Clive Cussler Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz with answers about author Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Who is Clive Cussler?
A: Clive Eric Cussler is an American adventure novelist and underwater explorer.

Many of his thriller novels, feature what character?
A: The character Dirk Pitt.

How many of his books have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list?
A: More than 20.

Cussler is the founder and chairman of what?
A: National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), which has discovered more than 60 shipwreck sites and numerous other notable underwater wrecks.

He is the sole author or lead author of how many books?
A: More than 70.

When was Clive Cussler born?
A: July 15, 1931.

Where was he born?
A: He was born in Aurora, Illinois, and grew up in Alhambra, California.

His mother Amy's ancestors were from where?
A: England.

His father Eric was from where?
A: Germany.

He was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout when he was how old?
A: 14.

He attended Pasadena City College for two years and then did what?
A: Enlisted in the United States Air Force during the Korean War.

During his service in the Air Force, he was promoted to what?
A: Sergeant and worked as an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer for the Military Air Transport Service (MATS).

After his discharge from the military where did Cussler go to work?
A: In 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 what?
A: Radio and television commercials, many of which won international awards including an award at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

Following the publication in 1996 of Cussler's first nonfiction work, The Sea Hunters, he was awarded what?
A: 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 what?
A: Awarded.

In 2002 Cussler was awarded the Naval Heritage Award from the U S Navy Memorial Foundation for his efforts in what?
A: The area of marine exploration.

Cussler is a fellow of the Explorers Club of New York, the Royal Geographical Society in London, and what?
A: The American Society of Oceanographers.

When did Clive Cussler begin writing?
A: 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 to do, so he decided to do what?
A: Start writing.

The Dirk Pitt novels frequently take on an alternative history perspective, such as what?
A: "What if Atlantis was real?" or "what if Abraham Lincoln wasn't assassinated, but was kidnapped?"

The first two Pitt novels, The Mediterranean Caper and Iceberg, were what?
A: Relatively conventional maritime thrillers.

The third, Raise the Titanic!, made Cussler's reputation and established the pattern that subsequent Pitt novels would follow: a blend of high adventure and high technology, generally involving what?
A: Megalomaniacal villains, lost ships, beautiful women, and sunken treasure.

Cussler's novels almost always begin with a chapter taking place when?
A: In the past.

These contain none of the novel's main characters and often seem disconnected from the plot until what?
A: Until the main characters discover a mystery or secret connecting the events in the first chapter to the rest of the story.

This almost always comes in the form of a what?
A: A long-lost artifact which holds the key to the villain's or hero's objectives.

Often in the first chapter, a ship or plane carrying a top-secret, important, or dangerous cargo is lost and never found until what?
A: Until it is recovered by a modern character later in the book.

Cussler's novels, like those of Michael Crichton, are examples of what?
A: Techno-thrillers that do not use military plots and settings.

Where Crichton strove for scrupulous realism, however, Cussler prefers what?
A: Fantastic spectacles and outlandish plot devices.

The Pitt novels, in particular, have the anything-goes quality of the James Bond or Indiana Jones movies, while also sometimes borrowing from whose novels?
A: Alistair MacLean's.

Pitt himself is a larger-than-life hero reminiscent of Doc Savage and other characters from what?
A: Pulp magazines.

Cussler has had more than seventeen consecutive titles reach what?
A: The New York Times fiction best-seller list.

As an underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered how many shipwreck sites?
A: More than sixty.

What is the Carpathia?
A: The ship famed for being the first to come to the aid of Titanic survivors.

A visual and interactive depiction of Cussler's NUMA Foundation Expeditions has been made available as an extension of what?
A: NUMA's original website.

In what started as a joke in the novel Dragon that Cussler expected his editor to remove, he now often does what?
A: Writes himself into his books.

At first he wrote himself simple cameos, but later as something of a deus ex machina, providing the novel's protagonists with what?
A: An essential bit of assistance or information.

Often, the character is given an alias and not revealed as Cussler until when?
A: Until his exit with the characters remarking on his odd name.

The cameos include the Pitt adventures, as well as what Fargo Files books?
A: Lost Empire, Spartan Gold, Kingdom, and The Tombs.

The Tombs also includes whom?
A: His wife, Janet.

There are at least two other types of recurring in-jokes that are what?
A: Less obvious to a casual reader.

One is the frequent reuse of what name?
A: Leigh Hunt for different characters in different novels.

Seventeen books have had a character with this name, frequently in the opening prologues, frequently a sailor, usually what?
A: Dying.

A notable exception is the first Dirk Pitt adventure, Pacific Vortex, in which Admiral Leigh Hunter is a what?
A: A major character, commander of the 101st Recovery Fleet in Hawaii.

In the introduction to Arctic Drift, Cussler says there was what?
A: A real Leigh Hunt who died in 2007 and the novel is dedicated to him.

Another is that significant events in several novels occur on July 15, which is what?
A: Cussler's birthday.

He also uses what name in his works?
A: "Periwinkle".

In The Adventures of Vin Fiz (and in other works as well) there appears a donkey named what?
A: Periwinkle.

In Valhalla Rising, Periwinkle is the name of a what?
A: A catamaran in which Pitt, Giordino, and Misty Graham are rescued by none other than Cussler himself.

What was the first film of a Clive Cussler novel?
A: It was Raise the Titanic! (1980).

Who did it star?
A: Starring Richard Jordan as Dirk Pitt, Jason Robards as Admiral James Sandecker, David Selby as Dr. Gene Seagram, Anne Archer as Dana Seagram.

When did Paramount Pictures release Sahara?
A: On April 8, 2005, starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, Steve Zahn as Al Giordino, William H. Macy as Admiral Sandecker, and Penélope Cruz as Eva Rojas.

Clive Cussler married Barbara Knight in what year?
A: 1955.

They remained married for nearly fifty years until her death in what year?
A: 2003.

Together they had how many children?
A: Three, Teri, Dirk, and Dayna, who have given him four grandchildren.

Cussler's daughter Teri is the creator and manager of what?
A: The Cussler Museum in Arvada, Colorado, which display's Cussler's collection of classic automobiles.