind" and ability to think clearly as the book went on (but that is still one of the side effects of the Typhoon drug). Still, though - he did go out in a horrible way (after surviving his helicopter's crash when it "collided" with the wall marking the boundary of the typhoon's eye). He was strapped down in a medical facility as his body ate itself alive as he went through his withdrawal pains. (hide spoiler)] It was a good book, overall. A lot of fun to read (which was a pleasant surprise as I was really disappointed with the cover of the book. Not a big fan of that cover, lol!). It kept me entertained. It held my interest basically from start-to-finish. It had some surprises for me in the story. I am glad that I took a chance and read it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 07, 2022
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Dec 16, 2022
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Dec 07, 2022
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Kindle Edition
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50
| 0671026704
| 9780671026707
| 0671026704
| 3.99
| 13,587
| Jun 01, 1999
| Jun 01, 1999
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liked it
|
This was a fun book to read even though it feels like you could easily replace Kurt and Joe with Dirk and Al and not miss a beat. It held my interest
This was a fun book to read even though it feels like you could easily replace Kurt and Joe with Dirk and Al and not miss a beat. It held my interest from start-to-finish, and I did find myself wondering how much the elements of this book influenced the 7th book in the series (The Navigator). The character development is decent; the plot was good; it starts out with a crazy explanation of why the Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish cargo ship and moves at a quick pace from there. One thing about this book, though - it was nearly three or four chapters before Kurt and Joe are introduced. That was crazy! I did not expect that to happen; I figured at the very least Kurt would be introduced to the reader right away. (view spoiler)[I did enjoy the meeting between Kurt and Joe with Dirk and Al. Dirk and Al are leaving for a mission in Antarctica and the four men stop to briefly speak with each other. Kurt and Joe's comments about how odd it was to see Dirk and Al not wearing any bandages or using crutches to get around was pretty funny. It's still kind-of an odd moment, though, because the four talk like they are old friends and have had many adventures together or talked about said adventures, and yet Kurt and Joe are never mentioned in the Dirk Pitt books. I realize the authors had to introduce the two characters in some way that would get the audience to accept them more easily, and what better way than to write them as being old friends and acquaintances of Dirk and Al? It is also funny how much Gamay Trout does not like guns in this book. She and a Mexican anthropologist are chased throughout a good chunk of the book by a gang of grave robbers. At some points, Dr. Chi (I cannot remember his first name) is able to get a hold of guns and use them to defend the two of them; Gamay will use a gun as well, but there is a definite distaste on her part to use them and she does not shoot very well. At some point in the books this changes, and perhaps it is because of what happens and nearly happens in this book that changes her attitude about using guns and shooting people. In any case, after having read "later" books where she is a crack shot, can shoot better than her husband, and has no issues shooting "bad guys", to read about her not being a good (crack) shot and willing to freely shoot another human being with the intent to kill in order to protect herself or loved ones is pretty amusing to me. I also liked the description of how the armored car in the hold of the Andrea Doria was still hanging by the cables used to tie it down from what was now "the side of the wall" because of the way the ship sank. That was a pretty cool description and well-done as I could see it in my mind's eye. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I did feel like that whole "chase scene" went on longer than it ought to have and that it started dragging the book's pacing down. I was glad when she and the good doctor were finally rescued. It was funny, too, how bad Kurt was when it came to shooting guns; I keep expecting him to be a better shot than he turns out to be. Still, though - it was cool how the helicopter was used to try and blow the raft that Gamay and Chi were on to shore and then use it to spill the pursuers into the river to die. (view spoiler)[It was also crazy that Kurt and Joe found the remains of Christopher Columbus - that was fun to read. (hide spoiler)] I did not understand why the main villain did not send his henchman to get the stone they needed right away. It made zero sense that Kurt and Joe (keep wanting to type "Dirk and Al", hahahah!) made it to the sight of the Andrea Doria before Guzman and his team. It seemed like too much time had passed for Guzman not to have organized a search party himself and descended to the sunken liner to get the stone that they needed to be able to finish figuring out the coordinates of the treasure they were trying to find. It did feel like a bit of a mix of other stories, oddly enough. Mostly some of the elements in Night Probe! when it came to diving on the sunken liner and then trying to get the precious item from the armored car. (hide spoiler)] If I can think of anything else to say later, I will add it as need be. It was a fun book to read; the author(s) did a nice job of introducing this new team that may or may not replace Dirk and Al at some point in the future. it had some interesting interpretations of history that were fun to read about as well as to research a little bit to find out the "historical record" behind what the authors are describing. I was pleased to find myself enjoying this book more than I expected, and I could see myself rereading it again at some point in the future. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 07, 2022
