Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler
Born	Clive Eric Cussler (1931-07-15) July 15, 1931 (age 87) Aurora, Illinois, U.S.
Occupation	Novelist
Period	1973-present
Genre	Adventure
Website
clive-cussler-books.com

Clive Eric Cussler (born July 15, 1931) is an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. Cussler is the founder and chairman^[1] of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks. He is the sole author or lead author of more than 70 books.

Early life[edit]

Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra, California. His mother Amy's ancestors were from England and his father Eric was from Germany.^[2] He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14.^[3] He attended Pasadena City College^[1] for two years and then enlisted in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. During his service in the Air Force, he was promoted to sergeant and worked as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS).

Career[edit]

After his discharge from the military, Cussler went to work in the advertising industry, first as a copywriter and later as a creative director for two of the nation's most successful advertising agencies.^[1] As part of his duties Cussler produced radio and television commercials, many of which won international awards including an award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.^{[citation needed]}

Following the publication in 1996 of Cussler's first nonfiction work, The Sea Hunters, he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree in 1997 by the Board of Governors of the State University of New York Maritime College who accepted the work in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis. This was the first time in the college's 123-year history that such a degree had been awarded.^[1]

In 2002 Cussler was awarded the Naval Heritage Award from the U S Navy Memorial Foundation for his efforts in the area of marine exploration.

Cussler is a fellow of the Explorers Club of New York, the Royal Geographical Society in London, and the American Society of Oceanographers.^[4]

Literary career[edit]

Clive Cussler began writing in 1965 when his wife took a job working nights for the local police department where they lived in California. After making dinner for the children and putting them to bed, he had no one to talk to and nothing to do, so he decided to start writing.^[5] His most famous creation is marine engineer, government agent and adventurer Dirk Pitt. The Dirk Pitt novels frequently take on an alternative history perspective, such as "what if Atlantis were real?" or "what if Abraham Lincoln wasn't assassinated, but was kidnapped?"

The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, were relatively conventional maritime thrillers. The third, Raise the Titanic!, made Cussler's reputation and established the pattern that subsequent Pitt novels would follow: a blend of high adventure and high technology, generally involving megalomaniacal villains, lost ships, beautiful women, and sunken treasure.

Cussler's novels almost always begin with a chapter taking place in the past. These contain none of the novel's main characters and often seem disconnected from the plot until the main characters discover a mystery or secret connecting the events in the first chapter to the rest of the story. This almost always comes in the form of a long-lost artifact which holds the key to the villain's or hero's objectives. Often in the first chapter, a ship or plane carrying a top-secret, important, or dangerous cargo is lost and never found, until it is recovered by a modern character later in the book.

Cussler's novels, like those of Michael Crichton, are examples of techno-thrillers that do not use military plots and settings. Where Crichton strove for scrupulous realism, however, Cussler prefers fantastic spectacles and outlandish plot devices. The Pitt novels, in particular, have the anything-goes quality of the James Bond or Indiana Jones movies, while also sometimes borrowing from Alistair MacLean's novels. Pitt himself is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of Doc Savage and other characters from pulp magazines.

Cussler has had more than seventeen consecutive titles reach The New York Times fiction best-seller list.

NUMA[edit]

As an underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered more than sixty shipwreck sites^[6] and has written non-fiction books about his findings. He is also the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a non-profit organization with the same name as the fictional government agency that employs Dirk Pitt.

Important finds by Cussler's N.U.M.A. include

• The Carpathia. The ship famed for being the first to come to the aid of Titanic survivors.
• The Manassas. The first ironclad of the civil war, formerly the icebreaker Enoch Train.
• The H. L. Hunley. The first submarine to successfully sink an enemy vessel - during the American Civil War.

A visual and interactive depiction of Cussler's NUMA Foundation Expeditions has been made available as an extension of NUMA's original website.

Finds formerly believed to be important include:

• The Mary Celeste. The famed ghost ship that was found abandoned with cargo intact. (The identification of this wreck as the Mary Celeste has since been placed into a state of question after one researcher disputed the claim's authenticity.)^[7]
• ’’ Sea of Greed'’, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2018 ^[8]

Media appearances[edit]

In what started as a joke in the novel Dragon that Cussler expected his editor to remove, he now often writes himself into his books. At first he wrote himself simple cameos, but later as something of a deus ex machina, providing the novel's protagonists with an essential bit of assistance or information. Often, the character is given an alias and not revealed as Cussler until his exit with the characters remarking on his odd name. The cameos include the Pitt adventures, as well as the Fargo Files books Lost Empire, Spartan Gold, Kingdom, and The Tombs. The Tombs also includes his wife, Janet.

