Dragon was published by Simon & Schuster in 1990, reflecting the geopolitical anxieties of the moment: the Cold War was ending, Japan’s economic power was at its peak, and American popular culture was filled with fears of Japanese technological and financial dominance. Cussler channeled this anxiety into a thriller about a cabal of Japanese industrialists who have secretly assembled nuclear weapons from materials smuggled out of the country over decades.
The historical thread involves a B-29 carrying nuclear weapons over the Pacific in the final days of World War II — a mission that went wrong, leaving the bombs unrecovered on the ocean floor. The modern plot connects this lost nuclear material to a series of explosions targeting the shipping routes between Japan and the West. Pitt’s investigation leads from the deep Pacific to the boardrooms of Tokyo to an underground complex beneath the Japanese Alps.
The novel marked a transition in the Pitt series: with the Soviet Union collapsing, Cussler needed new antagonists, and Japan’s economic rise provided a convenient substitute. The portrayal of Japanese characters is more nuanced than the Cold War caricatures of earlier novels — the villains are motivated by nationalism and historical grievance rather than ideology — though the “Japanese industrialist as global threat” premise has aged poorly as Japan’s economic bubble burst.
Collecting Dragon
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1990): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$40
- Very good/very good: $5–$15
- Signed: $30–$80