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Nov 11, 2022
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Nov 11, 2022
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Paperback
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49
| 0593087917
| 9780593087916
| 0593087917
| 4.44
| 8,130
| Nov 10, 2020
| Nov 10, 2020
|
really liked it
|
This was a fun book to read. It takes place a few months after The Final Option with a skeleton crew of the Oregon giving their new ship a shakedown r
This was a fun book to read. It takes place a few months after The Final Option with a skeleton crew of the Oregon giving their new ship a shakedown run and their responding to a distress call. From there, the action just keeps going (as does the mystery). The book felt like it was fast-paced and a quick read; granted, I was reading it mostly over breaks at work but it still felt like a fast read. It held my interest from start-to-finish and I had a hard time putting it down. The character development was good - I felt it actually focused a bit more on two specific members of the crew and developed their characters in the process. The development of the secondary characters was also fairly well done (view spoiler)[I fully expected one character to join the crew, to be honest, but after the direction the book turned I was not surprised when he turned the offer down. I probably would have turned down Cabrillo's offer as well, considering the circumstances (hide spoiler)]. (view spoiler)[I felt like the book did a "better job" than some of the other books with the villains. Perhaps it was because it did not feel like the villains in this book had a "global network" that allowed them a kind of omniscience and omnipresence for most of the book until the moments were needed when they suddenly became incompetent to further the plot along. In this case, it probably helped that the focus of the villains was fairly centralized in a particular region of the globe. I loved that the villains had a crazy vessel of their own, an armored trimaran armed with some kind of energy-pulse cannon. That was a crazy weapon! It completely destroyed an American naval vessel with ease; it badly damaged the Oregon, and I wondered how the Oregon would prevail in the climactic "final battle" between the two vessels. That fight was also well-written. It was a crazy plan on the part of the villains to provide China with more land through the "benign" takeover of the entire Australian continent. The plan was to launch a paralyzing agent over Sydney Harbor and cause 5,000,000 Australians to become paralyzed, essentially crippling the country-continent. China would be the only nation equipped to provide enough medical personnel and caregivers to take care of this national crisis, and the idea was that with so many Chinese now moving into the country (and the Chinese military providing assistance, support, and security), the peaceful takeover of Australia and turning it into a Chinese territory would be all but assured. A very audacious plan! Part of the plan also involved attacking various elements of the Australian military and making it look like the Australian military had been working with experimental weapons that had malfunctioned in some way and was devastating parts of the country and killing its own citizens as well as allied foreign nationals and military personnel. Crazy plan and it might work in the real world were such a thing to happen (but it would have to involve the "right elements" to work moreso than what happened in this story). (hide spoiler)] It is funny how it feels like elements of other "older" stories seem to find their way into "newer" stories (as it were). (view spoiler)[The villains create a paralyzing gas from jellyfish, which was quite reminiscent of Medusa of the NUMA files. The villains used missiles whose warheads exploded and sprayed a mist over an area to "infect" the people in said area. The first time such an attack was launched, it reminded me of Raid on the Truman, a story about the North Koreans using crop-dusting aircraft to create a barrier of "knockout gas" in front of an American carrier task force centered around the USS Truman; everybody above decks who was exposed to this gas was knocked unconscious. The only people who were not knocked out were those who worked deep belowdeck and were not exposed to the gas. In this book, though, the gas impacted everybody onboard a ship without regard to where they were located inside the Australian vessel. I am sure it is just a huge coincidence the description of the Australian naval vessel being sprayed reminded me of Raid on the Truman, but I still feel like the jellyfish described in this book were the same ones as those described in Medusa. (hide spoiler)] Not that it really matters, in the end, as long as the story currently being told is entertaining and holds my attention. (view spoiler)[The best part of the book had to be the discovery of the Roman ship partially buried in the Australian river and the Roman artifacts found onboard the vessel. That was pretty cool and very reminiscent of Dirk Pitt's adventures as well as some of Kurt Austin's adventures. Loved it! It was funny, but I assumed "Big Geek" (the underwater ROV used to create a digital map for Cabrillo and his partner to find the Roman ship) would probably attract the attention of at least one alligator (crocodile?), and of course it attracted the attention of the biggest one. It was still a fun scene in the book. (I also assume it was coincidence that the name and description of the ROV somewhat matched that of "Big Geek" in The Abyss, lol.) I also assumed they'd have to sink the cargo ship transporting the agent-laden missiles to Sydney Harbor to prevent the missiles from being launched and paralyzing the city and country. That was the only "play" that made sense after the authors systematically had all sources of the antidote destroyed by the villains. I forget what happened, exactly, but the villains get spooked and immediately enact plans to destroy the only sources of a specific nut that is needed to create the antidote, and their plan works like gangbusters