Action Adventure Author : Clive Eric Clussler

Clive Clussler was born in Aurora, Illinois in July of 1931. Besides being an exceptional writer of action adventure, he is a successful marine archaeologist. He is also the founder of the very real National Underwater and Marine Agency (called NUMA for short) which is a non-profit organization.

He grew up in California attended Pasadena City College for only two years before joining in the Air Force and serving as a flight engineer and aircraft mechanic during the Korean War. After that he worked in advertising for a while, produced radio and TV commercials before beginning a writing career in fiction in 1965 where Dirk Pitt first appeared in The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg

Dirk Pitt works for the fictious NUMA in all his books which are full of fascinating plots and spectacular rescues. He has sort of retired Dirk Pitt in favor of another character, Kurt who co-author with Paul Kemprecos has help write, but this character also works for the fictious NUMA.

His life imitates his art in the fact that was an underwater explorer, discovering over 60 shipwrecks and written about their history, not to mention the many he has tried to find and could not locate. He has worked up and down the Mississippi, on the Atlantic coast as well as in Texas in helping archaeologist find parts of our history. It has not been without criticism however, as he is not a subtle man. Tempers of some academics have flared because he is not very diplomatic, to put it mildly. If he is on a quest he will step on the toes of anyone to find what he is looking for. He also collects classic cars which he loves.

Clive has also been criticized by academic in the literature field for making his characters invincible, but he seems to think that a hero can and does do everything regardless of the danger. I for one love his books because we could use more heroes in this world. They also always have beautiful woman, really bad villains, high technology, sunken treasure, ship wreck, power packed action and incorporates part of history in with the mysteries in most of his books. I am forever learning from his vast fund of knowledge and sometime the question he asks in his books.

Unfortunately his two attempts at the big screen of the movies, failed he says, because it did not follow his books and he even told people not to go see one of the films. He ended up involved in two law suits over this. The decision over who won is still pending.

He received special acclaim for his first non-fiction work with a book called The Sea Hunters and was even awarded a Doctorate of Letters in 1997 by the U of NY Maritime College without writing a thesis. This had not happened in 123 year since the founding of this college. He also is a member of th American Society of Oceanographers, Royal Geographic Society of England and the New York Explorers Club.

His latest released book is The Chase and the next book will be released in April of 2008 called Plague Ship

He was married to his wife Barbara for 50 years until she death in 2003. He has three children and four great grandchildren.