Contents
[hide] 1 Biography
2 Literary career 2.1 Art imitating life 2.1.1 NUMA
2.1.2 Appearances as characters
3 Cinematization
4 Bibliography 4.1 Upcoming books
4.2 Dirk Pitt Adventures
4.3 The NUMA Files
4.4 The Oregon Files
4.5 Isaac Bell Adventures
4.6 Fargo Adventures
4.7 Non-Fiction
4.8 Children's Books
5 Recurring characters 5.1 NUMA
5.2 Friends, etc.
5.3 The Corporation
5.4 Van Dorn Detective Agency
6 Co-authors
7 References
8 External links
Biography[edit]
Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra, California.
He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14.[3] He attended Pasadena
City College[2] 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).
Clive Cussler married Barbara Knight in 1955, and they remained married for
nearly fifty years until her death in 2003.[4] Together they had three children — Teri,
Dirk, and Dayna — who have given him four grandchildren.
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.[2] 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.
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.[2] This was the first time in the college's
123-year history that such a degree had been awarded.[2]
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 Geographic
Society in London, and the American Society of Oceanographers.[5]
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 kids and putting them to bed he had no one to talk to and
nothing to do so he decided to start writing.[6] 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, 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.
Clive Cussler has had more than seventeen consecutive titles reach The New
York Times fiction best-seller list.
Art imitating life[edit]
NUMA[edit]
As an underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered more than sixty shipwreck
sites[7] 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. Cussler owns a large collection of classic cars,[7] several of
which (driven by Pitt) appear in his novels.
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 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.)[8]
The Manassas. The first ironclad of the civil war, formerly the icebreaker
Enoch Train.
A visual & interactive depiction of Dr. Cussler's NUMA Foundation Expeditions
has been made available as an extension of NUMA's original website. It is an
informative and educational overview from a global perspective of Dr. Cussler's
expeditions and discoveries.
Appearances as characters[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 as 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 how odd the name is. The cameos are usually restricted to the
Pitt adventures, although the Fargo Files books Lost Empire, Spartan Gold,
Kingdom, and The Tombs had Cussler making an appearance. The Tombs also includes
his wife, Janet.
A regular name in Cussler novels was Leigh Hunt. Seventeen books have had a
character named Hunt appear in the opening prologues, usually dying; notable
exception is the first (in chronological order) Dirk Pitt's adventure, Pacific
Vortex, in which Admiral Leigh Hunt 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 surreptitious in-joke is that significant events in several novels
occur on July 15 (Cussler's birthday).
Cinematization[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. It grossed $13.8 million
on a budget of $36 million.[9]
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.[10]
Bibliography[edit]
Upcoming books[edit]
Title
Series
#
Release Date
Havana Storm
Dirk Pitt Adventure Series
23
October 28, 2014[11][12]
The Assassin
Isaac Bell Adventure Series
8
March 3, 2015[13]
Piranha
The Oregon Files
10
May 26, 2015[14]
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
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.