Cyclops was published by Simon & Schuster in 1986. Raymond LeBaron, a wealthy treasure hunter, vanishes while searching for the legendary treasure ship La Dorada somewhere in the Caribbean. His blimp is found drifting, empty, over the Florida coast. Pitt’s investigation leads him through Cuban waters, past a Soviet military base, and eventually to a discovery that stretches credulity even by Cussler’s standards: a secret Soviet base on the moon, built during the 1960s space race and still operational.
The moon base — the “Cyclops” of the title, named after its single observation window — is Cussler’s most outlandish plot element, and reactions divide cleanly between readers who find it too much and readers who find it perfectly in character. Cussler was always pushing the boundaries of adventure fiction’s plausibility threshold, and Cyclops is the point where he tested how far his audience would follow.
The novel’s other elements are vintage Cussler: the historical mystery (the 1918 blimp crash and its connection to a lost treasure), the geopolitical thriller (a conspiracy to overthrow Castro), and the underwater adventure sequences that remain Cussler’s strongest set pieces. The opening chapters, describing LeBaron’s doomed blimp flight over the Caribbean, are among the most atmospheric Cussler ever wrote.
Collecting Cyclops
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1986): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $20–$50
- Very good/very good: $8–$20
- Signed: $40–$100