Celtic Empire

 

Celtic Empire – By Clive Cussler and Dirk Cussler

As much as I loved the Dirk Pitt books by Clive Cussler 30 or 40 years ago. I had to take a break.  All of these books are too similar. They all followed the exact same pattern, and after 20 or 25 books of reading essentially the same thing over and over again, one tends to get a bit weary.

So it’s been several years since I read a Dirk Pitt adventure.  The waiting did me a bit of good, but only a bit. Don’t get me wrong, this is a stellar adventure and my guess is that someone who hasn’t read as many of these things as I have will probably enjoy the story a lot more.  I have to be completely honest in confessing that there were many parts of the book where I would skim the pages rather than reading every word.  I know I didn’t miss anything. Once you know all of the motivations and can predict all of the situations, it really is unnecessary to read every single word.  So if Dirk and his buddies are “trapped” by the bad guys and are about to die, I found that I could just quickly scan the next page or so and figure out how old Dirk would, once again, escape certain death.

Like all Dirk Pitt books, there’s a connection to ancient history and a ton of artifacts that Dirk and his crew seem to always uncover rather effortlessly.  We even always get a prologue at the beginning of the book of said history, so when we fast forward several thousand years later, we can make a slight emotional connection to the story as well.  Again, this was quite cool in the first few books, but when these predictable episodes keep happening in volume after volume, we yawn.

The latter Dirk Pitt novels (co-written with Cussler’s son, also named “Dirk”) have Dirk married to a brilliant (what else?) congresswoman named Loren and he has two adult twins (daughter Summer, and son, again, Dirk).  Having a wife means that Dirk Pitt never woos and conquers the damsels in distress as he once did, but such events aren’t really necessary.  The fact that his twin kids are involved (usually in some other place in the world, but always working on something that’s connected to what Pitt is doing) means that a lot more information can be unveiled as to whatever the mystery happens to be.

It's not really necessary to describe the plot.  Other than the newer characters now in the books (all the old ones remain, by the way), there really isn’t anything that new here.  These books are a fun diversion if you need a good book to read while vacationing somewhere on a beach, but none of these escapades will ever be mistaken for serious literature.

Side note: Cussler always “includes” himself in a cameo in these books.  We DO read about an “old man” that helps some of our characters, but he’s never identified.  I’m curious if this guy was supposed to “be” Cussler, and if so, why was he not named?  I should also point out that Cussler passed away around the time this book was released.  I’m sure, though, that there are probably a few manuscripts that will still see the light of day in the near future.  I’m also pretty sure that son Dirk Cussler will pick up the torch and keep entertaining the diehards with these adventure-filled, yet very predictable, tales.