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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Mind Controlling Fantasy, Feb 11 2009
19th Adventure of Dirk Pitt
Dirk Pitt with his sidekick Al Giordino takes us on another wild adventure, a mystery spanning from Siberia to Mongolia.
Cussler opens in his customary prologue, starting in Hakata Bay, Japan 1281 to Shang-Tu, China 1937 and from there things unfold at a fast pace to lake Baikal Siberia 2007.
While surveying for oil seepage a team of geophysicists are caught in the aftermath of a massive earthquake and subsequent seiche... What appears to be a simple act of nature, triggers further investigation...From there, we embark on a wild and never ending ride.
While Dirk Pitt and his teammate Al Giordino are tracking the lake's currents, they are nearly killed. Our heroes set out on the trail to find the mysterious mogul behind this sinister plot.... The adventure is full of intrigue as they face one peril after another and in typical Cussler fashion, they encounter an army of trained warriors and obstacles, naturally, they manage to outwit everyone....
The action is rolling on every page with surprises, lots of history, implausible bravado and close calls of his heroes. The story is just plain fun and enjoyable, you find everything you come to expect from a Clive Cussler's novel. Not only we have the familiar cast of lovable characters in Dirk and Al and some villains to hate, we find Summer and Dirk Jr as supporting characters in some very tight and exciting situations.
Cussler is a master at delivering the unimaginable, a mind controlling fantasy, the ultimate ride to the end.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Creaky Plot Ties Together Historical, Scientific and Technical Riches, Jan 29 2007
As the book opens, Kublai Khan's forces are preparing to subdue Japan. But a storm intervenes and the invading fleet is destroyed. One of the ships makes it unexpectedly to a faraway isle . . . and eventually returns. Next, as the Japanese march through China in 1937, a British archeologist finds a clue to the burial site of Kublai Khan. From there, Dirk Pitt, Sr. and Al Giordino are on Lake Baikal in Siberia helping to measure lake currents when an underwater avalanche sets off a rolling tower of water that threatens a boat that doesn't hear the warning to clear the lake. Dirk and Al ride the rescue . . . but find themselves facing new threats before the next dawn. These new troubles lead towards Mongolia and a rendezvous with history. Along the way, the world faces another crisis that only Dirk and Al can solve. Before the book is over, you'll travel to the Middle East, across the Gobi desert, through the ocean next to the big island of Hawaii, and into the corridors of power in Washington, D.C.
Here's the good news: Treasure of Khan is mostly about Dirk Senior and Al Giordino rather than Dirk Junior and Summer. Here's the bad news: The swagger is mostly missing.
Treasure of Khan follows the proven Clive Cussler recipe for a Dirk Pitt Adventure, but in a coolly scientific way, rather than with passion. The physical action is often strangely cerebral rather than gut-wrenching. That's the main disappointment in this book.
But many of the elements work well: Opening sequences from historical times that create and illuminate modern mysteries; excellent choices of technical solutions to complex, time-limited problems; great looks at vintage vehicles; explaining about scientific phenomena that can create bizarre results; and dressing the modern villains in historical color. In many ways, Treasure of Khan may be the best researched and explained of the Dirk Pitt books.
The plot to tie it all together barely works, however. Any reader will punch big holes in this plot. It often makes almost no sense, except to tie together story strands that might otherwise have remained untied. The problem is that the authors have probably tried to tie a few too many things together. A more focused story would have been more interesting and compelling.
Another lesson of this book is that forays away from water should be brief. An extended desert journey just slows the story down.
Any Clive Cussler fan will be glad to have read this book, even if it isn't the best one in the series.
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3.0 out of 5 stars
Khookbook Khussler, Nov 23 2008
The other reviewers provided the story synopsis so I'll stick to some more subjective observations of this book. Yes, follows the Dirk Pitt formula, a little too detailed on the hand to hand combat descriptions, three to four pages of blow by blow narratives of body and arm movements. Skimming through those one tends to lose focus on the story. Seems to be a lot of attention China/oil these days and there's some interesting stuff (speculation) about what happens to the world economy when the black gold goes over $120/bbl. Sort of like this past summer. As for the secondary story, a bit of an author's coincidence to have the Pitt kids Summer and Jr. get involved in the Khan plot at the same time in a different place. The bad guy and his nefarious deeds are puzzling. An OK read for a plane or beach.
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