There are at least two other types of recurring in-jokes that are less obvious to a casual reader. One is the frequent reuse of the name Leigh Hunt for different characters in different novels. Seventeen books have had a character with this name, frequently in the opening prologues, frequently a sailor, usually dying; a notable exception is the first (in chronological order) Dirk Pitt adventure, Pacific Vortex, in which Admiral Leigh Hunter is a major character, commander of the 101st Recovery Fleet in Hawaii. In the introduction to Arctic Drift, Cussler says there was a real Leigh Hunt who died in 2007 and the novel is dedicated to him. Another is that significant events in several novels occur on July 15 (Cussler's birthday). He also uses the name "Periwinkle" in his works. In The Adventures of Vin Fiz (and in other works as well) there appears a donkey named Periwinkle. In Valhalla Rising, Periwinkle is the name of a catamaran in which Pitt, Giordino, and Misty Graham are rescued by none other than Cussler himself. Cussler's friend Craig Dirgo is mentioned in several books.^{[citation needed]}

Adaptations[edit]

• The first film of a Clive Cussler novel was Raise the Titanic! (1980), starring Richard Jordan as Dirk Pitt, Jason Robards as Admiral James Sandecker, David Selby as Dr. Gene Seagram, Anne Archer as Dana Seagram.
• Paramount Pictures released Sahara on April 8, 2005, starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, Steve Zahn as Al Giordino, William H. Macy as Admiral Sandecker, and Penélope Cruz as Eva Rojas. It grossed $122 million with $241 million in production and distribution expenses.^[9]

Reviews[edit]

• In 2014 McFarland Publishing released The Clive Cussler Adventures: A Critical Review by Steven Philip Jones, the first critical review textbook of Cussler's novels.

Personal life[edit]

Clive Cussler married Barbara Knight in 1955, and they remained married for nearly fifty years until her death in 2003.^[10] Together they had three children — Teri, Dirk, and Dayna — who have given him four grandchildren.^{[citation needed]} Cussler's daughter Teri is the creator and manager of the Cussler Museum^[11] in Arvada, Colorado, which display's Cussler's collection of classic automobiles.

Bibliography[edit]

Dirk Pitt Adventures[edit]

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Pacific Vortex!1	1983
2	The Mediterranean Caper2	1973
3	Iceberg	1975
4	Raise the Titanic!	1976
5	Vixen 03	1978
6	Night Probe!	1981
7	Deep Six	1984
8	Cyclops	1986
9	Treasure	1988
10	Dragon	1990
11	Sahara	1992
12	Inca Gold	1994
13	Shock Wave	1996
14	Flood Tide	1997
15	Atlantis Found	1999
16	Valhalla Rising3	2001
17	Trojan Odyssey3	2003
18	Black Wind3, 4	2004
19	Treasure of Khan3, 4	2006
20	Arctic Drift3, 4	2008
21	Crescent Dawn3, 4	2010
22	Poseidon's Arrow3, 4	2012
23	Havana Storm3, 4	2014
24	Odessa Sea	2016
25	Celtic Empire	2019, Mar 19

1) Although published in 1983, Pacific Vortex! was written and takes place before The Mediterranean Caper.
2) Also published as Mayday!
3) Novels featuring Dirk Pitt, and his children, Dirk Pitt Jr. and Summer Pitt.
4) Novels co-authored with Clive Cussler's son, Dirk.

The NUMA Files[edit]

This series of books focuses on Kurt Austin, Team Leader of NUMA's Special Assignments division and his adventures. Some characters from the Pitt novels appear such as Sandecker, Al Giordino, Rudi Gunn, Hiram Yaeger and St. Julien Perlmutter. Pitt makes brief appearances in the books Serpent, White Death, Polar Shift, Devil's Gate, The Storm, Zero Hour, and Ghost Ship and is mentioned in Lost City. Juan Cabrillo, the captain of the ship Oregon, also made an brief appearance in The Pharaoh's Secret.

