I've noticed on this forum that this book seems to have a very well marked dividing line between those that like it and those that don't.Nobody really sits on the fence.
I enjoyed it.Having said that though it is probably one of Clives weaker books and the myriad of inconsistencies kind of drag it down a bit more..He was always going to have trouble trying to fit the twins into a DP book and they are two of the more poorly written characters.I don't think he really knew what to do with them.
To me the book really doesn't leave any impression.The party at the end is the highlight for me even though it is taken almost verbatim from DP Revealed.
6/10

I didn't think the book was up to Clive Cussler's usual standard. Guess it was hard for him to really get into writing so soon after Barbara's passing. But there are highlights - and Pitt gets married! 7.5/10

TO was one of my least favorite DP books. The relationship between the twins is creepy, the villian poorly defined, vague world domination plot, and the lack of payoff at the end (Specter gets arrested? YAWN)

I was, for a while, afraid I was witnessing the decline of the franchise. However, then Black Wind came out and redemption is at hand! :P

I found the apparent relationship between the twins to be, uh, pretty interesting ... yike:

This book is on the lower end of my list as well but I don't remember particularly why. Both TO and VR were dissappointing to me.

My brother gave me Black Wind for Christmas and I thought it was better than TO and VR but still not up to the same standards as some of the middle books. Dirk Pitt Jr. is a chip off the ol' block, as they say, which is cool enough.

I was very happy to see Dirk and Loren finally get together, even though it marked the end of my chances with Loren. :P In my opinion though, their union was at least 5 years later than it should have been.

Just finished reading Trojan Odyssey and found the book a good read. The historical concept is well done and interwoven with a current day cabal of female conspirators who have gained wealth and power. The use of Dirk Pitt's children in their first adventure shows their young, and inexperienced ways of the world and doesn't involve them in the tumble and rumble we expect from Dirk Sr. and Al. And they came through with flying ease and camraderie that they have honed with experience over the years. But they do experience the beginnings of age and battle scars and recognized it with maturity. My eyes were wet when Dirk Sr. finally made Loren happy with his proposal. And Al wanting a more technical job is mature but unsettling. And Rudi Gunn feeling more comfortable with the day to day operations of NUMA thrusts Dirk Sr. as the only credible candidate for Directorship which even he realized involves having to deal with politicians leaves his skin crawling but little choice of anything else. A satisfying read but like a couple of others have pointed out that every third book is a bit of a step down leaves me with the same feeling towards this book. So my rating for this book is a respectable 9. :)

the one thing i realy liked about this book is the concept of the celts being the story to the whole trojan saga in history...i wonder if there is any reallty to this or if there are any scolars that follow this interprtation..clive made it sound so convincing..i wonder if he had some factual info to draw on ..or if he just made it all up.. <_<

My husband had read all of the Dirk Pitt adventures with except the last two until recently. While he thought Black Wind was okay, he really liked Trojan Odyssey. Even though he complained about various mistakes at first, I strongly suggested that he ignore them and just read. When he finished, he thought Trojan Odyssey was an enjoyable read!

I have very much enjoyed the Dirk Pitt series of books by Clive Cussler!

The Trojan Odyssey was a good read, but there is one thing that bugs me about it.
Loren's father was murdered in Vixen 03, and yet he shows up at Dirk and Loren's wedding!!
I cant be the only one who spotted that goof.

I am a Dirk fan forever and thank Clive Cussler for writting an awesome series. :)
VERY entertaining!
Im retireing from reading CC books since he is retiring from writting Dirk books. I will keep on rereading the whole Dirk Pitt adventures from time to time though.

Hello, I have just finished reading the book. Well, it is not my favourite, but I have enjoyed it a lot. I have cryed oceans of tears at the end, from Dirk asking Loren to marry him till the last page. It was so emotive!!! :rolleyes: :wub:

But I have found some errors really important in the plot. Some of them have been already comment, like Loren's dad appearance, another is Dirk's mother appearance ... wasn't she passed away?. And something else that I can´t remember in this moment (I am not at home ...) but I will tell you ... <_<


Best wishes,

I enjoyed the book for the most part. Despite that, the fact that the twins were in it, I have to give it a 7 out of 10.

