Today, Nancy and Topper penetrate your defences with our fat observations on Clive Cussler's Cyclops! The action is ramping up on three fronts: a Cuban military outpost, a secretive Washington cabal of science billionaires, and THE MOOOOOON! We spend a truly unfortunate amount of time talking about television through the ages, the proper way to car…

We here at Cussler Hustler Enterprises would like to apologize for the poor taste exhibited in this section of the book, where a hurricane gains unprecedented speed and power in the middle of the Caribbean. Those responsible for misusing the weather weapons have been sacked. In the meantime, please enjoy this episode where we laugh at dangly body p…

Act One of Cyclops is... talking. And meetings. And discussions. And conversations. And research. And exposition. And-... well, let's just say not a lot HAPPENS. But don't worry, this is actually a good thing! Clive is front-loading the boring stuff, and keeping it fairly swift and breezy, because the action is about to get bonkers. Secret Agent Sa…

NEW SEASON! New shenanigans! New treasure! New intrigue! When the book opened with a zeppelin disaster, both Nancy and Topper regressed to their childhoods and got lost in the inflatable nostalgia. There's a billionaire colony on the moon, a super-sized Russian moon lander, a bunch of frozen mystery corpses, and a sunken coal ship that might have t…

It's a beach episode! Nancy and Topper kick back and revisit the six books that have brought us to the dizzying heights of podcast greatness: Mediterranean Caper, Iceberg!, Raise the Titanic!, Vixen-03, Night Probe!, and Pacific Vortex. We get a couple things wrong, we're shocked by what DOES stick around a year or more later, and we give everythin…

WE MADE IT! In spite of all our end-of-summer shenanigans, doctor-prescribed drug binges and wildfires, we managed to complete our super-sized finale to Deep Six! Dirk gets a lot of civilians killed on what is still probably the best day of their life. Giordino reminds us why he isn't bothered by Dirk's homicidal urges. Loren reminds us that you ar…

THE RESISTANCE has come together! THE RESISTANCE is composed of... uhm... all the top elites in Washington, and the NUMA paramilitary forces led by Dirk Pitt. Bougainville continues to solve all of their problems by blowing it up in the most attention-grabbing way possible. The Russians finally reveal themselves to perhaps not be the good guys. Gua…

Every train has gone off every rail in this episode of Deep Six! The whole 'missing President' scandal has been uncovered by the press, but fortunately the President is back! Unfortunately, the President is being remote controlled and promises to completely disarm the country. Loren finds herself the extra special guest of some hired goons, and a c…

Your favorite cohosts are a little behind schedule and a little under the weather, but at least we still know more about health and medicine than a KGB agent! Psychopharmaceuticals abound in this tale of multicultural malpractice. Dirk kisses Loren goodbye. Some nerds get chopped. Cults are stealing television. We compare old-people injuries. This …

KOREANS! Sorry, sorry! It's just so exciting to finally know which country we're supposed to be angry at. Speaking as a doctor, of course. Loren goes for a jog. Dirk gets out-manned. Sandecker feeds his ulcer. Sukarov does some elementary school science. The President is in some kind of tube. LASERS! - Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHustl…

It's a Cussler Hustlers first, folks! Your hosts Topper and Nancy made friends with another real-life podcast, The Escapist Room! They're a brother and sister podcast who review the wonderful cheesy movies of their childhoods and the modern movies that give them that same feeling. Since they do MOVIES and we do BOOKS, we're doing TWO CROSSOVERS, th…

RUSSIANS! Sorry, sorry! Diving into Part 2 of Deep Six, and it mostly seems like spies spying, backstabbers backstabbing, and five or six different groups that have no idea what's going on. There's a lot of Oval Office shenanigans, KGB shenanigans, Korean shipping shenanigans, and I don't think Dirk is even IN this episode. Refreshing! - Twitter: ⁠…

In case you can't spare the 59 seconds: there is no new episode of Cussler Hustlers this week, as cohost Topper is travelling and away from his computer. We have two episodes in the can yet to be edited, and a third episode co-produced with another podcast, so there's still plenty of goodness to come! In the meantime, can I recommend catching up on…

ASIANS! Sorry, sorry! We're covering Part 1 of Deep Six and... well... ASIANS! Also Russians, because we haven't seen them for a while! Pitt is dragged in several different directions at once, and half of the book is completely unrelated. Apocalyptic nerve toxin? Check! Live volcanoes? Check! Sexy bank robberies? Check! Sexy EPA administrators? Che…

What a rush! Pitt talks himself into a suicide mission, and helpfully brings along twenty other men. He crashes a plane, gets sucked underwater, blown up with a nuke, and still manages to get in some top-notch monologuing. Which body part will Al Giordino miss the most? Why is Dirk glowing? Is Smurfette Syndrome real? Find out this, and less, on th…

The action really picks up, and by that, I mean Dirk walks himself and a sizable chunk of the Navy into a trap! Then another trap. Then another trap. THEN ANOTHER-... look, just listen to the episode. It won't make more sense, but at least we can try to figure it out together. Also, Nancy brags about all her celebrity encounters, while Topper tries…