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Serpent *	1999, Jun. 01
2	Blue Gold *	2000, Aug. 01
3	Fire Ice *	2002, Jun. 03
4	White Death *	2003, Jun. 23
5	Lost City *	2004, Jul. 22
6	Polar Shift *	2005, Aug. 30
7	The Navigator *	2007, Jun. 05
8	Medusa *	2009, Jul. 02
9	Devil's Gate †	2011, Nov. 14
10	The Storm †	2012, May. 29
11	Zero Hour †	2013, May. 28
12	Ghost Ship †	2014, May. 27
13	The Pharaoh's Secret †	2015, Nov. 17
14	Nighthawk †	2017, Jun. 19
15	The Rising Sea †	2018, Mar. 13
16	Sea of Greed †	2018, Nov. 06

The Oregon Files[edit]

The Oregon Files features a ship named the Oregon which Cussler introduced in the Dirk Pitt Adventure Flood Tide (1997). While appearing to be a decrepit freighter, it is actually a high-tech advanced ship used by an unnamed and mysterious "Corporation" under the leadership of Juan Cabrillo. The ship is run like a business, with its crew being shareholders, taking jobs for the CIA and other agencies to help stop crime and terrorism. The crew is adept at disguises, combat, computer hacking, and more, to aid their missions. Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala, and Dirk Pitt all make cameo appearances in the fourth volume, Skeleton Coast (Cabrillo speaks to Pitt on the telephone; and Austin and Zavala appear at the end).

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Golden Buddha ‡	2003
2	Sacred Stone ‡	2004
3	Dark Watch §	2005
4	Skeleton Coast §	2006
5	Plague Ship §	2008
6	Corsair §	2009
7	The Silent Sea §	2010
8	The Jungle §	2011
9	Mirage §	2013
10	Piranha ≠	2015
11	The Emperor's Revenge ≠	2016
12	Typhoon Fury ≠	2017
13	Shadow Tyrants ≠	2018

Isaac Bell Adventures[edit]

These books are set mostly in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century. They center around Isaac Bell, a brilliant investigator for the Van Dorn Detective agency, which appears to be modeled after the real-life Pinkerton Agency. Like Pitt, Bell has an affinity for automobiles and is a crack shot. The first book reveals that Bell survives into 1950 with a wife and grown children. Though the setting is a century ago, the books still qualify as techno-thrillers, since they feature the advanced technology of that time such as private express trains, telegraphs, telephones, dreadnought battleships and early airplanes. Isaac Bell also is a principal character of the background story in the Sam and Remi Fargo Adventure, "The Gray Ghost."

#	Title	Publication Date
1	The Chase	2007
2	The Wrecker ‖	2009
3	The Spy ‖	2010
4	The Race ‖	2011
5	The Thief ‖	2012
6	The Striker ‖	2013
7	The Bootlegger ‖	2014
8	The Assassin ‖	2015[12]
9	The Gangster ‖	2016
10	The Cutthroat ‖	2017

Fargo Adventures[edit]

The series focuses on Sam and Remi Fargo, a couple who are professional treasure hunters.

#	Title	Publication Date
1	Spartan Gold ^	2009, Sep 01
2	Lost Empire ^	2010, Aug 31
3	The Kingdom ^	2011, Jun 06
4	The Tombs +	2012, Sep 04
5	The Mayan Secrets +	2013, Sep 03
6	The Eye of Heaven ×	2014, Sep 02
7	The Solomon Curse ×	2015, Sep 01
8	Pirate **	2016, Sep 13
9	The Romanov Ransom **	2017, Sep 04
10	The Gray Ghost **	2018, May 29
11	The Oracle	2019, May 28

Non-fiction[edit]

Title	Publication Date
The Sea Hunters: True Adventures With Famous Shipwrecks ‡	1996
Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed ‡	1998
The Sea Hunters II: Diving the World's Seas for Famous Shipwrecks ‡	2002
Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt	2011
Built to Thrill: More Classic Automobiles from Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt	2016

Children's books[edit]

Title	Publication Date
The Adventures of Vin Fiz	2006
The Adventures of Hotsy Totsy	2010

(*) indicates books co-authored with Paul Kemprecos.
(†) indicates books co-authored with Graham Brown.
(‡) indicates books co-authored with Craig Dirgo.
(§) indicates books co-authored with Jack Du Brul.
(‖) indicates books co-authored with Justin Scott.
(^) indicates books co-authored with Grant Blackwood.
(+) indicates books co-authored with Thomas Perry.
(×) indicates books co-authored with Russell Blake.
(≠) indicates books co-authored with Boyd Morrison.
(**) indicates books co-authored with Robin Burcell.

