克莱夫·卡斯勒

克莱夫·埃里克·卡斯勒（英语：Clive Eric Cussler，1931年7月15日—2020年2月24日）是一名美国冒险小说作家。

卡斯勒出版了超过70本作品，他以德克·皮特为主角的惊悚小说已经在纽约时报小说畅销书名单20多次。他的其中两部作品曾被改编成电影，其中一部改编电影《撒哈拉》是好莱坞最失败的电影之一，卡斯勒更被电影公司追讨损失。

卡斯勒也是是一名深海探险，是国家水下与海洋组织的创始人和主席，该组织发现了60多个沉船地点和许多其他著名的水下残骸。

2020年2月24日，卡斯勒于亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔病逝，享寿88岁。

Clive Eric Cussler (July 15, 1931 – February 24, 2020) was an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have been listed on The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than 20 times. Cussler was the founder and chairman of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks. He was the sole author or main author of more than 80 books. He often placed himself into his books as himself.

Early life

Clive Cussler was born in Aurora, Illinois, the son of Eric Edward Cussler and Amy Adeline (née Hunnewell), and grew up in Alhambra, California. His father was from Germany and his mother's ancestors were from England.

In his memoir The Sea Hunters: True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks, Cussler revealed that his father served in the Imperial German Army on the Western Front during World War I. Furthermore, one of Cussler's uncles served in the Imperial German Air Service and became a flying ace, shooting down 14 Allied aeroplanes.

He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was 14 years old. He attended Pasadena City College for two years and then enlisted in the United States Air Force during the Korean War. During his service with the Air Force, he was promoted to sergeant and worked as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS).

Career

After his discharge from the military, Cussler went to work for the advertising industry, first as a copywriter and later as a creative director for two of the nation's most successful advertising agencies. As part of his duties, Cussler produced radio and television commercials, many of which won international awards including an award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

After the publication in 1996 of Cussler's first nonfiction work, The Sea Hunters, he was awarded a Doctor of Letters degree in 1997 by the Board of Governors of the State University of New York Maritime College who accepted the work in lieu of a Ph.D. thesis. This was the first time in the college's 123-year history that such a degree had been awarded.

In 2002, Cussler was awarded the Naval Heritage Award from the U.S. Navy Memorial Foundation for his efforts concerning marine exploration.

Cussler was a fellow of the Explorers Club of New York, the Royal Geographical Society in London, and the American Society of Oceanographers.

Literary career

Clive Cussler began writing in 1965 when his wife took a job working nights for the local police department where they lived in California. After making dinner for the children and putting them to bed, he had no one to talk to and nothing much to do, so he decided to start writing. His most famous character is marine engineer, government agent and adventurer Dirk Pitt. The Dirk Pitt novels frequently have an alternative history premise—such as What if Atlantis were real?" or "What if Abraham Lincoln wasn't assassinated but was kidnapped?"

The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, were relatively conventional maritime thrillers. The third, Raise the Titanic!, established the pattern that subsequent Pitt novels would follow: a blend of adventure and advanced technology, generally involving megalomaniacal villains, lost ships, beautiful women, and sunken treasure.

Cussler's novels almost always begin with a chapter set in the past. These contain none of the novel's main characters and often seem disconnected from the plot until the main characters discover a mystery or secret relating the events of the first chapter to the rest of the story. This is almost always in the form of a long-lost artifact that is important to the villain's or hero's objectives. Often in the first chapter, a ship or airplane carrying a top-secret, important, or dangerous cargo is lost and never found, until it is recovered by a modern character later in the book.