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Type of bind: Kindle Edition
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
Format: Kindle Book
Label: Putnam
Manufacturer: Putnam
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 448
Printing Date: August 30, 2005
Publishing house: Putnam
Release Date: August 30, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 18200
Studio: Putnam
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Product Description:
Polar shift: It is the name for a phenomenon that may have occurred many times in the past. At the very least, it disorients birds and animals and damages electrical equipment. At its worst, it causes massive eruptions, earthquakes, and climatic changes. At its very worst, it would mean the obliteration of all living matter, and if that happens - exit Earth. Sixty years ago, an eccentric Hungarian genius discovered how to artificially trigger such a shift, but then his work was lost, or so it was thought. Now, the charismatic leader of an anti-globalization group plans to use the work to give the world's industrialized nations a small jolt, then reverse the shift back again. The only problem is, it cannot be reversed. Once the shift starts, there is nothing anyone can do about it. Austin, Zavala, and the rest of the NUMA Special Assignments Team certainly have faced dire situations before, but never have they encountered anything like this. This time . . . even they may be too late.
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Rated by buyers 
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Anarchists want to use experimental technology to cause a shift in the Earth's North and South poles, and it's up to Kurt Austin and NUMA to save the day. I haven't read much of Cussler, but what I have read has been utterly ridiculous. But, they have also been light and easy reading. The same holds true for "Polar Shift".
Rated by buyers -
I had to volunteer at my mom's work and I had a lot of downtime. Therefore, I went to the CVS across the street and purchased this book, which looked interesting enough. Overall, it was an alright book. This is my very first C.C. novel, but it really hasnt given me a, "Im gonna read the rest of this author's books" impression. Though the details of the different shenanigans and fiascos that Kurt Austin gets into are well documented, it is kind of hard to take most of them seriously. When ever a main character is in peril and facing hopeless odds, Kurt Austin always seems to be able to save everybody, even if some of his antics require feats that transcend the limits of the human body. No one important is killed off or anything, making this an extremely linear story. And it doesnt help that this book is overflowing with cheese. To give you an example, when one scientist comments about how they will encounter 100+ foot waves, instead of looking at him in disbelief, says "I guess we should have brought our surfboards." I mean, some of this dialogue is cornier than the punch lines in the movie Commando, and thats saying alot. There are also some plot elements that could have been elaborated on more to make the novel more enriching. Should have known they were selling this at CVS for a reason. From what I have heard though, Clive Cussler didnt even write this book, and his Dirk Pitt adventures are supposedly superior to these Kurt Austin adventures.
Oh yes, and there is another thing I should mention....
It seems that who ever wrote this book(be it Paul or Clive), was overly obsessed with the bodily features of the characters. And why is it that all of the main protagonists have blond hair and blue eyes? :) My god, the author probably mentioned "blue eyes" 30 times! And how many times do we need to hear that the girl has blond hair!!! Jeez!
Rated by buyers 
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Clive Cussler is now an industry and he pumps out books with regularity and with a certain rythmic quality. Every one of his books has the same pattern: start off with a chapter that looks at an historical event (that is fictional) which normally means that some ungodly secret is hidden. Move to current times when the secret is unearthed by dastardly bad guys who want to take over the world. Next comes the team who uncover the plot by being in the right place at the right time and suffering through some bizarre events. The team figures out what is going on, manages to upstage the bad guys, and kills them. Oh, and the team leader gets the girl - very important part.
In this case - Polar Shift - the historical secret is some sort of discovery where you can cause not just a magentic polar shift, but an actualy physical geological shift which will destroy the world. The bad guys are a collection of anarchists - who are brilliant scientists, of course - and a shadowy person who is using the anarchists in his endeavor to take over the world.
The team is Kurt Austin, Joe Zavala and the Trouts. They happen to come across this plot because Kurt is leading a charity kayak race when the mad scientist happens to run a test that backfires in the exact same waters; the Trouts happen to be right in the center of a several-miles wide whirlpool in a zodiac, and they manage to swirl around the rim of the whirlpool for long enough to have Kurt and Joe pluck them away in a helicopter, seconds from when the whirlpool collapses, etc.
The girl is one of the unique twists in this book. She goes after Kurt rather than the other way around as we saw in all the previous books.
Throw in some expeditions to islands in northern Siberia, woolly mammoths, tsunamis, ancient crystal cities in the bowels of extinct volcanoes, high tech gadgetry, and murderous thugs and you have a typical Cussler book.
So, given that all of this stuff is so generic, why do I give this book 4 stars? Because it is a fun read!!! It is a perfect book for a flight or two. You do not need to think too much about the contents, since you know how things will play out, you can simply enjoy the thrills and spills knowing that the world will be saved in the end!
Some of the plot lines were actually more bizzare than normal and I was hoping for resolutions - but was disappointed. What seems like a major idea (the woolly mammoths) completely dissipates and fizzles out at the end as does the whole ancient crystal city. Too bad, there seems to be the idea of a great Clive Cussler story in those ideas!!
Rated by buyers -
The Cussler formula cranks out yet another wild adventure. History is re-written (this time only going back to World War II), a scientific formula is uncovered that could cause the end of life on earth, and our hero must stop a band of anarchists who mistakenly think they can use the formula to gain control of the planet's communications. Somewhere along the way wooly mammoths come out of extinction (which was a weird side story) and an underground city is found in the north.
This book reads fast and you get the feeling the authors were only going through the motions of writing it. But if you have never read a Cussler book before, you might enjoy America's version of James Bond.
Rated by buyers 
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The subject matter of Polar Shift promised scientific intrigue and a storyline full of techno-thrills. What the novel delivered was a hodge-podge of gappy scientific reasoning, implausible circumstances, repetitive phrasing, random romance, excruciatingly over-detailed descriptions of alcoholic consumption, and excruciatingly under-developed stereotypical characters. (How often can one heroine be called `beautiful and intelligent' before the very first piece of evidence is presented to make the case? Answer: 32 and still counting.)
As a vehicle for learning anything about polar shift, I think the book exhibited just enough research to be dangerous. If a magnetic shift really can cause geological shift of plate tectonics - which seems unlikely but perhaps there is some scientific merit here - how does this occur? How would an `antidote' work? Is it through wave cancellation? If so, why not go down that path a little further, both to be informative and to help the plausibility of the plot line? And what of the code/cipher nonsense that housed the critical Kovacs equations in a nursery rhyme? (What ARE these equations? I thought they were frequencies.) Either explain the code fully or not at all, but please spare the half-hearted endeavor at a dialog-based explanation of ciphers and code-breaking that gets wrapped up prematurely by our hero's, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
So if Paul Kemprecos is, in fact, the ghost writer for this book, it feels a bit disingenuous. Is this true and does it explain why such a touted writer as Clive Cussler would have produced (or merely signed off on) such a tour-de-farce? Can anyone rise to Cussler's defense before I resign to this being the very first and last book of his I will ever read?
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