Atlantis Found: Only Meant For A Audience Who Like Things That Go Boom

Atlantis Found By Clive Cussler Smoothie Review

Overall Rating: Only Meant For A Audience Who Like Things That Go Boom

Clive Cussler. I really don’t know much about this author other than he tends to write these Indiana Jones like adventures. A friend in high school was a real book worm. (Bigger than I am, if you can believe that) said I might like him since I like Crichton and Ludlum. So she gave me three books. She gave me Vahalla Rising, Sahara and Atlantis Found. I read Sahara way back when and found I didn’t like it and gave Vahalla Rising to another friend because she loves those “Dirk Pitt” novels. And Atlantis Found was lost until spring cleaning came along. When I found this book, I was like “Maybe I’ll give Clive Cussler a second chance.” All I knew, it was a Dirk Pitt novel. Sahara was one too, but seriously the book is erased from my mind for some reason. Now I felt I should have accepted that as a warning and not read it at all. But here’s the review.

The book starts out with a couple archaeologists who arrive to Pandora mines, where the owner had found a secret ancient shrine. It is a circular room where ancient writings are all over the walls and great black skull is in the center of the room. In the investigation the mine entrance collapses and it begins flooding. But to the rescue comes a man named Dirk Pitt who seems to amazingly pop out of no where to save them all. When escaping the mine, the one neatly killed by a group mysterious men who want them dead but they manage to make it out alive. And then after that, but Dirk always has a plan in the works as they study the skulls. Soon after Dirk and his cliché side kick Al Giordino investigate, they find that these are the remains of the possible Atlanteans who are predicting the end of the world and the people who want to hide this information is a crazy neo Nazi family who even altered their own genetics with Hitler’s DNA. Yes. I’m not lying. This is too stupid to make up. The Atlanteans predicted that a comet is going to hit the earth to flood it, so the Nazis want to keep it secret and are building four great ships so certain people will survive. And they attack Pitt and Giordino as much as they can along the way. The style of the book is written at a fast place, a “let’s have fun” format that clearly isn’t trying to be realistic. It has about the same vibe as a James Bond or Indiana Jones movie. Clearly Cussler likes excitement, fast cars and pretty women because it reflects greatly here.

So let’s start with the bad. I said earlier it’s unrealistic. That is an understatement. Dirk Pitt is Mr. Perfect in this novel. Every choice he makes, plan he has, or every gun fight he’s in comes out smelling like a rose. A whole deck is gunned down and everyone is injured and he doesn’t have a scratch. There isn’t anything this man does wrong. He has all the right moves, snappy comebacks and all the women love him. I mean, this character is so unreal where I know he is invincible. So during all the action scenes, I was asking, “Why should I care whether he is going to make it or not, if I already know he’s going come out with a scratch every time?” It really sucked the excitement out. Then there was the stuff that happened which was impossible. Such as a car chase between two muscle cars in a busy city, yet amazingly during the chase there is no mention of cars on the road. So I’m assuming they all magically disappeared. Then there’s the magical robot computer that is smarter than Einstein himself. There’s shoot outs where a squad is losing against a thousand Nazis but when Pitt shows up, the Nazis lose. How does that work? And then toward the end, when I thought the silliness is over, they have one last impossible scene between an aircraft having a shoot out with SUVs in the busy streets Of Washing DC. Then the plot is entirely laughable. The idea that this shares the same plot as the 2012 film is laughable. But get’s worse. Spoiler ahead.

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Spoiler Alert
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Through out the book we’re under the belief that the Nazis were trying to kill them because they found these shrines and prophecy was true. We spend four hundred pages on these shrines and then on page four hundred one, it turns out that the Atlanteans were wrong and it really means nothing. What the hell? The story then jumps to the Nazis making a massive machine to destroy the world. So we just spent four hundred pages on the topic and to throw it out the window.
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Spoiler Alert
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Then after everything, the author actually inserts himself into this as a cameo. Is he actually proud of this pile of BS? I mean after four hundred pages I wanted to reach into the book and strangle the man.

And get this, Atlantis is found. But there only is one line. Seriously Dirk walks into the city and then describes the walls of the buildings. Then the author must have gone “Who cares about Atlantis? Let’s blow some stuff up.” I’m serious, Atlantis is basically non existent in this book.

The good? Yeah, there was actually one line. It stated “The End.” Seriously because of Mr. Perfect, I can even say that the action wasn’t good. Unless you’re a guy who likes books that resemble movies such as 2012, The Expendables and Transporter, it isn’t any good.

So overall, unless you just like things that go boom, such as explosion and gun shots and never care for any sort of story, this is for you. For the rest of us, we can do with out.

½ smoothies out of four.

P.S. Check out my book and ebook website at Lelue’s Realm. Google it or go directly to http://www.lelue.webs.com/