to the detriment of the efforts of the Oregon crew. I also liked that we met part of Mark Murphy's family as Sylvia Chang, his younger sister, is a genius scientist in her own right and survives the attack on the American vessel at the start of the book. She ends up in a nicely-developed relationship that turns romantic at the end of the book with her brother's best friend, Eric Stone. It was fun to watch this friendship slowly grow and blossom into a relationship between these two characters, and I enjoyed Mark's struggles with it over the course of the book (especially as he was paralyzed by the agent in the attack on the Australian vessel and had a week to receive the antidote lest he remain paralyzed for the rest of his life). The updated weapons systems onboard the Oregon seemed pretty awesome. The authors had fun with these new advanced-but-experimental systems malfunctioning "at the worst times"; it was all done in ways that seemed reasonable and actually kind-0f humorous. It will be fun to see how well they work once the bugs are worked out of the systems. The "chase scene" involving the giant hovercraft and the smaller hovercraft was very reminiscent (there I go with that word, again!) of Cussler's older stories with Dirk, Al, and usually some "damsel" to be saved and was a lot of fun to read. The author(s) did a great job with that chase scene in the book. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[One thing I nearly forgot to mention was that MARAUDER was actually an acronym for a weapons system designed by the US military but stolen by the Chinese and actually built to be a functioning weapons platform. It really was a crazy weapon and how it was described as working. When they "spelled it out", it reminded me of Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D. and how Agent Colson was constantly being told his introduction was a mouthful until it was cut down to "SHIELD." The system was based on an old "Star Wars" program from the 80s and put into nice effect in the book. (hide spoiler)] If I can think of anything else to add later, I will, but it really was a fun book to read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and could see myself reading it again in the future. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 16, 2022
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 25, 2022
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
48
| 0399154191
| 9780399154195
| 0399154191
| 4.00
| 9,159
| Jun 05, 2007
| Jun 05, 2007
|
did not like it
|
I was disappointed with this book and I think the thing that surprised me the most was how disappointed I was with it. I finished it hoping it would g
I was disappointed with this book and I think the thing that surprised me the most was how disappointed I was with it. I finished it hoping it would get better and it never did. It has some good moments in it, some fun moments, but it was so boring and slow and depressing and . . . it felt like a giant rip-off of his much better, "classic" story Treasure. The character development is meh, the pacing and the plot are stupid-meh, and I almost found myself wishing I had never wasted the time I spent reading it. (view spoiler)[I will say this: Kurt actually has sex more than Joe does as he copulates Carina Mechadi at least four times by the end of the book; not that I am keeping track but I think that is the most I have read about Kurt engaging in sexual activity with a woman in his series of books. Usually it's Joe who is having the intimate moments with women and Kurt is not (even if the reader is told what happened with Kurt the night before as opposed to any graphic descriptions). I think the fact that he is supposed to be this "alternate version" of Dirk Pitt and nearly as seductive with animal magnetism as Dirk influenced my perception of these books, that I half-expected his books to be filled with a lot more sexuality. Not that I mind it Kurt's libido (or lack thereof) not being the focus of the Numa Files series, but it was an amusing "deviation" from the norm (if you can call it that). (hide spoiler)] It's not exactly like Treasure and the stakes do not involve the equivalent of the lost library of Alexandria, Egypt, but it still felt like a rehashing of Treasure to me. Speaking of which, I am surprised some of the characters who should be in the know in this book do not reference the scrolls and other documented artifacts that mention Sheba and Solomon's lost gold mine(s) that are indirectly mentioned in Treasure. In any case, these are some other reasons why I felt this story was a rehashing of Treasure: (view spoiler)[Dirk manages to save the lives of three beautiful women at the start of his story and snag dates with each of them; Kurt manages to snag a date with the woman he saves towards the start of his story. It was funny to me (hilarious, actually) when Joe makes the comment that of course Kurt is the only one who can get a date with a beautiful woman one a cargo ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (mild paraphrasing going on, there), and yet Al has said the same thing of Dirk more than once (how Dirk can acquire dates in the oddest of places). There's a map that leads to a hidden treasure of some kind in this story, but the map is covered in symbols and NUMA has to use some kind of "supercomputer" to find the shoreline that matches the map. In Treasure, a journal is found that describes the various landing points along a coastline to where the treasure is buried. In Treasure, Dirk relies upon Hiram Yaeger and Max, Hiram's "supercomputer" with its own personality. In this book, we discover NUMA now has an entire department devoted to searching for mysteries like this and Kurt engages the help of the computer nerd/genius to find the lost shoreline indicated on the map. While the locations referenced in each book are found, I enjoyed the description of the search in Treasure more than I enjoyed it in this book. The remains of the Library of Alexandria contained numerous Christian writings and books and whatnot and was expected to change the course and understanding of Christianity as we know it. This book takes a similar path but the "big treasure" is an "earlier" copy of the Ten Commandments written on gold. In any case, the "big discovery" that could dramatically alter the Western religions and the face of religions in the U.S. (especially Christianity) is that the golden tablets are supposedly what the Hebrew Commandments are based on but are pagan and evil in nature. On a side note, this book also reminded me of Valhalla Rising, for some reason, but I am not sure why. It's been a while since I read Valhalla Rising, so I cannot comment as to why I feel the two are similar. