I love Cussler's books. They are intensly entertaining. However, as I read "White Death" i'm a bit disappointed. It seems as if Austin started his adventure as a favor to Therri. Also, Zavala is not in most of the novel. I love the dialouge between the two and missed it very much throughout the book. Any thoughts? Thanks. ;)

w: Hi Trout Fan! As several members of this forum can attest to, I was also very disappointed by this book. I had a really hard time reading it, although listening to it on audio was easier. I agree with your sentiment that there was not enough Joe!

I agree I bought that book before I read it. Had I read it first I would not have bought it. :lol:

I am still reading this book and I have to say that it's an interesting story. It entertains me :)

An idea came to me about the sidekicks pairing up; joe zavala and al giordino together could be very hilarious :lol:

Oh wow, I don't think I could cope with that :lol:

I just purchased a copy of WD, and haven't gotten to read it yet. I'll have to take a looksy at that.

I enjoyed WD and his ohter books serpent, fire ice and blue gold and i can't wait until read Lost City hat:

I finished WD a while ago, and found it enjoyable. Granted, it wasn't Dr. Cussler's best book, but I still enjoyed it.

White Death wasn't Clive's best work, but I did enjoy it :)

It was my favorite of the NUMA Files until I read Lost City, which just blew it away. I really enjoyed White Death, much more than Fire Ice, which is to me the worst that I've read of Cussler's stuff to this point.

Rudi, LC was a fab book. I hope the next one is even better beer:

I recieved white death as a going away gift from my biology teacher when i moved to Baltimore, and am still reading it. . .its fairly good!

I wish my teacher's gave me nice going away gifts :(


j: Happy Reading!!!!

What a nice gift :) Enjoy beer:

Probably my least favorite book with Cussler's name on it! Not terrible but subpar when looked at next to his other books.

The idea about Al Giordino and Joe Zavala in a scene together wouldn't be very funny because Al Giordino is cooler than Zavala in about every aspect, so he would make Zavala look really really bad yike: yike:

I think Al and Joe together would be very interesting. Al maybe cooler but, Joe is not al that bad. Together they could create the ulmate machine, :lol:

Actually Joe and Al did pair up in the "Blue Ice" story. I wrote it. w:

I just picked up a new hardcover WD for US$3.99, which I was pretty comfortable with.

I haven't read any of the NUMA Files books, is it better to start from the beginning or can I start with WD since it's the only one I own. I know the jury is out regarding the Pitt books and starting from the beginning, how is it for the Austin ones?

For the record, I've been avoiding these books because of various reasons but will eventually get into the series. How does it compare to the Pitt series? Should I be comparing the two, or is it best to go in with no expectations?

Thanks! w:

There's no comparison but in my humble opinion it would help to start to read from the first. p:

Okay here is my opinion. I have liked the NUMA Files books from the beginning. I like Kurt and Joe. They do resemble Dirk and Al, but once you get to know them they have their own style particularly in later books. You also have the added bonus of Paul and Gamay (who is fabulous of course :P ) Do you need to start with the beginning books? Depends. Kurt and Joe develop over the course of their books, just like Dirk and Al developed over the course of their books. If you want to see the development happen read from the beginning. If you just want a good read, you can read them in any order. Like with the Pitt books, it is not necessary that they be read in any particular order. Any mentions of previous books are short and don't matter to the overall story, and I do think the books are getting better over time. So basically I'd go with wherever you'd advise someone to start the Pitt books. They're all a fun read. :) th: I hope this helps.

I raed this when it first came out and thought it was very good. It should make you think about playing around with nature. Some things are better left alone. It gives a little insight on what can happen when you start playing around with something and the results can be far from what you would want them to be.

