YMMV / Dirk Pitt Adventures

• Americans Hate Tingle: Unsurprisingly, White Death wasn't psrticularly well received among Spanish readers due to its portrayal of Spanish history and Basque terrorism (along with the implication that the Spanish government is oppressive because it doesn't let Basque separatists do their thing).
• Fair for Its Day: One subplot of Iceberg (1975) involves Pitt pretending to be Camp Gay to get a potential enemy to underestimate him. Pitt bases his acting on a stereotype quite trite but still present in the popular culture of the time, and Sandecker even asks him why he's acting like a "faggot". However, the foe in question is a homophobe (and a domestic abuser, and a Corrupt Corporate Executive, and a megalomaniac) and Pitt guessed that he would be when they met based on his personality. When Pitt reveals the truth, it's in the middle of beating five types of crap out of him, which is payback for the beating he got from him earlier, where he didn't break character. Even more notably, in a manner that would be shocking even today, Pitt seems to have no problem with Kristjan becoming Kirsti, at one point even considering a sexual offer from her, and is more concerned with the fact that she has become a sociopath. Of course, the fact that Kristjan has become an impossibly Attractive Bent-Gender also helps.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Treasure published in 1988 but set in 1990, imagines that Muammar Gaddafi died of cancer while the Ayatollah Khomeni was still alive. By 1990, Khomeni had been dead for a year while Gaddafi would live until 2011.
  • One plot development in Havana Storm is the death of Fidel Castro in June 2016. The Cusslers were only off by five months.
  • Most notably the plot to level half of Manhattan, outwards from the World Trade Center, which was thankfully foiled at the climax of Valhalla Rising.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Night Probe opens with the President told that the Middle East has only two years of oil left...in 1981.
  • Treasure states that in 1991, the U.S. finally adapted to the metric system which, at the time, many thought was inevitable. Nearly 30 years later, the country still has not done so.
  • Dragon, published in 1990, shows Japan not only an economic powerhouse but so advanced in technology that they have artificial intelligence robots and will have a space defense system ready in just two years. Characters mention such "possibly inevitable" things like Japan seizing control of Hawaii or even a heavy influence on the West Coast of the United States. Starting a year after the book's publication, Japan entered the Lost Decade of a heavy recession and, in many ways, still has never recovered, let alone come close to economic/technological domination over the world. Nowadays, it's China which would occupy that place.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Pitt himself, for the Running Gag of him behaving with deliberate rudeness and uncalled ways towards people in charge and then getting away thanks to the mention of his influential and powerful dad. Thankfully, this was downplayed in later installments.
• Values Dissonance:
  • In Iceberg, Pit acts outrageously Camp Gay to deceive someone. Given the era, it is perfectly acceptable for Admiral Sandecker to ask Pitt why he is acting like a faggot.
    • The entire Evil Plan would have no chance of working in a modern setting because transgender people are far more socially accepted than they were in the 1970s. Heck, Kirsti coming out would probably increase her company's stock value, especially since Iceland is quite progressive.^note Just to establish a baseline here; it had its first openly gay Prime Minister in 2009, and you can legally transition without surgery.
  • In Dragon, Pitt falls asleep while Stacy is giving him a back rub. At the next paragraph, she has sex with him while asleep. Today, this would be a questionable consent at the very best.

---