Modern Vespa

so Clive Cussler died today at 88. A full life he was one of my favorite fiction writers. He wrote more novels than I can even remember, having multiple repeating characters in them. As much of his work dealt with underwater adventures and as I am a scuba diver reading him was a natural. He worked with multiple other authors to write his many different books. RIP Mr. Cussler you will be missed.

Just saw this and it made me want to go buy one of his books. Know how name but never read any of his books.

Clive Cussler was quite a collector of classic and rare automobiles. He wrote several of them into his stories. Much of his collection is in a museum outside of Denver.

I am a reader of all his books, I have many ... I think 80% of his works; I am immensely sorry. I will miss him very much ...
R.I.P.

He only wrote one book. But he re-issued it with different character names and slightly different circumstances.

Of course, any time I see a new one at the library, I take it out and read it anyway. But I never go back and re-read one later. So a good time-filler, but not noteworthy. Much like the Stuart Woods books.

Quite a few of the most recent ones were 'co-written', so I expect the various character series will go one, much like the Robert Parker sets.

Of course, the main repeating character in his books was himself.

I read most of the Dirk Pitt series back in the 80s, but like Jimding, found them to be rather repetitive.

I totally agree his themes can be very repetitive. He has a system, the first chapter happened in the ancient past. The second chapter happened on the more recent past. The third chapter goes to the present and the adventure. Each adventure is a bit unique but all follow the same theme.......that being said they are wonderful mindless reading, great for vacation, laying at the pool and reading. He is very similar to many other authors each who has their hero and writes a novel about them. He happens to have multiple different characters some with very different eras they live in, making it bit more interesting. He has collaborated with many other authors so perhaps the stories will continue

Like many successful authors, who are required by their publishers to produce at least one new book a year with the required 'word count', he would have followed a formula and have 'ghost writers' do the actual writing.

I am an author myself and know very well how very difficult it is to write, and edit, and revise a decent book.

Do you really believe that Michael Connolly or J.K.Rowling or James Patterson or Barbara Cartland, or Lee Childs or Wilbur Smith, to name a few, wrote every word of their 'sensational' new sequel?

They have reached that stage when their own name appears in humungous letters on the cover, with the actual title being barely visible. Because their NAME sells the book, not the narrative.

Sorry but ... it's the same for TV and cinema series, even the same characters and history changes ... maybe the success is tied to the characters and their characterizations.
It may not be pleasant and in this case you do not buy the other books or see the other films in the series, in this there is contradiction because only Star Trek (for example) has billions of followers who like the basic story with almost the same characters, same thing for Star Wars and many other series; Clive Cussler wrote "literary series" and the number of books sold tells us that he liked it and likes it over and over again. And if you don't like it after the second or third book, you don't read it anymore and peace.

I spend many a fond hour reading and following Dirk's adventures.
It serves the purpose of just getting away with a good pulp adventure.

Bob Copeland
Low Brow at the Library