Clive Cussler Born 15 July 1931 died 24 February 202 Clive was brought up in the town of Alhambra. After leaving Pasadena College, Clive joined the US Air Force. On leaving the air force Clive went into marketing, where he had a successful career, winning a number of advertising awards. Clive wrote his first novel in 1973. Like his alter ego Dirk Pitt, Clive enjoys collecting historical items (and has a large collection of classic cars) and is also a keen diver. The hard back copies of his books are worth looking at as they usually feature a picture of Clive with one of the cars featured in the novel.

Clive has formed a real NUMA which is a non profit making organization. NUMA has been credited with finding over 60 shipwrecks.

Clive is an unusual modern author in that all of his novels feature and centre around the adventures of Dirk Pitt and friends. The novels can be best described as swashbuckling adventures more along the lines of James Bond. (Some would argue that Clancy does something similar, however, the Ryan character has been a mere bit player in some of the novels.

The novels are usually pacey and have strong plot-lines (usually one) and good characterizations. The stories are (were) set slightly in the future and it is apparent that the time scale has become confused - but it does not detract from the stories.

We now have three series in the making. The original Pitt novels, which remain the best, The Oregan files which is the stronger of the two series, and getting better, and finally the NUMA files, which is the weakest of the three. NUMA files was I think a direct replacement for Pitt, but suffers from being two close to Pitt and Giordino. Austin and Zavala, still do not have the same charisma. Still it might improve.

The franchises (ie those not 100% written by Cussler) vary in quality, the Oregon Files, and Fargo stories are reasonably strong. The Bell novels at present are the weaker link, and the NUMA files are somewhere in between.

The books come at an alarming rate - and I would prefer a drop in output to keep up the quality.

Another good author who rarely disappoints, I ill greatly miss his books.