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[There is one thing that I "hate" that occurs in books, and this book heads in that direction. The author (or authors) write about how the villain (a descendant of Solomon) regularly goes before a stone idol of Ba'al and offers worship and in return he acquires "inner spiritual power" that is manifested through his personhood in some fashion as well as allowing him to maintain quite a bit of economical and political power. Not only that, but the villain regularly offers up human sacrifices to this false god to maintain his power and favor with Ba'al. It's crazy how the author has the villain tapping into demonic entities that give the villain strength and "powers" and whatnot while totally crapping on the Judeo-Christian God. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[I did like Joe's creation of an underwater vehicle shaped like his Corvette - that was fun to read about and pretty creative to boot, I felt. I also liked that the story did seem to go to some places that had not been visited in prior stories I have read. At least, that is what it felt like, that some of the places visited were "new" and "fresh" (as opposed to "worn out" like Antarctica, lol). I also liked that the villain's "squire" assisted Kurt like he did, and I was sorry the man died the way he did - impaled to a post and left to bleed out as he hung from the post with a jousting lance sticking out of his torso. The "secret society within a secret society" was also an interesting twist, too, and on I did not see coming. It was also fascinating to learn how deeply involved Thomas Jefferson was with developing encryptions and secret messages. I had no idea this was the case and did a short search to discover this was true. Rock on, Mister President! (hide spoiler)] I swear, it sometimes feels like the man has run out of ideas and just rehashes his "old" Dirk Pitt stories and just inserts Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala in their places. This book is "different" enough to stand on its own, but it still feels like an updated retelling of Treasure "for the modern era" (such as having the villain be practically omnipresent and nearly omnipotent throughout the story until it is necessary for the villain and his henchmen to start screwing up to allow the heroes to succeed) (I will blame the "updated modernization" of the story on his co-author, hahahah! (view spoiler)[It was an interesting twist that both Kurt's lover and the villain are distantly related to each other via Solomon's legitimate son and illegitimate son - I will give the author(s) that. (hide spoiler)] In the end, I was really disappointed with the book. However, as disappointed as I was with the book, it did still hold my interest enough for me to finish it, so there is that. I may never read it again, but at least I can say I read it one time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Oct 07, 2022
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Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 15, 2022
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
47
| 0399167315
| 9780399167317
| 0399167315
| 4.15
| 6,910
| May 27, 2014
| May 27, 2014
|
liked it
|
This was a fun and crazy book to read. It moved at a fast pace and held my interest. It was also an interesting blend of "historical fact with fiction
This was a fun and crazy book to read. It moved at a fast pace and held my interest. It was also an interesting blend of "historical fact with fiction", something Cussler does quite well. The character development was pretty good, too, and I felt like both Kurt and Joe actually "grew a bit" as characters. (view spoiler)[I thought the moment when we join Kurt and Joe was a good start for the book. Not that the two prior chapters ("historical segments") were not important, too, but it was interesting how Kurt lands on the sinking sailboat to rescue his lost love and her family only to have an accident and be knocked unconscious. We discover this whole sequence is a "dream sequence", a nightmare, and Kurt is still struggling from the injuries he received during the rescue attempt that nearly killed him. I honestly do not remember a Dirk Pitt novel in which Kurt is injured and nearly killed like Kurt was, so that seemed like a pretty big step to me for the character. Not that I believed Kurt would actually die, but it was still "impressive" that the author(s) had their hero be as injured as Kurt was and even as weak as Kurt was at times afterwards. The opening did help set the tone as Kurt was having trouble remembering what exactly happened after he boarded the sinking ship and he could not remember which memories were "real" and which were not. Of course, he feels he has to strike out on his own to try and figure out what is going on, to find out if his former love of his life is truly dead or not as he has come across information indicating she might still be alive. I was pretty happy with how Dirk stood by his friend and employee; I did not expect Dirk to act in any other fashion, but it was still good to see Dirk supporting Kurt like he did. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[One of the best moments had to be when Kurt collapses in the tunnel in North Korea and it is up to Joe to save the day. It was a crazy moment with an intense chase afterwards as Joe rushed down the tunnel to South Korea and "salvation." Joe is driving a dump truck south and smashing into obstacles, trying to make as much noise as he can to alert the South Koreans to the presence of the tunnel and the impending danger. It is a comical moment, too, in my opinion based on how badly destroyed the dump truck is by the time it reaches the end of the tunnel, but it was still a great moment in the book. The plan of the villain to hide his escape was well thought out, too. The plan had always been to have the villain's compound raided by military forces; explosives had been set up all over the compound so that at whatever moment was determined to be "the right moment", the explosives would be set off and completely destroy the compound. They would also kill anybody left in the compound (including the servants and a large number of hostages and their respective family members). The idea is that the world will believe the criminal leadership to be dead and not look for them in the explosion's aftermath. And not just the compound being set up to self-destruct to hide their escape is a great idea, either, but that they scammed the governments of the free world into thinking that this unbeatable computer security had indeed been hacked because the creator of the system had been kidnapped and was being forced against her will to work with her kidnappers. As a result, the governments of the free world reinstall their former security systems, which by this point were all vulnerable and had already been hacked by the hackers the villains had kidnapped and forced to create backdoors into various banking systems. The hackers set up a series of fake security bonds that automatically cash out into "ghost accounts" that look real until they dissolve into other accounts. This way, no money is actually being stolen by the villains. Instead, they are creating "new money" that will not be recorded as lost after the electronic transfers take place and the criminal masterminds can get away with one of the greatest scams in history. The re-introduction of the Waratah was interesting to the story. I do not know how important it really was, on the one hand, except that there were concerns on the parts of the villains that it might lead back to them and their "hideout/compound" on the Island of Madagascar. These concerns stemmed from how the ship had been covered with silt over the years and then vegetation had sprouted in the silt that would allow law enforcement to figure out where the ship had been 'hiding' for nearly 100 years (as the silt/mud, and wildlife living on the vessel's out decks can only be found in a specific part of Madagascar). The Trouts are sent to investigate the sunken sailboat to see if it truly broke into multiple pieces after it sank or if it sank intact. After the Trouts discovered that it sank intact, their computer systems on one of the minisubs as well as the NUMA vessel are hacked and taken over by the criminals with the intent to try and kill the NUMA team members and sink the NUMA vessels. The plan is foiled just in time, and all of the onboard computers are shut down to avoid any further issues with the ships being taken over by outside forces. It was another fascinating moment in the story, to be honest, and it did have me wondering how things were going to work out in the end. (view spoiler)[A virus had been piggybacked onto a NUMA transmission update to the NUMA vessel that allowed the computers of both the ship and the newer minisub to be hacked and taken over. (hide spoiler)] So it was a pretty clever way I felt to show the dangers of having ships being completely automated by computers and not having that many methods by which a person or crew could regain control of their vessel. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[The whole 'mind control-thing' was pretty crazy, too. We find out that after Kurt boarded the sinking sailboat, he was knocked unconscious and then injected with some kind of computer chip that would allow him to be controlled in a limited fashion (along the lines of altering his thoughts and memories, forcing him to have nightmares and mixed images in his sleep, and being able to knock him unconscious via an electrical discharge into either his brain or his nervous system). I actually wondered about mind-control of some kind being used via computer chips, for some reason. I am not sure why, but it had to do with the husband of his former love/fiancé, Brian Westgate. Brian Westgate's attorney is telling him that Brian does not remember the events that occurred on his yacht while it was sinking and the authors describe how the attorney is doing something with his hand in his pocket that is causing Brian to experience an intense headache, incoherent thoughts, and disjointed memories. So that made me think some kind of microchip had been implanted in Brian's brain and allowed him to be controlled against his will which turned out to be the case. It was crazy, too, because I had recently come across some articles talking about how DARPA can control moths via radio waves and has successfully flown them through mazes. They imped the "equipment" into the moth's brain/skull while it is still in its pupae, and after it emerges in the form of a moth, it can be controlled because of these electrodes and whatnot its brain. And then you have reports of how amputees have microchips inserted into their body as well as the artificial limb to help them gain better control over the artificial limbs. So, yeah, I could completely believe what was going down in the book in terms of how Brian Westgate and Kurt Austin were being influenced by the miniaturized chips implanted in their bodies. Brian had it worse than Kurt, but it was still bad mojo for both of them. (hide spoiler)] (view spoiler)[One thing that will be interesting to me to find out is when Rudi Gunn begins taking the place of Dirk Pitt in these books. Kurt has enjoyed unfettered access so far in these earlier books I have been reading, but at some point "in the future" that changes and Kurt has to go through Rudi regarding missions and requests for information and whatnot. Dirk is no longer a factor in the future novels, which I feel is a bit of a shame in some respects. Dirk always had easy access to Admiral Sandecker in his books, so to me it makes sense that Kurt should have easy access to Dirk now that Dirk is in charge of NUMA and since Kurt is in charge of NUMA's "special operations department." I am not sure why this change occurred, so it will be interesting to come across when it happens and if there is any kind of explanation given for this change. (hide spoiler)] I find myself regretting not having given these books another chance despite how much I disliked Fire Ice at the time I read it. I am glad I came back to this series of books and gave them another chance (I'll even give Fire Ice another chance and see if my opinion of it has changed since the first time I read it). I could see myself rereading this book at some point in the future. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 24, 2022
