Plague Ship

Plague Ship by Clive Cussler and Jack DuBrul

I’ve heard it said that Clive Cussler really has very little to do with all of these books that he seems to co-author as of late.  This wouldn’t surprise me since there does seem to be an awful lot published material in the past few years.  It seems as though there are about four or five people that Cussler regularly co-authors, and the books seem to be released fast and frequently.  In some aspects, this process probably works as designed if true.  The lesser known co-author gets some notoriety, and book publishers are guaranteed more profits with a well known name on the book jacket (along with an eye catching graphic of some kind of water vessel in turmoil.  This one is a great example).

The books by these two joint authors are dubbed “The Oregon Files”.  I seem to recall that the Oregon was a ship (not 100% sure, but you get the point) that had a regular “cast of characters” that lead us through the story.  The ship’s captain and main character of the story is Juan Cabrillo.  Juan is a capable leader.  He’s no Dirk Pitt nor Kurt Austin, but I don’t mean that in necessarily a bad way.  In other words, he’s not infallible.  Also, since most of the story takes place on, or close to the Oregon, all of the supporting characters are close by, and the authors give a lot of page time to the supporting characters.  I’m guessing there were about ten or twelve regulars in and out of the pages.

The book starts of with an “intro” that is quite irrelevant to the main story.  The Oregon is in Iranian waters trying to steal weapons sold to the Iranians by the Russians.  This intro is designed to simply to allow the reader to become assimilated to Cabrillo and his crew.  To be honest, it goes on a bit too long.  After the escapade, the Oregon stumbles on a plot (sinister, of course) by some misguided barons to obliterate most of the earth’s population.  You see, they believe that the earth is just too crowded, and since we don’t have plagues or world wars anymore, there’s nothing to keep the world’s population to expand beyond what it should.  So plans are made to initiate a catastrophe obliterating most of the earth’s people, and the crew of the Oregon must move, and move fast to stop such an event.

What happens throughout the rest of the story is pretty much what you would expect from a Cussler story, regardless of whether or not he had a big hand in writing this particular book.  It’s the minor details and intricacies that tend to differ significantly.  Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  I remember the first time I read one of the “NUMA Files” books, I found it to be a carbon copy of the Dirk Pitt adventures.  Juan Cabrillo is much more serious about his work, and doesn’t seem to bleed invincibility like a Dirk Pitt or a Kurt Austin.  He also doesn’t have time to seduce any damsels in distress.  The problem for me is what details are here, I didn’t find all that interesting.  I found myself not really wanting to pick this book up after I was about halfway through.  I figured I pretty much knew what was going to happen, and since it wasn’t that interesting, why bother?

But pursue I did, and I did find the latter half more interesting with some slight surprises thrown in for good measure.  Would I read another one of the “Oregon” books?  Probably.  Am I in a rush to do so?  Probably not.  You can’t help but compare Clive Cussler the “co-author” to Clive Cussler the “author”, and sadly, this is where the story leaves you wanting  a bit more.