Recurring characters[edit]

NUMA[edit]

Name	Information
Dirk Pitt	Main character of the Dirk Pitt Adventures series, head of NUMA and previously Special Projects Director of NUMA
Al Giordino	Dirk Pitt's sidekick
Admiral James Sandecker	Retired Admiral, original director of NUMA, now the Vice President of the United States
Rudi Gunn	Second in command of NUMA
Dirk Pitt, Jr.	Son of Dirk Pitt
Summer Pitt	Daughter of Dirk Pitt
Jack Dahlgren	Dirk Pitt Jr.'s sidekick
Kurt Austin	Main character of the NUMA Files series, and Special Assignments Team leader
Joe Zavala	Kurt Austin's sidekick, and member of the Special Assignments Team
Paul Trout	Member of the Special Assignments Team; husband of Gamay Trout
Gamay Trout	Member of the Special Assignments Team; wife of Paul Trout

Fargo Adventures[edit]

Name	Information
Sam Fargo	Main character of the Fargo Adventures series
Remi Fargo	Main character of the Fargo Adventures series
Selma Wondrash	The Fargos' chief researcher
Wendy Corden	Assistant researcher under Selma
Pete Jeffcoat	Assistant researcher under Selma
Rube Hayward	The Fargos' CIA contact
Lazlo Kemp	Professor

The Oregon Files[edit]

Name	Information
Juan Cabrillo	Chairman of the Corporation
Max Hanley	President of the Corporation
Richard Truitt	Vice President of Operations for the Corporation
George Adams	Helicopter Pilot / Operative
Rick Barrett	Assistant Chef / Operative
Monica Crabtree	Supply and Logistics Coordinator / Operative
Carl Gannon	General Operations / Operative
Chuck "Tiny" Gunderson	Chief Pilot / Operative
Michael Halpert	Finance and Accounting / Operative
Cliff Hornsby	General Operations / Operative
Julia Huxley	Medical Officer / Operative
Pete Jones	General Operations / Operative
Hali Kasim	Communications Expert / Operatives
Larry King	Sniper / Operative
Marion "MacD" MacDougall Lawless III	General Operations / Operative
Franklin Lincoln	General Operations / Operative
Bob Meadows	General Operations / Operative
Mark Murphy	Weapons Specialist / Operative
Kevin Nixon	Magic Shop Specialist / Operative
Langston Overholt IV	The Corporation's CIA contact
Sam Pryor	Propulsion Engineer / Operative
Gunther Reinholt	Propulsion Engineer / Operative
Tom Reyes	General Operations / Operative
Linda Ross	Security and Surveillance / Operative
Eddie Seng	Director of Shore Operations / Operative
Eric Stone	Control Room Operations / Operative
Mike Trono	General Operations / Operative

Isaac Bell Adventures[edit]

Name	Information
Isaac Bell	Main character of the Isaac Bell Adventures series and Chief Investigator of the Van Dorn Detective Agency
Marion Morgan	Isaac Bell's fiancée, and later, wife
Joseph Van Dorn	Owner of the Van Dorn Detective Agency
Archie Abbott	(actual name, Archibald Angel Abbott) College friend and fellow detective to Isaac Bell at the Van Dorn Detective Agency
Judge James Comden	Powerful and corrupt political antagonist, contemporary to Isaac Bell
Aloysius "Wish" Clarke	Detective of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, senior to and casual mentor to a younger Isaac Bell, besot by alcoholism

Other co-authors[edit]

Cussler has co-authored books with other writers, such as Russell Blake.^[13]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Clive Cussler

• Official website
• NUMA website
• Audio interview with Clive Cussler Talking about The Chase
• Clive Cussler Fans Website
• The Cussler Museum
• clivecussler.com.au
• Cussler Down Under newsletter