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Sep 25, 2022
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Sep 24, 2022
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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66
| 3.95
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really liked it
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Jun 30, 2025
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Jun 20, 2025
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65
| 4.17
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liked it
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Mar 03, 2025
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Mar 07, 2025
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64
| 4.15
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liked it
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Feb 24, 2025
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Feb 17, 2025
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63
| 4.39
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liked it
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Feb 05, 2025
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Feb 03, 2025
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62
| 4.41
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it was ok
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Dec 29, 2024
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Dec 22, 2024
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60
| 4.26
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liked it
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Jul 22, 2024
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Jul 19, 2024
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61
| 4.51
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liked it
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Sep 08, 2024
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May 27, 2024
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59
| 4.29
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really liked it
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May 25, 2024
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May 25, 2024
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58
| 4.09
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it was ok
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Mar 02, 2024
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Feb 24, 2024
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57
| 4.26
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liked it
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Feb 03, 2024
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Jan 28, 2024
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56
| 4.41
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really liked it
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Dec 03, 2023
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Dec 03, 2023
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55
| 4.35
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really liked it
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Nov 26, 2023
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Nov 26, 2023
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54
| 4.41
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really liked it
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Jun 25, 2023
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Mar 26, 2023
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53
| 4.25
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liked it
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Mar 07, 2023
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Mar 05, 2023
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52
| 4.14
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liked it
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Feb 08, 2023
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Feb 04, 2023
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51
| 4.32
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liked it
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Dec 16, 2022
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Dec 07, 2022
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50
| 3.99
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liked it
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Nov 11, 2022
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Nov 11, 2022
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49
| 4.44
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really liked it
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Oct 21, 2022
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Oct 25, 2022
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48
| 4.00
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did not like it
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Oct 15, 2022
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Oct 15, 2022
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47
| 4.15
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liked it
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Sep 25, 2022
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Sep 24, 2022
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