Book Review: Flood Tide by Clive Cussler

Flood Tide by Clive Cussler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

A ship goes down in unknown waters leaving only two survivors that know where a vast amount of Chinese heritage is located, a ship that a human trafficking Chinese businessman would do anything to find. Flood Tide is the fourteenth book of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt with the titular character attempting to stop a human trafficking ring to the U.S. and preventing a massive economic and human disaster in Louisiana.

A ship taken by the retreating Nationalist government is loaded the national treasures of China before Mao’s Communists can get them in 1948, but before it reaches it’s destination it sinks in a violent storm with only the ship’s engineer and his girlfriend surviving on a freezing shore. In 2000 Dirk Pitt is vacationing and recovering from his injuries in Australia at Orion Lake when he realizes the cabin he borrowed has been search by the security of a Chinese businessman’s estate at the other end of the lake. Intrigued Pitt investigates only to find the mansion is a holding prison for illegal Chinese immigrants while the bottom of the lake is littered with dead bodies. Pitt saves new victims from drowning including an undercover INS agent and wrecks to the estate’s docking area before escaping down the Orion River to the Pacific from the security force. The INS raid the estate and the businessman Qin Shang begins damage control, including sending feelers to the White House and the President who he has given money to for his reelection campaign. Pitt teams up with Al Giordino to investigate a cruise ship in Hong Kong that Shang had bought and was refitting believing it’s to continue his illegal human trafficking ring, but find it empty except for automated guidance equipment that then navigates the ship across the Pacific without a crew. The pair return to the U.S. and Pitt along with the INS agent survive a car chase against Shang’s henchmen, but NUMA and the INS have a spat leading to them not working together anymore. Pitt and Giordino head to the Louisiana to investigate Shang’s shipping port that is in the middle of no where from the Mississippi when the duo figure out how his human trafficking network works in the area and again save the INS agent that Pitt keeps running into. Shang’s automated cruise ship arrives on the Mississippi River, but Pitt figured out Shang’s plan to redirect the flow of the Mississippi bypassing New Orleans and going to his out-of-the way port by blowing a levee and scuttling the cruise ship across the river. Pitt and Giordino takeover the ship and guide it into the levee’s breech to prevent a massive disaster. Shang flees to China where the Communist government will protect him while as there is battle in the U.S. between those he bribed against those who want him charged with terrorism. After learning everything to know about Shang including his search for the ship carrying his nation’s treasures, Pitt and NUMA discover the location of the wreck in Lake Michigan after talking with the survivor of the ship and his wife. NUMA, the Navy, and a Canadian salvage vessel recover everything before they leak the location into Shang’s channels. His massive ego leads Shang to arrive in Canada to border his own salvage vessel and goes down first only to find the ship empty with Pitt and Giordino springing a trap that send Shang to the bottom to die like all those at the bottom of Orion Lake. Admiral Sandecker and the head of the INS threaten the President to keep their own jobs with his own political future in the balance.

Having previously listened to the audiobook edition, I had completely forgotten about the Chinese treasure ship or Shang bribing of U.S. politicians but do remember the human trafficking and diverting the Mississippi plot points. That was because the human trafficking and Mississippi diversion plots were the good parts of the book while the other two were forgettable. Pitt comes off as superhuman given what he went through in Shock Wave while the INS agent Julia Marie Lee could have been a good character if not for becoming a multiple time damsel-in-distress character. Qin Shang could have been an interesting antagonist if not for some the trope material that Cussler saddled him especially at the end of the book. In fact, Cussler’s politics are heavy handed throughout the book and his “not-Clinton” but totally Clinton President were a little too much for my tastes.

Shock Wave is a okay book at best and felt a like downgrade in quality from Clive Cussler’s previous installments of his bestselling series. While not as bad as some of the early books in the series, this book was a disappointment given the good elements that were undermined by the bad.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck

The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Soldiers loyally following their Leader act on the advice of a small coal mining town’s traitor to take it over for the benefit of their ongoing war. The Moon Is Down by John Steinbeck is wartime novella about a how occupying soldiers learn that peaceful townspeople do not like being told what to do.

