Review of POLAR SHIFT (Penguin Audio 2005)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Clive Cussler (with Paul Kemprecos); read by Scott Brick
Maybe you didn’t get up this morning and say, “You know, these elites are starting to bug me, and I think I will reverse the earth’s magnetic field and destroy the planet,” but apparently Clive Cussler and Co. do think like that and thus this novel.
It is childishly simple to mock a Cussler novel with its square-jawed, blonde heroes (two this time, including a franchise Cussler character Kurt Austin) and "attractive" heroines. (Attractive, attractive--why always that description?) So why should I resist? I am pretty childish. Let the mocking begin.
POLAR SHIFT is like two or three book concepts smashed together. It leaps the shark more than a football player doing broken field drills. There are huge rogue waves, tiny woolly mammoths, an underground city complete with alleys, the obligatory Nazis, and enough pseudo-scientific jargon to choke everyone in Los Alamos (also in there).
So . . . be prepared. But on the positive side, this is a darn intense "listen," with some memorable scenes that make the movie Titanic look as boring as Last Year at Marienbad. (Don’t remember that one? There’s a reason.)
Scott Brick, one of my favorite readers, has a sort of chewy, earnest voice and doesn’t overdo the accents or shoot the women into falsetto.
Should you check out POLAR SHIFT? Ask yourself—How much do I hate electromagnetic fields?
Star Lawrence owns the health humor site Health’s Ass. She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.
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