Literary Glance: The Rising Sea by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown

The Rising Sea by Clive Cussler and Graham Brown is the #1 book in hardcover fiction this week.  Before I noticed this, I didn’t even know Clive Cussler was still alive.  I mean, Clive Cussler wrote Raise the Titanic over 40 years ago.  I remember reading it in one day, not because I was a fast reader or that it was spellbinding; it had a bunch of nautical/ship information that bored me, so I skimmed over a bunch of stuff.

Some kinds of details bore me so much that I skip over them.  Whenever I read a naval book, I get bored at all the information about the water and the ships and stuff like that.  This kind of makes sense. Whenever I go out into open waters, I curl into a fetal position until the waves of nausea subside (when we return to land), so maybe that’s reflected in my reading.  I can’t stand naval stuff.

The first scene in The Rising Sea takes place in feudal Japan, and the battle scene details were kind of sketchy.  I was interested enough to read the entire scene, but it was pretty standard for a battle scene set up.  Then came the first chapter, set in present day on a ship, and I curled up into a fetal position until I decided to stop reading the book.  Maybe The Rising Sea is really good, but I can’t tell.

Reading nautical stuff must not bother many other readers because Clive Cussler keeps selling books.  I guess other readers love it, but it puts me to sleep.  I think every reader has something that puts him/her to sleep.  For some, it’s technical/scientific details.  For others, it might be physical descriptions of scenery.  It could be almost anything.  For me, it’s stuff about the sea.  The open water is my Kryptonite, in books and in real life.

Even though Clive Cussler was listed as an author of The Rising Sea, I wasn’t sure that he was still alive.  Sometimes authors publish stuff after they’re dead, or other authors write under the famous name.  I hesitated to look it up.  I always feel kind of morbid when I look that kind of thing up, but I’m glad he’s still alive and writing books.

I’d never heard of the other author Graham Brown before.  I mean no offense.  I’m pretty sure Graham Brown has never heard of me either.  There are a bunch of Graham Browns out there, but this one seems to be a technical expert and teacher and now he’s a coauthor.  That’s cool.  Clive Cussler probably writes the sea stuff that puts me in the fetal position, and Graham Brown might write everything else.  Maybe he wrote that opening scene in feudal Japan.

Clive Cussler is a cool name for an author, though.  It’s a manly name.  Clive sounds like a tough guy’s name, and Cussler sounds like a guy who swears a lot.  When I was a kid, Cussler’s main character was always Dirk Pitt.  I also thought Dirk Pitt was a cool name.  Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt.  That was a manly author/protagonist tandem.  I was a kid named Jimmy with a boring last name.  I could merely dream about having a name as manly as Dirk Pitt.

But a name like Dirk Pitt carries responsibility.  As a kid, all I did was sit around and read books.  If I had been named Dirk Pitt, I would have had to raise sunken ships and risk my life at sea without curling up into the fetal position.  If I had been named Dirk Pitt, it would have been a misleading name.

Yeah, Dirk Pitt is a cool name, but I’m not sure who the main character is in The Rising Sea.  It says “A Kurt Austin Adventure” on the cover, but I didn’t read far enough to meet Kurt Austin.  Kurt Austin is an okay name, but it’s no Dirk Pitt.  I’ve read enough Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt (and have had enough nauseous experiences in open water) to know these books aren’t for me.    I probably won’t finish reading The Rising Sea, but I’m glad Clive Cussler is still alive.

*****

What do you think?  Which name is cooler, Clive Cussler or Dirk Pitt?  What kind of book details put you to sleep?  What is your Kryptonite of books?