Taken by surprise, a small coastal town is overrun by an invading army with little resistance. The town is important because it is a port that serves a large coal mine. Colonel Lanser, the head of the invading battalion, along with his staff establishes their HQ in the house of Orden, the democratically elected and popular Mayor. As the reality of occupation sinks in and the weather turns bleak, with the snows beginning earlier than usual, the townspeople are getting angry and confused. Lanser, a veteran of many wars, tries to operate under a veil of civility and law, but knows that amongst those whose freedom has been taken away by force there are no peaceful people. A miner quits and when kills an officer who orders him back to work in the mine. After a summary trial, the man is executed by a firing squad, but the incident catalyzes the people of the town to begin resisting. Transportation and communication lines are taken out, mine machinery breaks down often, and whenever soldiers get comfortable, they are killed including a young lieutenant infatuated with the widow of the miner who stabs him to death before escaping to the hills. The cold weather and the constant fear destroy the occupying force’s morale, many of whom wish the war to end so that they can return home. Members of the resistance escape to England and ask the English for explosives so that the townspeople can intensify their efforts. English planes parachute-drop small packages containing dynamite sticks and chocolates all around the town. In a state of panic, Lanser takes the Mayor and his friend Dr. Winter, the town doctor and historian, hostage and lets it be known that any guerilla action will lead to their execution. Mayor Orden knows his people will not stop active resistance and accept his imminent death. Knowing that the townspeople will use the dynamite any moment, Orden and Winter discuss Socrates in front of a stunned Lanser until the first explosion. Orden calmly walks out the door before Lanser can verbally order his execution.

Published in the spring of 1942, Steinbeck wrote this obvious propogandist novella to inspire the Allied war effort and through clandestine publishing in occupied Europe to inspire resistance fighters against their German occupiers as well as collaborators. While the town and country are unnamed, it was not hard to tell it was Norway given the clues Steinbeck sprinkled throughout the text.

The Moon Is Down is also a wonder example of John Steinbeck’s writing that is a quick read for anyone deciding if they want to read his more famous works to learn his style. While written for more political than literary purposes that does not diminish the impact of the narrative nor does Steinbeck not put in his best work.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Parallel Lives by Plutarch

Parallel Lives by Plutarch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Roughly 1800 years ago, a biographer and historian decided to compare the great men of Greece and Rome to one another to give his readers inspiration to follow their example or what to avoid. Parallel Lives by Plutarch chronicles the lives of the greatest men of the ancient world and the times they lived in.

To show the influence of character—good or bad—of the great men of more remote past of Greece and the more recent past of Rome was Plutarch’s main aim in his biographies of these great men especially when he compared them to one another. Yet throughout his writing he shows the times these great men lived to the benefit of readers today that might know the overall history, but not the remarkably interesting details or events that general history readers might never know about. The usual important suspects like Alexander, Julius Caesar, and their like but it was those individuals that one never heard of today especially those Greeks between the end of the Peloponnesian War and its takeover by Rome save Alexander. This revised edition of the John Dryden translation contains both volumes in one book resulting in almost 1300 pages of text thanks to the fact that they added four lives that Plutarch wrote independent of his parallel pairs which included a Persian monarch, yet this printing is of poor quality as there are missing letters throughout which does slow reading down for a moment.

Parallel Lives is a fascinating series of biographies of individuals that in the second century AD were the greatest men in history to those living at the time, a few of which have continued to our time. Plutarch’s prose brings these men to life as well as the times they live in and influenced which history readers would appreciate a lot.

View all my reviews

Book Review: Finding Bigfoot: Everything You Need to Know by Martha Brockenbrough

Finding Bigfoot: The Big Book of Everything by Animal Planet
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Over the course of nine seasons and 100 episodes, for intrepid individuals searched numerous locations to find evidence related to Bigfoot and become one of the top rated shows in the history of Animal Planet. Finding Bigfoot: Everything You Need to Know by Martha Brockenbrough is a tie-in book aimed at young children to provide information related to the subject of an undiscovered North American ape.

This book is geared towards younger readers and fans of the Animal Planet tv series of the same name with the aim to giving information on the mysterious upright walking ape that might be stalking the wilderness of North America. Investigating such questions as “Does Bigfoot Exist?” as well as investigating the evidence supporting that they do, not only in North America but around the world, but also looking into the various hoaxes and misidentifications that many skeptics bring up this book treats it’s target audience with respect and aims to promote critical thinking. For the readers that believe bigfoot exists there is a “how to” guide about bigfooting and how to collect possible evidence of the creature when found. And throughout are eyewitness accounts from the first four seasons of the show with comments from one of the Finding Bigfoot team members.

While roughly 140 pages, this is an oversized book filled with pictures and easy to read text size. Though intended for children, adults will find this informative as its for general audiences of both believers and skeptics. Brockenbrough’s prose is engaging towards a younger audience without being insulting while keeping adults reading as well. The introduction by Finding Bigfoot star Cliff Barackman, a former teacher, starts the book off right with telling how he came to accept the existence of Bigfoot after growing up as a kid enjoying learning about “monsters”.

Finding Bigfoot: Everything You Need to Know is an easy-to-read and informative look into the subject of an undiscovered North American ape whether you’re a child or a child at heart.

View all my reviews