History Literature / DirkPittAdventures

* TheConspiracy: A spaceship that carried a colony crew to the moon was assembled in orbit, with ten men and many part being put there in fake communication satellites, all of this in complete secret, without support and with the technology of the era.

The Dirk Pitt Adventures is a large series of novels featuring oceanographer and AdventurerArchaeologist Dirk Pitt and his motley pals in the [[GovernmentAgencyofFiction National Underwater and Marine Agency]] (which is described shortly but aptly as "the maritime counterpart of [=NASA=]"). The series was created by Creator/CliveCussler, although he has teamed up with other authors to write his books, notably Craig Dirgo and his son, Dirk Cussler. There have been two movie adaptations- ''Film/RaiseTheTitanic'' and ''Film/{{Sahara|2005}}''.

* ResetButton: ''Night Probe!'' ends with a treaty revealing that the U.S. basically bought Canada back in 1914 and the idea the countries will merge, but later books never mention a "United States of Canada", as it's still referred to as an independent nation. Considering the events in the next book would destroy the reputation of the U.S. president that appeared in ''Night Probe!'', it's not unbelievable that the initiative to merge the countries died with his mandate. This is more or less confirmed in the then next book, ''Cyclops''; Dirk does mention the treaty and the American officials present are somewhat embarrassed, suggesting that [[RealityEnsues declaring such a dramatic change based on a forgotten century-old treaty didn't quite work out]] and they decided to just hush the whole thing up.

* '''Raise The Titanic''' (1976)

* '''Pacific Vortex''' (1983)

* ShootTheBuilder: Zigzagged. The scientists hired by the Racine Fauchard to recreate the ElixirOfLife are initially paid off and sent home unharmed. However, Racine accidentally leaves evidence of her crimes on one scientist's computer, causing the research team to threaten to go to the authorities. Racine murders nearly all of them within a week. Then she discovers there are flaws in the potion that she can't fix on her own, and spares at least one scientist so that he can fix the formula. Instead, he sabotages the potion to kill her.

* MyGrandsonMyself: The villains has been alive since before the first world war using life extending techniques and poses as a distant descendant.

* ReverseMole: [[spoiler:Teri von Till has no blood relation with the BigBad at all; in fact she is a narcotics agent named Amy ''impersonating'' von Till's niece.]]

* KissMeIAmVirtual: Hiram Yeager's computer GUI "Max" is a sometimes scantily-clad (or downright naked) representation of his wife.

* HaveYouToldAnyoneElse: Qin Shang's first scene has his contact in the Chinese government, Yin Tsang, who tries to force him out of the government sponsored smuggling and replace him with a competitor that Yin has cut a deal with. Yin proves himself to be stupid as well as greedy when his suspicions aren't raise by Qin Shang asking "Why else have you discussed by expulsion with ?" And then proves himself to be even stupider by taking a sip of tea offered to him after saying that he's inly talked it over with the rival shipping tycoon. A couple pages later newspaper headlines reveal Qin Shang's competitor was killed in a mysterious hit and run, while Yin Tsang died of mysterious heart failure.

* BoardToDeath: The BigBad has a meeting describing her plans to monopolize the water ways. Congressman Jeremy Kinkaid angrily protests this as moral and vows to fight it in court, while a scientist named Dearborn also questions the ethics of it. They are told that their opinions are respected but after the meeting the Kradizak's (who were watching) are asked who they think they should kill, and name Kinkaid (who is later confirmed to have died in an "accident") and Dearborn.

* ArtisticLicenseNuclearPhysics: The hidden nuclear devices are the size and shape of a car [=A/C=] compressor and powerful enough to blow ships to pieces over dozens of miles and trigger an underwater earthquake. First, to trigger an underwater earthquake megaton-sized weapons are needed, the quoted "maybe 10 to 20 kilotons" is too small, second, only the smallest nuclear devices ever made, W48 and W54 Davy Crockett could fit the size of an automotive [=A/C=] compressor, maybe [=60x15=] centimeters, and their yield was just 72 to 20 tons of [=TNT=] respectively, enough to blow to pieces a large ship if hit directly, but never to lay waste to hundreds of square miles.

* EveryoneHasStandards: In the prologue, Venator and Macer are disgusted and frustrated by Severus's decision to RapePillageBurn the native tribes.

* MadeOfIron: In the prologue, Macer remains standing after taking arrows to the knee and thing, cutting three preaching natives in half. He is then struck with five spears but pulls them out of his body before continuing to fight.

* WouldHurtAChild: The leader of the death squad attacks a plane being flown by Dirk that was conducting a charity flight for sick kids.

