The Golden Buddha

The Golden Buddha by Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo

Good God this book was awful.  

A trend that I notice when people review books that they don’t like (and I’m guilty of this as well) is that they’ll state “(Author’s Name) could NOT have possibly written this book!....”.  The sentiment being that the reviewer has read previous offerings by the author that they really enjoyed, yet the current book being reviewed is way under par.  In many cases, the reviewer is just blowing off steam.  This book, however, I will go to my grave firmly convinced that Clive Cussler had virtually nothing to do with this disaster.

It should be pointed out that in the last 15 years or so, Cussler “writes” a multitude of books every year, each with different co-authors.  It really doesn’t take a genius to see that so many  undertakings are simply impossible for anyone, no matter how talented.  I’ve read several of his books that have been co-authored, and most fall in the range of anywhere between “o.k.” to “excellent”, so I don’t mind reading these other excursions.  This book, however, set a new low.

This is the first of his “Oregon Files” series.  He authored it with Craig Dirgo (the two collaborated on a couple of non-fiction books, I think).  Cussler is still releasing “Oregon Files” books, but he’s moved on to working with at least one other author (you need a mainframe computer to keep up with all of Cussler’s writing buddies).  The only other “Oregon File” I’ve read was “Plague Ship”  which Cussler wrote with Jack Dubrul.  I really didn’t care for that one either, but it’s miles ahead of this one.

Unlike some other of Cussler’s series of books, the Oregon Files really doesn’t have a central character.  Yes, there is a “main guy” (Juan Cabrillo), but he’s not allowed the same amount of spotlight time as characters such as Dirk Pitt, Kurt Austin, Or Isaac Bell.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Cussler and Dirgo simply have too many characters on the Oregon ship for the reader to stay focused.  I simply couldn’t remember who was who, and what everyone’s role was.  It seems that this “Oregon” ship, is sort of a spy ship that Cabrillo and company use to perform mercenary missions that are too dangerous for legitimate government agencies.

When the Dalai Lama was exiled out of Tibet in the 1950s, a 600 pound “Golden Buddha” statue was stolen from him.  With the powers that be working on reinstating the Dalai Lama, it makes sense that an effort be put into place that will recover the mammoth statue.  A pretty monumental task.  So Cabrillo and company are called in to set the wheels in motion.  O.K.  So far, so good.

The rest of the story goes downhill fast.  REAL fast.  There really isn’t any “story” from this point on.  The remainder of the book is basically one long action sequence with a multitude of people running around in every possible direction.  I simply couldn’t keep track of all of the players in this farce, but to be honest, at some point I refused to continue to make any effort.  I simply didn’t care.  The actions within these pages were so absurd, that this book might have actually been better had it been written as a slapstick comedy instead of any attempt at a serious tale.   As a “real adventure”, this book simply doesn’t work.

Example:  Near the beginning of this caper, the Golden Buddha is “owned” by a billionaire who is throwing a lavish party.  Cabrillo and crew figure that they must “infiltrate” the party to steal this thing.  The way the crew does this is flat out ridiculous.  It seems as though there is a band that is supposed to play at the party, so the Oregon crew somehow prevent the real band from showing up, and several members on the Oregon that have no musical talent nor expertise whatsoever masquerade as the “real” band so they can place themselves directly at the scene of the upcoming crime.  They really don’t “need” any musical experience since they have “computers” that they can hook up to the sound system that will masquerade their lack of talent, and they do practice together for a few hours rehearsing all of the hand movements necessary to play the instruments.  I can’t believe the authors would believe that their readers could possibly be this stupid to believe such a tactic could possibly work.

Then we have other members of the crew that “disguise” themselves as real people to infiltrate the gathering as well.  No problem. They just kidnap the real people and hide them.  You would think that people who know these kidnapped individuals would be able to tell the real person from an amateur in disguise.  Never mind.  There are other ridiculous occurrences as well, but I won’t divulge them in case someone reading this might want to actually tackle this book.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you if you do.

The book only gets worse.   I tend to be a completest when it comes to reading some of my favorite authors, but someone is going to have to twist my arm pretty hard before I read another one of these “Oregon” deals.  A big big waste of time, effort and money.