It's time for a special mid-week PITT STOP! Nancy has managed to con world-famous comedian and magician Harrison Greenbaum onto our show! Fresh from Last Comic Standing, Conan, and more than SIX HUNDRED shows with Cirque Du Soleil in Las Vegas, he's taking a breather with the Cussler Hustlers before opening his Off-Broadway Show, "What Just Happene…

We're back! It's time to blaze through a book that has no time for dilly-dallying. Pitt finds a capsule and then nearly dies several times before thinking "Hmmm, there might be something going on here." Who is the sexiest woman in the Pittverse? Who is the most dangerous woman in the Pittverse? Might they be the same person?! ONLY TIME WILL TELL! A…

PITT STOP #2 brings us teen heartthrob Peter Falk and the inimitable, world-famous, culture-defining Lieutenant Columbo. Nancy's Secret Boyfriend had a career spanning five decades of bringing down rich evildoers (so, of course, you know it's a work of fiction). Born the same year as Don Pendleton, which just goes to show you really could do anythi…

Our first PITT STOP episode is about the progenitor to Dirk Pitt, the divergent ancestor of Rambo, the grandfather of The Punisher, and one of the most-read Men's Novel series in history: Don Pendleton's MACK BOLAN. This tall, dark-haired, leathery-skinned, absurdly-skilled ex-military man who spends six hundred books killing everyone who dares thr…

We did it! We made it! THE END OF NIGHT PROBE! Clive is making up for lost time with a finale that kills half the named characters and two-thirds of the NPCs. Dirk commits several acts of international terrorism, which is what heroes do. Heidi gets her happy ending. The world finally figures out what to do with Canada, and absolutely no copyright l…

Pitt finishes killing everyone around him in Canadian waters, so he heads back to New York to kill some Yankees. More drunk, hairless sex. More side quests into weird history. A ghost attack and an impromptu bout of dinner theatre gives Dirk his final epiphany. Men would rather destroy democracy than go to therapy. Twitter: ⁠https://www.twitter.com…

Things are happening fast and furious now.... though since it's in Canada, we're still polite and travelling at a sensible speed. The NUMA team makes a lot of progress on the Empress of Ireland, until it blows up and everyone dies. Brian Shaw regrets working with Foss Gly, until he blows up and everyone dies. Honestly, Dirk Pitt should come with ha…

The book is moving fast and furious now! Dirk beats up a high-ranking politician. Heidi has buyer's remorse. Robot suits fight underwater zombies. Giordino fights a ghost train. Brian Shaw is an anti-masker. Clive gets real thirsty about some boats, trains and automobiles. Perhaps most important, BOTH OUR MICROPHONES WORK PROPERLY! Hallelujah! Twit…

MORE politics! MORE murder! MORE inappropriate sexytimes! Now with 90% less Dirk! North America is coming apart at the seams, and two extremely hairless men are doing everything they can to make things worse. However, it is the opinion of this show that if this book needs anything, it's more Foss Gly. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHustler…

It's doodlebug shenanigans time! Dirk taunts a hostile military superpower and gets his butt torpedoed, Sandecker extols the health virtues of smoking, Giordino mourns his heterosexual lifemate's passing, and then Quebec becomes even more powerful than you could possibly imagine. It just like me, fr fr. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHustl…

Due to continued problems with both microphones and brains, this is a slightly shorter episode. Everyone's playing silly buggers, the oil crisis gets worse, Canada is coming apart at the seams... so one of our villains decides to poke the biggest god damn schoolyard bully on the planet. I'm sure things will go well for him! Twitter: https://www.twi…

Retired spies. Abusive archivists. Double agents. A squash game that might lead to armageddon. Clive is putting a LOT of pieces into play here, so much so that you might forget Canada even exists, all tucked away down there. Heidi gets some Top Secret Dirking, and then asks him for help with her homework. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHus…

We're back, and we're starting a new Dirk Pitt novel, so you know what that means: time to talk about Amazon's Reacher! Which cohost has been held up at gunpoint? Which cohost hallucinates the weather? Which of the 17 named characters in the book's introduction are actually relevant? Find out all this, and less, on Cussler Hustlers! Twitter: https:…

In the thrilling, gripping finale to this tale of false-flag international apocalyptic bioterrorism, Dirk gets ANOTHER concussion and wakes up just in time to remember that the hero is supposed to win. We introduce a couple new characters, get confused by the laws of thermodynamics, and almost cure racism! Additional News: Due to extreme weather an…

Dirk wraps up his sexy, scandalous sex scandal just in time to get dumped, and he does the only sane thing: attacks a battleship with his face. Men would literally rather fight international terrorism with a concussion than go to therapy. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CusslerHustlers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CusslerHustlers Facebook:…

Things are picking up speed! Dirty pictures are revealed. Revolutionary armies are destroyed. Battleships are renovated. Several people are shot. Cheese is eaten. It's everything you want in a holiday blockbuster! Topper still has Covid, Nancy apologizes to Ving Rhames from the bottom of her heart, and the new microphone is probably going to get th…

