Atlantis Found - Softcover

Cussler, Clive

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140287965 ISBN 13: 9780140287967

Publisher: Berkley Pub Group, 2001

Synopsis

Around the world ancient artefacts are suddenly appearing, hinting at a catastrophe that will soon visit Earth ...Dirk Pitt is on hand at a Colorado archaeological site where an ancient and mysterious artefact has been found - one that is perhaps linked to other strange objects turning up across the globe. And soon Pitt's skills and ingenuity are desperately needed to rescue the team after a suspicious explosion seals them deep underground. It quickly becomes clear that the artefacts carry a message: a warning of global Armageddon. Yet a shadowy organisation called the Fourth Empire not only wants to stop others from heeding that warning, but is also actively seeking to accelerate the end it foretells. Now Pitt and NUMA must face this diabolical foe, who will stop at nothing to wipe out all life on earth...

About this title

Review

Dirk Pitt, indestructible hero of 14 previous Clive Cussler novels and special-projects director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (which is something like the CIA of the ocean depths), makes James Bond look like a tuxedoed, martini-swilling poseur. Pitt has raised the Titanic, escaped massive volcanic eruptions, ducked nuclear explosions, foiled criminal plans for world domination, saved everyone on earth from germ warfare, and mastered the ins and outs of various electronic gizmos and futuristic vehicles while evading every imaginable form of almost certain death. (Of course, he's also wildly successful with brilliant, beautiful women, but in an admirably circumspect, sensitive-guy way.) It stands to reason Pitt's the right man to handle a crisis of millennial proportions.

When mysterious black obsidian skulls and other artifacts of an exceedingly ancient culture begin to turn up in odd places, Pitt jumps in with both feet. It soon becomes dangerously apparent that a powerful, amoral group of fanatics calling itself the Fourth Empire wants the strange discoveries to remain underground. Pitt teams up with a beautiful red-haired expert in ancient languages to decipher the meaning of the artifacts. They were made 10 millennia ago in a then-temperate Antarctica by a seafaring civilization advanced enough to predict its own destruction by a comet impact. Now the Fourth Empire (whose literal and figurative progenitor comes as no surprise) is predicting a similar disaster in only a matter of months, and preparing to take control of the earth.

Cussler's known for hands-on research--his hobbies are the backbone of Pitt's adventures: flying, climbing, diving, racing. The scientific and historical riffs that fill in the background of Atlantis Found are the weakest parts of the book--they're Pitt-less, and they give every discovery in the book away early. But what the heck--Cussler's not the king of suspense, he's the emperor of nonstop action. Atlantis Found bounces along on a good-humored techno-joyride, and for Cussler's legion of fans, that will be more than enough. --Barrie Trinkle

From the Publisher

14 1.5-hour cassettes

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Pub Group
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140287965
• ISBN 13: 9780140287967
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 768