Dragon

by Clive Cussler

1991

Status

Available

Publication

Pocket Books (1991), Edition: Revised, 544 pages

Description

The tenth action-packed thriller in the Dirk Pitt series, where the adventurer must foil the deadly conspiracy of a group of Japanese nationalist fanatics.

User reviews

LibraryThing member df6b_mattW
This book was like the other Dirk Pitt novels, GREAT! I still have three books to read after the four I own I must read.
LibraryThing member MsBeautiful
Adventure/Thriller, Fun to listen to on tape or cd
LibraryThing member Cecilturtle
Dirk Pitt comes through once again, this time in even more incredible circumstances. I'm all for suspended disbelief, but I really had to suspend this time. Dirk is certainly unbeatable when it comes to stamina, witt, and strength!
LibraryThing member SonicQuack
Dirk Pitt, Cussler's hero who is always in the wrong place, finds himself in the centre of a nuclear maelstrom. Japan fronts the diabolical mastermind this time, with killer robots, uber-secret hideouts and katana wielding maniacs. Leave your disbelief at the front cover, for Dragon is a non-stop
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wild ride of espionage and action. Not as engaging as some of Cussler's other works, Dragon still entertains from cover to cover.
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LibraryThing member HankIII
Perhaps another day........in another reincarnated state when I can't be put into a coma by reading it.
LibraryThing member Neverwithoutabook
Another great Dirk Pitt adventure that pulls you in with almost non-stop action and adventure. I say almost because towards the end I felt it lag just a tiny bit and the ending disappointed slightly. Otherwise a great thrill read! That Dirk Pitt can do anything!
LibraryThing member gdill
Overall "Dragon" seemed a little drawn out, but somehow it managed to keep me engaged with lots of adventure and mystery. Many parts seemed unrealistic and far fetched in typical Cussler fashion. I was struck by how accurate Cussler introduced the technology described in this book provided it was
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written over 20 years ago: cell phones, fax machines, robotics, submersibles, etc. If you're a Cussler fan and enjoy adventure stories, this one doesn't disappoint. I can easily see this made into a Hollywood blockbuster film.
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LibraryThing member mattries37315
The Cold War seems to be winding down, but a new economic war appears to be on the horizon with the added element of nuclear blackmail. Dragon is the tenth book of Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt series as the titular hero finds himself sucked into a espionage war between the U.S. and fanatical
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ultranationalist Japanese businessmen and criminals looking to create a new empire.

On 6 August 1945, a B-29 Bomber “Dennings Demons” takes off from the Aleutians with an atomic bomb headed for Osaka without knowing the “Enola Gay” is headed for Hiroshima and vice versa; however a Japanese pilot shots down the bomber which lands in the water not far off from a little island off the Japanese coast. Forty-five years later a Norwegian cruise ship in the Pacific finds an abandoned Japanese cargo ship and find a car leaking radiation moments before it detonates destroying the cargo ship, takes out of the cruise ship in the shockwave as well as a British research vessel. Underneath the surface a British submersible is also damage from the nuclear shockwave is found by an experimental NUMA ocean floor crawler—piloted by Dirk Pitt and Al Giordino—from an underwater research facility that must be evacuated due to earthquakes caused by the nuclear explosion. After getting to the surface, Pitt and Giordino are flown to D.C. and are “volunteered” to join a task force to tackle the nuclear threat from Japan due to them smuggling nukes in the country in cars. The two go outside the process and give the task force big clues that tips off the Japanese that their plan has been found out. Undercover agents in both Japan and the U.S. take on security forces with both sides, but things hit the fan when the Japanese kidnap Pitt’s on-off love interest Congresswoman Loren Smith along with an influential U.S. Senator. Thanks to a British undercover agent, the task force is able to locate the Japanese command center and launch a two-prong attack with Pitt & Giordino acting a decoys to let the rest of the task force get in and destroy the command center but both teams are surprised by robots upsetting their plans. The five task force members are forced run for their lives in a human hunting game, but Pitt as the first to be the prey tricks his hunter and turns the tables on him. The task force escapes with Loren, the Senator, and the mastermind behind the Japanese plot but their attempt to cause damage to the command center doesn’t work. The Japanese decide to set off a nuke in Wyoming, but the task force has found the wreckage of “Denning’s Demons” and plan to use the NUMA crawler to get the atom bomb and set it off in a nearby fault to take out the little Japanese island that the command center is built in. Pitt keeps Giordino from joining him and is able to fulfill the plan to detonate the bomb, but the escape route doesn’t workout making everyone think he doesn’t make it until a month later when the crawler comes up out of the ocean on a little island in front of a resort with a haggard Pitt asking for some fresh food.

At the time of publication (1991) the Cold War was over and with it the clichés of earlier Pitt novels, so Cussler compensated with Japanese business takeover on steroids. Overall the plot was solid with none of the scenes really dragging the book down, unlike the previous book. Of the characters, the main antagonists were a tad on the cliché side but were written well enough to still be a little rounded. Dirk Pitt was less of a lady’s man this time around, but to offset that Cussler made Pitt be perfect at everything including beat the author himself in a classic car race. Though I’ll give credit to Cussler for having Pitt referencing Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game before he was hunted and doing homage to it in his own book.

Dragon is a product of its time, an overall fine book that kept the reader hooked but also not the best in the series in my opinion. Clive Cussler keeps on going back and forth in how to describe his main character from book to book, but at least he isn’t the jerk he was in the earlier books in the series.
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LibraryThing member buffalogr
Cussler really has a hard feeling/spot for the Japanese in this book.
LibraryThing member PhillipThomas
As many Cussler novels do, this story starts on an important historical date - 6 Aug 1945 - with the covered-up loss of a sister aircraft and atomic bomb that was also on it's way to Japan.
This is an epic (585 page paperback) Dirk Pitt adventure centred around a Japanese organised crime syndicate
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who intend to avenge Japan.
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LibraryThing member jamesjarrett00
A Dirk Pitt Novel. The book opens in early 19450with an aircrew getting ready for a secret mission to bomb Japan with a nuclear bomb. The airplane is shot down on its trip to its target city and is lost to history. Then we move to modern times where a cruise ship has spotted a derelict ship and
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sends over a crew to take possession of it. It then blows up destroying both ships along with a NUMA research vessel. Dirk Pitt is on the bottom of the ocean in a secret habitat near the explosion. As we go along in the book, we find out that a Japanese crime syndicate is behind a plan to rule the world financially. The climax of the book is Dirk Pitt saving the day, again. I do enjoy the historical parts of the book. Those are my favorite parts. Dirk Pitt, as always, seems invincible, but I still enjoyed the story. I must, as I keep reading them.
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Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

1990-06

Physical description

544 p.; 4.2 inches

ISBN

0671742760 / 9780671742768

Barcode

1601337

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