Our oceans are to fragile to introduce"New" species into without years of research on the effects to other life in them. :wub:

Erik, I wouldn't compare because it does take the enjoyment away from the NUMA Files, trust me, I know ;) If you go into reading them as just another story and pretend you have noooooooooo idea who Drik and Al are it helps you enjoy them much more, I find. I don't think you have to read them in order. Just enjoy the one you read ;)

How many times does one person need to type the word enjoy j:

Thanks, everyone! I'll probably hold off until the summer anyway when I should have more free time and would feel less guilty about reading something other than articles for my thesis. By then I may have had the opportunity, also, to pick up other KA books for real cheap.

Thanks for the info!

Erik

So far WD is the only NUMA files adventure book I've read, but I'm giving some thought to picking up the others. Honestly with all the Dirk Pitt adventures and Cussler's other spinoffs going around, it can be hard to decide which books to buy next. Anyway, I picked this one up because (okay, I will admit my geekiness), the concept of mutated superfish sounded kind of cool. And it was, but there weren't quite enough of them in the book.

However, it was still a good read, and it had IMHO, a perfect beginning. The opening chapters in the Faroe islands just had such an excellent NUMA/high seas adventure feeling p:, if you know what I mean. After that, I thought it slowed down just a bit, although it picked up in time for the ending. I'm not sure exactly what the point of the Basque artifacts was, though. They seemed a bit like padding, but they didn't slow the story down much.

I think you should start with the first NUMA file Serpant and then work your way up to the latest Polar Shift. To me this series has become as eagerly awaited as the next Pitt book. I have found they get progressivly better with the exception of Fire Ice which was a little weak but still a good read. t:

I have now finished reading all the Dirk Pitt and NUMA files books. My first Pitt book was Flood Tide, which I really enjoyed. I then went back to the beginning and read them all in sequence (putting Pacific Vortex in the proper chronological place).
In my opinion, the very best ones were the early Pitt books. Like the James Bond movies, it took a couple of goes to really find the character and then the books kicked into their stride from Iceberg onwards. I like the fact that in these books, the action revolves around Pitt. Once the books start getting a bit more complicated from Treasure onwards you almost feel as though Pitt is incidental in some of them.
The NUMA files compare well with (and feel quite similar to) the later Pitt books such as Atlantis Found etc.

I have tried reading the Oregon Files, but could not get into them at all.

I also had trouble getting into the first two Oregon Files books. Have you tried the most recent one, Dark Watch. It was co-authored by Jack du Brul and I personally thought that it was fantastic. Certainly worth a read if you haven't tried it.

Dark Watch hasn't been printed in the Uk yet. I will give it a go based on your recommendation, but in all honesty I do prefer the guys from NUMA!

This about sums it up. Decent action at times, some intrigue, but overall just really blah.

To answer the original question, I don't think Kurt's involvement was entirely a favor to Terri. I think he may have helped her initially, but once the ball got going he was in it for himself and for the overall good of the planet. Plus, wherever Evil lurks, so shall Good go to battle (or something like that :lol: ).

I agree that the Basque artifacts storyline was very forced. You could take out those hundred pages and the story would remain unchanged.

Also, too many scenes had the feel of a cheap hollywood horror flick where all of a sudden the bad guy pops up and cue the string music. Oceanus was too involved with putting an end to their adversaries, and weren't very sneaky about it. Particularly the scene on the Washington Mall where Austin and Terri are surrounded by a bunch of "eskimo" (sorry can't think of the right word) thugs who are about to pulverize them in public. Please. Surely the people whom Austin nearly ran over on the sidewalk with the dogsled would have seen them committing murder on the mall. Perhaps I would better understand if I had been to the spot or knew what it looked like, but the descriptions made it sound like there were people out there. Anyway, it just wasn't a believable scene in my mind. Austin's subsequent dogsled race was pretty cool, but other than that all of the Oceanus involvement outside of their fishfarms was too contrived. Heck, they tried to kill him in the middle of the museum for crying out loud. Kurt's friend coming in the door is what saved him, then the bad guys just leave? Whatever.

snor: