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Overview
It was the apex predator of all time, the most fearsome creature that ever lived -- a 70-foot, 70,000 pound Great White shark. Hundreds of 7-inch serrated teeth filled jaws that could swallow an elephant whole. It could sense its prey miles away, inhaling its scent as it registered the beat of its fluttering heart, and if you ever came close enough to see the monster...it was already too late.
Eighteen years have passed since Jonas Taylor last crossed paths with carcharodon Megalodon. Now a middle-aged father of two, he is overwhelmed by mountains of bills and the daily strife of raising a family. But life is about to change. A Hollywood television producer wants Jonas to join his new survival series: Daredevils. For the next six weeks, two teams of crazy daredevils on a South Pacific Ocean voyage will try to outperform one another in front of the cameras. Jonas needs the money, and the job of doing the color commentary seems easy enough. But behind the scenes, someone else is pulling the strings. And before it's over, Jonas will again come face to face with the most dangerous creatures ever to stalk the Earth.
Synopsis
The New York Times bestselling saga continues . . .
Publishers Weekly
The giant prehistoric shark, carcharadon Megalodon, that put Alten on bestseller lists with his debut novel, Meg (1997), and its follow-up, The Trench, returns in a messy, exuberant, potboiling action thriller. It's 18 years since Angel, spawn of the "meg" in Meg, chomped her way through many humans (as well as through most critics' sensibilities); her nemesis, Jonas Taylor, is now 63-and in financial trouble. For money and perhaps a retaste of youth, Jonas agrees to star in a top-rated reality series, Daredevils, unaware that a meg-lover who's envious of Jonas's fame plans to feed Jonas to a meg lured to the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile, Angel returns to her California hunting grounds and another meg creates havoc on the coast of Washington State. The narrative runs in overdrive from start to finish, as Alten munches on the reality show phenomenon, ocean ecology and family issues (tensions among Jonas, his kids and his wife), but all those are merely the fibers connecting the novel's powerful muscle: the shark attack scenes, which are numerous and exciting and, toward the end, intercut as frantically as an MTV video. This title probably won't sell as well as Alten's first two Meg novels, but the novelty of an aging action hero adds general interest, and the author's many devoted fans should devour it. Agent, Ken Atchity. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"An exuberant, potboiling action thriller. The shark attack scenes . . . are numerous and exciting. Fans should devour it."-Publishers Weekly on MEG: Primal Waters
"Two Words: Jurassic Shark!"-Los Angeles Times on Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
"Nonstop excitement." ---Library Journal on Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
"An adrenaline-pumping thriller!" ---New York Post on Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
"Hellishly riveting . . . an utterly amazing climax." ---Kirkus Reviews on Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror
"A heart-stopping thriller."---Ingram on The Trench
"An entertaining tale of gripping nonstop horror." ---Midwest Book Review on The Trench
"A fast-paced thriller with many plot twists." ---Booklist on The Trench
"Alten can write a mean prehistoric shark scene." ---Publishers Weekly on The Trench
Publishers Weekly
The giant prehistoric shark, carcharadon Megalodon, that put Alten on bestseller lists with his debut novel, Meg (1997), and its follow-up, The Trench, returns in a messy, exuberant, potboiling action thriller. It's 18 years since Angel, spawn of the "meg" in Meg, chomped her way through many humans (as well as through most critics' sensibilities); her nemesis, Jonas Taylor, is now 63-and in financial trouble. For money and perhaps a retaste of youth, Jonas agrees to star in a top-rated reality series, Daredevils, unaware that a meg-lover who's envious of Jonas's fame plans to feed Jonas to a meg lured to the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile, Angel returns to her California hunting grounds and another meg creates havoc on the coast of Washington State. The narrative runs in overdrive from start to finish, as Alten munches on the reality show phenomenon, ocean ecology and family issues (tensions among Jonas, his kids and his wife), but all those are merely the fibers connecting the novel's powerful muscle: the shark attack scenes, which are numerous and exciting and, toward the end, intercut as frantically as an MTV video. This title probably won't sell as well as Alten's first two Meg novels, but the novelty of an aging action hero adds general interest, and the author's many devoted fans should devour it. Agent, Ken Atchity. (July) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Publishers Weekly
"An exuberant, potboiling action thriller. The shark attack scenes . . . are numerous and exciting. Fans should devour it."Library Journal
It's been 18 years since Jonas Taylor faced his own mortality and Angel, the huge, prehistoric killer shark Carcharodon megalodon, in The Trench. However, the menace still lurks deep in the sea. Faced with middle age, fading celebrity, and dwindling income, Jonas takes a job as color commentator for a reality TV show, Daredevils, and flies to the South Pacific with rebellious teenaged daughter Dani for a six-week production shoot. Of course, mayhem ensues, with repeated gory shark attacks instigated in part by the maniacal Maren, a scientist with a deadly grudge against Jonas. Interspersed with the killing sprees are details of Jonas's financial and family woes, which make the book a little more than just another killer-shark tale. Perfect for the beach with its slick writing and competent plot-just stay out of the water! Recommended for fans of the previous MEG tales and Peter Benchley's Jaws.-Rebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.Library Journal
Jaws redux: In this debut, no one believes that deep-sea submersible pilot Jonas Taylor has had a nasty encounter with a Megaladonone of those 60' babies said to be the progenitors of today's great white sharkuntil something huge repeatedly snarls up the cables of another deep-sea probe.Kirkus Reviews
As Jaws meets Jurassic Park, Meg (short for megladon) brings us a 60-foot, 20-ton prehistoric shark with a nine-foot-wide mouth that is likely to gobble up bestseller lists, as well as reappear in 1998 as a summer blockbuster.In rather characterless prose, debut novelist Alten's well-groomed story rockets like a pre-edited filmscript from event to event. But the author's love of his title character is clear, as he keeps his Lord and Master of the Sea, a female Carcharodon Megalodon, frequently front and center. Seven years ago, Professor Jonas Taylor, a paleontologist and deep-sea submersible pilot, first saw such a shark, thought to be extinct, while diving more than seven miles down in the Marianas Trench. During the Ice Age, members of the species, it turns out, took refuge in the hot thermals on the ocean bottom. Lethally cold water above has kept from them resurfacing. Jonas's first encounter cost two lives, and has burdened him with profound guilt. He goes back down to the abyss anyway, accompanied by Masao Tanaka, the owner of a huge aquarium on the California coast. When a male Megalodon gets entrapped in steel cables in the trench, he's attacked by a pregnant female; she follows the male to the surface, surviving the journey, and discovers a warm new world, filled with varied, easy, hot-blooded prey. Clearly, the shark is an ecological disaster, especially when she gives birth to three more of her kind. Taylor and Tanaka, however, don't want to destroy the shark but rather to harness her drugged body and haul it into confinement. This means some vastly dangerous close work with her once she's located, with Taylor hovering about the monster in a submersible that becomes theinstrument of an utterly amazing climax. A female offspring in captivity at story's end guarantees a sequel.
Weightless characters on a choppy sea—but hellishly riveting.