[[folder:Tropes found in Trojan Odyssey]]
* AlternateHistory: The book is based in Iman Wilkens's ''Where Troy Once Stood'' work, which esentially says that the city of Troy was located in England and that the Trojan War was fought between groups of Celts.
* AmazonBrigade: The bad guys (or girls) of the book have one.
* BigBad: Specter [[spoiler:a.k.a. Epona Eliade.]]
* ContinuityPorn: Although the series' continuity is not being very concise, this book makes references to almost every other episode of the saga. Ironically, Loren's father appears here inexplicably alive and well despite having been killed in ''Vixen 03''.
* DarkActionGirl: An entire AmazonBrigade of them, although most of them offscreen.
* DoesNotLikeMen: While not overly misandric, Epona and company seem to think men are intrinsically dumber. This is apparently connected with them being some kind of neo-Pagan matriarchy cult.
* TheDragon: Flidais.
* PaperThinDisguise: Both Pitt and Giordino deduce Percy Rathbone is actually someone in a latex mask, though not because his face looks wrong or anything, but because his hands's skin looks different from his face's. They also perceive that his voice sounds slightly like through a voice deformer. However, it can be said the disguise actually fulfilled its mission to some degree, because if the wearer was [[spoiler:a woman]] as it was later implied, they didn't realize.
* ShoutOut: Epona Eliade's surname probably comes from comparative religion expert Mircea Eliade.
* StrawFeminist: The villains of the book, mixed with with straw ecofeminism and straw Wicca-esque neo-paganism.
* SweetPollyOliver: [[spoiler:Epona disguises herself as the obese masked man Specter for public appearances. The obesity or her disguise is probably meant to hide comfortably her female frame, as it's implied that the also obese Rathbone is actually one of her henchwomen under a similar disguise.]]
[[/folder]]

** In ''Cyclops'', Dirk Pitt is hinted to have been born in 1951 (his given age was 38 in-universe 1989), yet Admiral Sandecker never ages, is always described as a man in the late middle age. In other books, the good ol' Admiral is described as born in 1918, [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld which would make people wonder if he is human at all]].

** ''Night Probe!'' ends with a treaty revealing that the U.S. basically bought Canada back in 1914 and the idea the countries will merge. Later books never mention a "United States of Canada" as it's still referred to as an independent nation.
*** Although Dirk does mention the treaty in ''Cyclops'' and the American officials present are somewhat embarrassed, suggesting that [[RealityEnsues declaring such a dramatic change based on a forgotten century-old treaty didn't quite work out]] and they decided to just hush the whole thing up.
** ''Cyclops'' reveals there is a secret U.S. moon base which was created with info gathered by the Apollo missions, but ''Sahara'' shows a special document refuge where it's stated the Apollo moonlandings were faked. This oddity is never addressed.

** In ''Cyclops'', the man in charge of the mentioned moon base claims Atlantis exists. The aptly named ''Atlantis Found'' installment shows he was right all along, but it was all buried under a Nazi conspiracy that almost needed a war to unveil. Whether he inexplicably knew about this or was just talking out of his arse is unknown, but in the first case, it would contain some unsettling implications.
** ''Treasure'' states that in 1988, the U.S. finally adapted to the metric system. Later books indicate they've gone right back to the decimal system.
** Again in ''Trojan Odyssey'', a NUMA archeologist refuses to believe in Atlantis or similar civilizations, despite Pitt and Giordino discovering it earlier in the series. The fact is even acknowledged in the same book by Dirk, Jr. some pages before. It is probable that the Atlantis discovery was kept secret by the government and that the archeologist simply wasn't on the circle, but this is never officially stated.
** In ''The Mediterranean Caper'' Bruno Von Till is stated to have aided nazi officials to travel to Argentina after the war. Given that ''Atlantis Found'' later exploits this possibility and expands it to the Wolf family and the descendants of Hitler, it's possible and even implied by some notes like the Martin Bormann affair that Von Till actually helped them to travel there and (knowingly or not) found their dinasty. However, this is never brought up.
** The events in ''Pacific Vortex'' are implied to have happened in BroadStrokes after Pitt's children reveal themselves, because Pitt and Summer never have sex in their limited screentime together in the book. If not, the storyline would gain [[ChildByRape completely different overtones]], as in every scene in which he could had gotten Summer pregnant, [[DudeShesLikeInAComa one of the two was always unconscious]].

* GirlOfTheNovel (although Pitt has now settled down with Representative Loren Smith, the only girl he sleeps with in more than one story - some of his other lovers appear in multiple novels, but only sleep with him in one of them).

* YouHaveFailedMe: There is a scene showing three survivors of a failed assassination attempt forced to compete in a DeadlyGame.