Meg

The Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific, is the deepest part of the ocean and is seven miles deep and 1,550 miles long. You hear the quote that we know more about deep space than we do about our own oceans and it's true. You wouldn't think anything big would be alive down there in the cold dark...but underwater volcanoes have created somewhat of a greenhouse effect on the ocean's bottom. A layer of heated ash has formed a canopy deep below that allows a strata of undersea life, including giant cuttlefish, dinosaurs...and megalodons, huge sharks that grow up to 80 feet long! Two groups of people have converged on the Mariana Trench for different reasons. The Defense Department has sent a Navy ship along with scientists to retrieve mysterious manganese nodules. The pilot of the sub sent down to get the nodules is Jonas Taylor, a naval commander. There is also a research ship studying underwater volcanoes in the area. During the naval dive, Jonas has a run-in with a megalodon and lives are lost. Since Jonas is the only survivor of the dive, the Navy thinks he's crazy when he tells them his sub was attacked by a giant shark. They believe he is delusional and he is dishonorably discharged from the service. Jonas spends the next seven years going back to college to get his doctorate in marine paleontology, with a specialization in megalodons. When an old friend asks for his help in figuring out what is going wrong with an earthquake early detection system set up in the Trench, Jonas begins to find himself drawn back toward making another dive, and facing an old terror. This revised and expanded edition of Meg also includes the prequel ebook Meg: Origins so if you buy this edition, don't make the mistake of also buying that. I'll start this review by saying this is one of the most awful books I've ever read. But saying that, I couldn't help but also enjoy it. It was the horrible fascination of looking at a train wreck, a car wreck, and a plane crash all at the same time. What was my first inkling that it was going to be bad? When one of the characters studying the underwater volcanoes sees a blip on the boat's radar and his first statement is to say its a megaladon! Bear in mind, this is before ANYONE has seen a meg in the book or is even LOOKING for one, or even comprehending there are megs still alive in the trench. But for some reason, this character is just AUTOMATIC....ITS A MEGALADON!! It was so comical. At the beginning of the book, the author Steve Alten argues, and I would say a bit tongue in cheek, that megs could really be alive swimming somewhere down in the depths and offers flimsy scientific evidence for this....but then includes a scene where a T-Rex takes on a meg even though megs didn't exist in the same time period as the dinosaurs. It is fascinating to think that early humans might have actually glimpsed one of these behemoths though, or might even have had to fight against them. There are some other far-fetched components of the book, like dinosaurs evolving gills, but once you realize this is a pulp novel, reminiscent of the early 1930s with modern trappings, you start to relax and let the fact that Meg is the anti-Moby Dick wash over you and you begin to enjoy its horror much as you would an Ed Wood film. All the main male characters are good looking and physically fit and all the women are beautiful and have big boobs. They engage in infantile Me Tarzan You Jane relationships right out of early Clive Cussler or bad 1970s paperback adventure series. Ok, it's not quite THAT bad, but it's on the level of high school boyfriend/girlfriend. There was also rampant drug abuse of prescription medications all through the book. I was kind of amazed how many tranquilizers the pilots and crew of the deep sea subs took when they were operating equipment worth millions and millions of dollars. And the fact that the main character who was supposed to be the best sub pilot had problems with claustrophobia! Doesn't seem like that would be your best line of work! Something else that created a lot of drag on the narrative, at least at the beginning of the book, were these abrupt info dumps of "non-fiction" material that just suddenly appear right out of Wikipedia. You'll be following the plot with the main character Jonas going down into the trench and then out of the blue, you'll have an encyclopedia entry about the trench or megs etc. It was quite jarring and thankfully they ended after the first 20-30% of the book. This book was so bad that it actually opened up its own space time continuum where it is the pinnacle of literature. Once I understood this, I realized that for what it was, Meg is a masterpiece, the Spinal Tap of monster novels. It's all tongue in cheek and is quite fun once you get into the spirit of it. One scene in the novel pretty much sums up the whole volume and it's the subject of the cover art of the edition I read. A surfing contest is going on (have no idea WHY it wouldn't be cancelled with a megalodon on the loose). The meg appears to chomp on the contestants but one surfer is able to juke and jive around the attacking shark, makes it to the beach on his board, WINS the contest, AND asks a pretty girl spectator to go out with him! If you can read the preceding paragraph and laugh, then you'll get some enjoyment out of this book. If you roll your eyes in disgust, then skip it.

I devoured this book as quick as a megalodon snacking on a surfer because it's just plain good. It's also a pretty quick read, a fast adrenaline ride across the Pacific in under 300 pages. Though it lacks the intricacies and depth of a Crichton novel, I think the LA Times summed it up nicely with "Jurassic Shark." Jonas Taylor's career as a submersible pilot ended abruptly one day in the Mariana Trench when he panicked and shot his sub to the surface, killing two crewmen. Nobody believed Jonas saw a prehistoric carcharadon megalodon coming at the sub because megalodons have been extinct for over 100,000 years. Or have they? In the intervening years, Jonas obsessively researched the ancestor to the great white shark, still privately believing he saw an attacking megalodon in the warm waters on the bottom of the ocean. Meanwhile, his ambitious reporter wife Maggie has drifted from him, now having an affair with his "friend" Bud. Jonas sets aside his fears when entrepreneur Masao Tanaka approaches him about descending to the depths of the Challenger Deep one more time in order to find out what's been causing high-tech earthquake detecting equipment to malfunction. Jonas and Tanaka's son DJ descend to the deepest part of the ocean when all of Jonas's worst fears materialize in the form of a hungry megalodon. Jonas barely makes it back to the surface, but he soon learns a pregnant female meg came out of the depths as well. Whales are beaching themselves all over the South Pacific, and when the shark turns to human prey, the US Navy decides to send a submarine after her. Masao Tanaka and Jonas Taylor have a better idea: capture the shark and keep her in captivity at Tanaka's lagoon near Monterey. Between the navy, Greenpeace, gawkers, the media, and Jonas Taylor's gang, just about everybody is following the meg as she eats her way across the Pacific. Naturally, capturing a 60-foot predator with 7-inch serrated teeth is no easy task, and lots of people get eaten up until the final showdown between Jonas and the shark. Alten's characters are pretty one-dimensional, and I wouldn't exactly call Jonas an alpha male, but this book isn't about characters. It's about a 60-foot, pure white prehistoric eating machine that raises havoc and devours lots of people. If there's a character you don't like, don't worry, they'll likely wind up as fish food. Some adventure writers today are trying this format of lots of action and sparse character development, but nobody pulls it off with Alten's finesse. He's written one heck of a lean monster book that kept me turning the pages and wouldn't let me put it down. The best thing of all is that this is just the first book in a trilogy, and the other two are just as good. Steve Alten knows how to write a darned good monster book.

(as posted on my Goodreads account) Far-fetched....AND GLORIOUS! From the very first page, this book captures and drags its reader down into the dark depths of terror and intrigue that Alten has successfully managed to create in this amazing world of science and fiction. "JURASSIC SHARK" is the most perfect description of this novel - melding together a perfect combination of Jaws and Jurassic Park in a way that makes the reader question just how probable the chances are of the Earth's watery depths actually concealing a prehistoric, aquatic horror. If you have a love for all things shark, then "MEG" is the read for you. Alten definitely did some research for this masterpiece; it shows throughout the book and literally had me questioning the next time I dare venture into the ocean. "MEG" is a brilliant correlation of action, drama, and suspense. You won't want to put it down - in fact, there is so much action taking place throughout the course of the pages, that it's almost as if you CAN'T! Steve Alten really knows how to lay out science, intrigue, and terror in a single novel; each of these feeding into one another to birth a read greater than you could have originally imagined. I can say for a fact that I am beyond ready to begin the sequel in this series, "THE TRENCH". While I have read mixed reviews on the sequel, "MEG" has done such a good job luring me in with the first book, that I am positive I will HAVE to purchase every continuation novel from this point on. The world of Meg is much bigger than any of its characters could have imagined, and somehow MEG leaves the reader feeling the same way: You have to learn more. While it does seem that the romantic shift in the story kind of bolted out of nowhere, it really didn't bother me too much. I was too busy hoping no one else died (and by that I mean, "Wondering who was going to die NEXT?") A great story!

"Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror" is filled with cardboard characters, laughably overheated prose ("The shark snatched its prey like a dog might grab a biscuit!", etc), trite description, and cartoon villainy. The concluding action set piece is demented and many of the plot turns are almost comically predictable (you just know that the man and woman who hate each other at first will fall in love at the end, don't you?). By almost any objective analysis, "Meg" should be a failure. And yet--and yet!--I found myself somehow enjoying this book on a guilty pleasure level. For one thing, I've got a soft spot for underwater monster tales, and author Steve Alten has come up with at least a passably fresh spin on the genre. For another, Alten is just enough of a writer to pepper the pages with enough facts on marine biology, genetics, prehistory, and evolution to spur several "hm, that's interesting" reactions without turning things into a textbook. The titular creature is well defined as a menace (and is, probably, the most fully developed 'character' in the book). And you certainly can't accuse Alten of dragging things out. This novel virtually sprints by. Maybe you've just finished some literary heavy lifting and are in need of a nice, light palate cleanser. Maybe you just need something to serve as a distraction during a tedious day at work. Maybe you just like superfast adventure tales. Maybe you're a struggling writer and you need some encouragement - if this could get published, your work should have a fighting chance, right? Whatever your reasons, you can have some fun with "Meg." Just be sure to set your expectations accordingly.

What a wild ride! I am one of those nerds/annoying people who needs to read the book before they see the movie and then after they see the movie delight in pointing out all the inconsistencies as you roll your eyes and imagine a world without such insufferable bookworms. I imagine that most of you are like me too, though. So after watching the trailer for this SEVERAL times in the theaters, I finally bought a copy, because there's no way I'm not going to see a summer movie about a big old shark trying to eat people. I'm so glad I read this book! What a gem. It truly is "Jurassic shark" like the back cover says, though I think they are just trying to be cheeky about it. What I'm talking about is how it really gets into the science of how a megalodon might have survived, similar to how Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park. He talks about why it hasn't come up to the surface before and why the events of this book create the perfect storm for it to emerge and create havoc. Alten also shows obvious researched knowledge of underwater submersibles and other science and gadgetry, and it adds a lot of authenticity to the narrative. And then there's the action—yes. please! I won't make it any secret that I am not a fan of the book Jaws, it is seriously a snoozefest with a weird and unnecessary adultery subplot and not nearly enough shark action. Thank you, Steven Spielberg (and John Williams) for creating a masterpiece out of that drivel. This book is nonstop once it starts and it is weirdly believable. Though the meg is huge, I could see the action happening very clearly and I found it plausible and very entertaining. I can't say where the rest of the series goes, but as far as this first book, color me impressed! It definitely leaves you at least wondering what the depths of our ocean could be hiding. . . I am still skeptical about the movie—even just from the trailer it looks like they are only using the loosest ideas from the book—but I'm so glad I finally tried Steve Alten. I would like to try his book about the Loch Ness monster next, as I have a soft spot for Scotland.

Meg was a really fun and exciting read! I am looking forward to the release of it's movie counterpart in August! It was essentially Jaws but on crack. Instead of a Great White shark, we are presented with it's much larger ancestor known as a Megalodon. Jonas Taylor is a deep sea diver for the US Navy and was sent to the Mariana Trench to help scientist dredge the floor of the trench for valuable manganese nodules encapsulating ancient fossils. During a deep sea dive in the Mariana Trench, Jonas swears he sees a giant albino shark coming towards his deep sea vessel and makes a dangerous decision that has dire consequences. He is dishonorably discharged from the Navy and sent to a psychiatric ward for observation destroying any credibility he might have. Seven years later, Jonas is now a marine biologist who specializing in Megalodon, the much larger and more fearsome ancestor of the Great White shark. Most people, including his rising star news anchor wife Maggie, this he is crazy and discredit his belief that the Megalodon still exists in the Mariana Trench. He is proven right when a group of scientists unwittingly lure to the surface an albino Megalodon of monstrous proportions and now it is very, very hungry. It is clear that this book and it's content were well researched and the author painstakingly created a fun and exciting read about a prehistoric shark that at one point did exist but made it plausible that somewhere in the deepest reaches of our oceans, that this monster could still exist today. This book was just as scary as Jaws but doubly so since the shark described is much bigger. Highly recommended to fans of Jurassic Park, Jaws and other big monster books.

This book has so much happening! It's got lots of science discussion, tons of underwater action, a lot of shark/Megolodon presence, and character development that exceeded my expectations. I saw this movie when it came out a year ago and was skeptical about the book. While I enjoyed the movie, I wondered how all that "ridiculousness" would play out in a book. Well, 98% of that ridiculousness is only in the movie so it turned out great! Reading about this GIGANTIC Megolodon swimming around, stalking the submersibles, and attacking whales/humans/etc had me on edge. It was stressful reading this but in a way that I had hoped Jaws would have made me feel but didn't. Yes, I went there. I compared this wild ride of a book to Jaws. And I will gladly defend why it is better than Jaws to anyone whenever I see them (the book only, not the movie!) For starters, I didn't spend almost ~100 PAGES reading about some boring, lame affair when I should have been reading about... A SHARK. Alten did a great job at keeping my interest piqued. I was never bored and could hardly turn these pages fast enough! There is a blurb on the back of the book from the Los Angeles Times that calls this one "Jurassic Shark" and they are not wrong at all! I am READY to read the rest of the series - I did not even know it was a series until I picked up this copy! 5 sharky stars from me!

While the movie is based upon the book, they are quite different. Having read the original book (this is an edited and expanded newer one which the movie was based on) more than 20 years ago when it first came out, I found it absolutely gripping. The imagery created by one's own imagination cannot be duplicated; and what S. Alten created in that regard was special (more below). That being said, I also found the movie gripping; and even though I didn't see it in 3-D, I found myself ducking at times along with other theater goers. The special effects are top of the line. I don't know how they were able to get film participation crowds to act as though a real Megalodon was beneath them - but they did. One scene showed a giant squid attacking a submersible with its tentacles and attempting to crush it. They left it to our imagination as to what happened to the giant squid once an off screen Meg appeared. The storyline has obvious parallels with "Jaws" but this is "Jaws" on steroids. Back to what I mentioned earlier. In the original version, there is an opening scene of a Tyrannosaurus Rex chasing a couple of plant eating duckbilled hadrosaurs. They escape into a nearby lake. The T-Rex follows. His weight causes him to get stuck in the mud at the lake's bottom. As he struggles to free himself, a shark dorsal fin appears in the distance. What happens next is a lurid description of what happens to the greatest of land carnivores when it wanders into another superior creature's domain. Yet, this all turns out to be fiction since neither creature belongs in the same prehistoric period; and it was only a classroom recreation by a professor showing his students a made-up film. He is destined to become the human hero of our story. This scene was slightly edited for this new and expanded version, and was not utilized in the new film at all. But you get an immediate sense of where all this is going. There are more in this series and I hope that Warner Bros. will oblige us. Meanwhile, dine on the repast that Steve Alten has offered for your viewing and "dining" pleasure - and by all means try the sequels (all on Amazon).

Awesome book

First Book in the series of the Great Megaladon series , awesome story and fantastic reading. Good Delivery by amazon.in on time.

I am a big fan of shark movies and so after hearing that one of my favorite actors, Jason Statham, would be staring in a shark movie based on the book Meg I figured, why not read a book about a shark? In this case a Megaladon. The book starts off a bit slow for me. This particular version incorporates the prequel to Meg, Meg:Origins which offers a decent backstory of the main character Jonas and his first encounter with the Meg. From this the story goes in to how the Megaladon comes to terrorize the Pacific Ocean which is both well represented and thought out. The book definitely gets to be more interesting as it progresses and the attachment I felt for the main characters definitely continued to grow until the end. The writing style is engaging however not overly creative in it's presentation of events or interactions. I would say on par with Grisham's style. Tells a good story with engagement but does not blow you away with visualization. I give this a 5 star review as I like sharks and good adventurous tales that involve them and the author certainly did justice to this. Bonus points for giving me actual feelings for the Meg. At times there was sympathy for the million years old life form that is just living it's life and then despising it for killing Whales in a rather vicious manner.

Le roman est parfait malgré un point de vue légèrement trop misogyne (male gaze en anglais serait un terme plus adapté). L'édition en revanche est d'une qualité étrange. La couverture laisse voir des pixels et on se rend compte du montage de basse qualité. Décevant pour le prix.

I have watched the movie, The Meg, before knowing it exists as a book. The book is indeed very different from what has been portrayed in the movie. However, as one man's meat is another man's poison, to me this book is indeed a page turner and very interesting to read. I have no regrets purchasing this book and reading it. I am already at the 2nd book now and still finding it interesting. I still have my skeptics about how a book on Sharks can last 5 or 6 books, but for now I am on book 2. However, to really know if a books is really something you would like, it is only the reader themselves that can decide.