Oh Clive....So sentimental

I'm a pretty big fan of Clive Cussler, and think the guy can tell one hell of a story, but it seems that as he advances in years he has become increasingly more sentimental. I know it's very difficult not to become attached to your characters, especially the ones you have been writing about since the 70s, but enough is enough. The books I'm mainly talking about are those that make up the Dirk Pitt series.

First off you should know that the God awful movie Sahara was based on one of these books, but I'm comfortable saying that the failure of this movie was more Matthew Mcconaughey's fault than anyone's. Maybe we can throw the whole cast in there, I'm not sure I only made it halfway through. The next time Hollywood makes a film adaptation of a book they need to make sure that the screenplay writer has actually read the book. (Atlas Shrugged Part I anyone?)

Let's move on to my point. Throughout Clive's work he has always added himself as a character named...you guessed it Clive Cussler. Seriously in one book he tells Dirk to call him dad. I could kind of let this slide if his fictional alter ego was the same character every time, but nope he changes. Dirk Pitt has probably met "Clive Cussler" at least 10 times and every time it seems to be in a different scenario. Like I said, Cussler is one hell of a story teller, but come on. Let's get a little separation. Let's just stay out of it. It seems that every time his character appears he comes into the story to provide a little help to Dirk, and this is always in some minor way. Cussler- you are the author. You don't need to be in the story to save Dirk. You are writing the damn thing so technically you save him every time he gets into a scrape.

Whether he considers my recommendation or not (because I know most famous authors read this) doesn't matter, I will continue to read his books. Like Patterson's Cross series I have become attached to the characters, but unlike Patterson Cussler still dedicates enough time to his books that make them good reads. If you have never read these they are worth picking up. If you don't find them particularly interesting you can always turn it into a game of "Where's Cussler?"