I'm not a fan of DP Jr. and Jack Dahlgren (his name sounds like a beer). They seem to just get in too much trouble; trouble they can't get out of, so Pitt Sr. and Al have to rescue them.

I could tell by the end of the book that it was meant to be the last adventure DP Sr. and Al played a large role in. Cussler wrapped it up nicely, though it made me sad to think that the heroes I've been enjoying for the past five years finally have, for the most part, called it quits. I especially enjoyed the final pages of the book with Cussler in it.
I could tell that it was hard for him to write that part, because he was essentially saying goodbye to the characters he created nearly 25 years ago. :(

7.5/10

I guess I enjoyed the book more than other people here did. :)

In response to Giordino13's saying that this is Pitt and Giordino's last adventure, maybe Clive will write a final novel about a past adventure.

That would be interesting and fun! p:

I enjoyed the book very much!!

I don't want this to end, not now! I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT CLIVE WILL ALLOW MORE MOVIES!

I too was moved when Clive Cussler showed up as end! The whole book left me recalling not just this adventure, but everyone since the first! t:

I almost forgot that CC would show up atfer the 100+ pages of adventure that ran to the end. I was sure that Rathbone was him, until the discription started to take shape in my mind. :blink:

I agree - it sucks that that was pretty much Dirk Sr. and Al's last major role appearance.

Awww No... This cant be their last.... Say it aint so !!


Since this was my first DP novel.... I enjoyed it....However since reading four other DP novels... it'll have to rank fifth out of the five I've read.

So far Inca Gold is shaping up to be my fav (about 1/3 way thru).

Dragon or Sahara would be my overall Fav so far.

I really enjoyed the story, Dirk and Summer were a bit wierd working so close together. I felt it would have been better if they had completely different jobs, like Loren and Dirk Snr. It was a bit sad with Dirk and Al wanting to call it day and move to more "boring" jobs. It felt like it was the end of an era. Maybe future books could tell the story of past adventures.

I know this will sound funny but as much I love Greek history I am so hooked on this book and I've only just read the first 20 something pages.

I actually bought the book "Where Troy Once Stood" because of the remarks Cussler made about it at the intro to this book.

Not a bad book. Read some better books by CC but was a very good insight into real history again. Definately makes the book better.

I just finished this book up, and it was a decent read. I liked how Cussler described the Nicaraguan scenery and the Celtic Odyssey. I did think the relationship between the twins was a bit odd at times as well. I did notice three mistakes though, one was a reference to the Alexandria Library being discovered off the coast of Egypt, one about nuclear and chemical weapons being discovered in Iraq <_< , and of course, Charlie Smith coming back from the dead.

Just been reading TO one inconsitency that I think I found was that DP and AG bumped into Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala who tell them that they were being sent by the Admiral to Canada to investigate a corporation.
I am assuming that this is White death, if that is the caseI'm fairly sure that it was actually Paul and Gamay that went to Canada and that they went of their own accord.
I KNOW that I am being pedantic but am I being right? hat:

This was the third Cussler novel I read, after Sahara and Treasure, so I was pretty familiar with the characters. Still, overall this book was not the best I have read.

The twins, I didn't really notice anything weird about them, they were just kind of blah, boring if you will. Their scenes lacked the dry wit and high octane action of Dirk and Al's. Speaking of those two, they had to be the main highlight of the book for me. These guys are in their 50s and they are finally realizing they may be getting old. Dirk proposing and Al slowing down was a great (if disapointing, I want more Dirk and Al stories!) touch to the novel and was the defining part for me.

However, some stuff was just bad. The main villain's plot was ridiculous (even more so then Treasure's "take over a third world country by putting it into constant revolution" storyline). I didn't really get the feeling that Odyssey was that much of a threat. The Leigh Hunt pirate scene, while highly amusing, took a few reads to understand the point of it. The whole "Trojan War happened in England" thing was a bit to my disapointment, as I'm a big fan of the GREEK mythology behind the Trojan War, even if Cussler managed to tie the main villains into it.

Still, all in all the best part of the book had to be Dirk and Al's development, culminating in the wedding. Dirk taking over NUMA made sense, and the Cussler appearance brought a nice coda to the novel.

7/10.

I am on record that Dragon is my least favorite Dirk Pitt book but I think Trojan Odyssey has taken it's place. Although, I still enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to others to get them started on Dirk Pitt.