We picked a good time to slow down our production schedule, since the Topper household is all dying of the 'rona. In spite of all that, we muddle through Dirk discovering that he accidentally uncovered some doomsday weapons, the NSA admitting to planning for race-based doomsday scenarios, and then a quick break for some wild tiger sex in a complete…

A shorter episode this week, due to real life being VERY rude to our stupid little podcast. Someone gets stabbed in the head with an icepick, but fortunately that's barely even a flesh wound. Someone starts digging for a sex scandal, but fortunately no-one minds in the 80s. Some knows what's stored on the Vixen-03, but fortunately he's not concerne…

Italian Cruise Ships. Owl murders. Zoomer slang. Blippi. These are all the topics we turn to in order to avoid talking about this week's chapters. But we manage it, all the while reassuring eachother that it was a different time, and Clive probably meant well. Perhaps this week's most shocking revelation: both cohosts were raised on the same saniti…

We finish up Dirk's initial investigation into underwater nuclear shenanigans, and then we spend entirely too much time in South Africa. Apparently the whites are having a hell of a time down there, and they harken back to the good ol' days of Rhodesia. What does this have to do with Table Lake, Colorado? Absolutely nothing. Join us, won't you?…

Flying fortresses. Exploding radios. Toxic radiation. Naked yoga. Nubile congresswomen. Fried testicles. Vixen 03 starts off a hell of a lot slower than Raise The Titanic, but you wouldn't know it from all the lampshade-hanging and breasting boobily that happens! Nancy has a Moment of Dirkness. Topper has to talk about S-E-X with his kids in the ro…

We're not done with Raise The Titanic. We have one final task... the 1980 big-budget flop adaptation. But we're not facing this journey alone. This week, our very first guest: Topper's wife Steph! She is here largely against her will, she refuses to listen to the podcast, and she hates Clive Cussler, so she was the perfect choice to review the film…

Thank God for Southby, we've reached the end of this titanic Titanic novel. Dana completes her Pokemon evolution into Liberated Female. Seagram gets off the toilet long enough to punch a ghost. Dirk has nasty aquarium sex. Donner has a baby. Prevlov gets a job offer. America nukes itself. This thing has more endings than Lord of the Rings, but only…

Which host is trained in hostage negotiation? Which host's parent has never shot anyone? On this episode, our heroes break out the Strategic Defence Febreeze Reserves and try to keep the damn boat from sinking again, and we lament the lack of futuristic weather control weapons. This episode is brought to you by Faceplant, the Official Beer Of Good …

Neither fire, nor sleet, nor dental surgery, nor more technical issues shall keep the podcasters from their duties! Dana fights back against the matriarchy, Seagram fights back against his ticking biological clock, and Dirk fights back against gravity. Amazingly, he has the most success! This episode is brought to you by Wet Steel.…

Our "parenting witty banter" got gross enough that some of the audio just refused to record. In spite of that, we dive into a segment that is all about Men Doing Manly Things, and Women Apologizing For Their Pathetic Feminine Frailty. Nancy has... some thoughts. Join us!By Topper Sundquist

Nothing robs a magical mystery of its power like answers. James Cameron might have ruined the mystique around the Titanic, but Clive Cussler is here to make sure no-one gets any satisfying answers before he's ready. This week's question: what is the sound of one nation SCREAMING? Also, special musical guest Engelbert Humperdinck!…

In this episode, we find the only thing hotter than a Byzanium reactor: Nancy's husband! Fortunately, he uses his James Bond powers for good, so we can focus on Dirk Pitt: Thunder God. And good urinal etiquette.By Topper Sundquist

Sexy secretaries, child brides, mooching war widows, microfiche (ask your parents), and the question on everyone's lips: WHO IS DIRK PITT?! We rope in the Russians, the French, and the Philippines, and just gloss over all the massacres to keep the plot moving.By Topper Sundquist

Time travel, crying women, whiny liberal feminists, rule-breaking Presidents and shadowy government organizations? The latest Dirk Pitt novel has a disturbing lack of Dirk Pitt so far, but there's plenty of other stuff for us to speculate wildly about!By Topper Sundquist

In the gripping finale of Clive Cussler's second book, the entire plot is recapped multiple times for both the characters and the readers, and most of the action happens off-screen with other people. HOWEVER... we get QUITE the dramatic setpiece for the climactic showdown. Also, Dirk Pitt is a furry, and QUITE tolerant of some... unexpected develop…

The timely news coverage you've come to expect is in full effect this week! Also several dives into history... 1933 and 1973, to be specific. Was Clive Cussler an early high-tech Communist, or a patriotic neoliberal? Probably the second, but it's fun to imagine!By Topper Sundquist

Columbo is BACK! Also Dirk Pitt, but it's harder to get excited about that. Don't let his outfit fool you: this episode is CHOCK FULL of manliness. Fairly bursting with it. One boat does indeed burst with it. Fortunately it's full of henchmen, so everything's fine.By Topper Sundquist

Carpeted boats, carpeted bathrooms, carpeted women. In the age of upholstery, our hosts try to figure out of Clive knows how sexist he's being, or if he's making an incisive statement about masculine culture? Pull out your centerfold pinups of Cannery Weekly for this one!By Topper Sundquist