I honestly have liked every book by Cussler and about Pitt. I am now in Black Wind and Treasure of Khan to go until I have finished the whole series so far.

Overall, I am pretty split down the middle on this book. The rapport between the main characters is what I really enjoy about the Dirk Pitt series and this book doesn't fail there. While I am not fond of the twins I felt they filled out their roles in this book just fine. They weren't really secondary characters but they also weren't really the main characters either. To me they had a purpose in the story and CC stuck to that. I also believe the book would have been fine without them as well - they really weren't that important to the whole story.

Specter was by far the worst villian of the bunch. The goal wasn't very well defined or plausible. China wants to get a monopoly on heaters by causing the temp. to fall in the northern hemisphere - not real strong in my opinion. You could pretty much figure out that Specter and Epona (I think that was her name) were the same person because neither one was well developed. You didn't get to know them like the other villans.

I know a lot of people aren't fond of Jr. and Summer "taking over the reins" of the series but I believe Cussler is going about this whole thing the right way. When you create a character in a book you basically choose 1 of 2 paths - the characters get older or they don't and never will.

What I mean is that Cussler put a date in his first book and that means he choose the first path. The characters will get older and at some point have to retire because age is a problem. It's natural and nothing is wrong with that. Your "universe" that you create will have to evolve and change as time goes by. That means bring in new main characters to keep things fresh from a chronological point of view. I believe with Cussler took his "universe" and has come to his end (or is very close to it). He is going to take his characters and have them age out but let his son (DC) take over the reins to continue the "universe" with Dirk JR, Summer and Dahlgren as the main characters. Who knows - DC may have kids to become authors and this "universe" might be handed off to them and a whole new set of characters will take over and Dirk Sr is now a grandpa.

The other route is to NEVER put a date to a story and keep real life historical event very vauge so you cannot put a date to the stories. By doing this an author can have a character never age and keep them in a limited section of time. I have not read any of Ian Fleming's books but this is what I picture when I think of James Bond - a character that never ages.

I don't think that there is anything wrong with either approach but the first one is the hardest to accept because fans have a hard time accepting major changes in characters. I know I would MUCH rather read about Dirk and Al but I also love the "universe" they are in. As long as Dirk JR, Summer and Dahlgren can grow and evolve into good characters I am willing to give them a chance.

If you go back and reread the whole series in a short period of time you will really see the evolution of every character in the Dirk Pitt "universe". Now we just have to give DC a chance to let Jr et al grow and evolve.

I started Dark Wind the other night full of trepidation because of all the negative things I have read most of you put. So far I have to say I enjoy it. I can see the differences with DC and CC style of writing but overall they are fairly similar and thte same is with Dirk SR and JR - very similar but I can see the differences. I am happy that Dahlgren is more of a renegade (not sure if that is the best word) than Al as a sidekick. If they would have been similar I probably would be disappointed with that.

If you have made it this far - first I hope you understand what I said and secondly you really must have no life to listen to me ramble on but I appreciate it anyway.

Trojan Odyssey (here in italy simply odyssey) it's been my first CC book
I liked it so much and after finished it I quickly start to read all the other books of Clive

It's a great book but after reading the other books (now i'm at treasure) TO looses some points.......i found it without the suspance of the other stories

I give it a 7.5

greetings from italy w:

Welcome to the forum, TheEdge! Glad to see more international folks here. Yes, you will find that after reading many of the earlier and middle Cussler books, that most people were dissappointed in TO. Enjoy your time on the forum, looking forward to reading more posts as you make your way through the books!

~Erik

I am rereading the book for the 3rd time now, and overall I like it. There are a couple of issues I am ******-off by. First, how the P-3 Orion survives to land with two engines on the same side (engines 3 and 4 are starboard inner and starboard outer) out plus rudder authority gone is pure hogwash. Second, that hyperbole about MHD propulsion. Since that form of propulsion only real benefit is silent operation, one may ask why a marine survey vessel needs extreme quietness. It would be also interesting to know how the MHD propulsion was powered (the electricity to create the magnetism has to produced). The book is silent on that one. And no author should attempt to sell a "nearly 40 knots" capable ship with a polar tug hull form to the readers.

Gotta be able to sneak up on the fishies, of course. Can't be scaring off your research subjects. :lol: