Book number four of the Meg saga has left me with mixed feelings. In some aspects ,this is my favorite of all the novels. Angel, the albino Megladon shark, has birthed a litter of five pups. Three are “runts”—Angelica, Mary Kate, and Ashley (yes, after the Olsen twins—there was an internet contest to name them). The other two are “juveniles”—Lizzy (after the infamous Countess Elizabeth Bathroy) and Bela (after the Dark Queen). Jonas Taylor is now 66. His son, David, is a twenty-year-old college student working toward a marine biology degree and trying to step out of his father’s shadow. To do that, David agrees to train a roster of potential pilots in an extreme depth submersible for an Arabian Prince who is offering mega $$$. Naturally, said prince is not on the up-and-up about what he’s really after—possible prehistoric creatures that live in depths few men have breached.

The first half of this book blew me away. Lizzy and Bela (the “sisters”) have a symbiotic relationship that makes them mesmerizing from the moment they’re introduced. Angel has held her own for several books, but these two deserve the crown. Entrahlling is putting it lightly.

In the past, the Meg books have always had a kick butt last quarter, but that’s where I was disappointed. The focus shifted away from the Megs to the prehistoric fish and David’s time trapped in the submersible. While there were plenty of heart-pumping moments in the deep, those scenes went on way too long, and I disliked the shift from the Megs. Fortunately, Alten brought his three most powerful sharks back for the conclusion—Angel, Lizzy, and Bela—and set up an intriguing opening for the next (final?) book. I can’t wait to see more of the sisters!

This was very entertaining, actually, as there is quite a lot of action taking place in a subterranean sea, hidden beneath the crust of the Philippine Sea Plate. That’s just a very cool setting. And one populated with prehistoric creatures aplenty. Like this guy:



There’s also a parallel plot taking place at the Tanaka Oceanographic Institute, that had some very cool scenes too, but also suffered from several problems. The main one being that it was about the challenge of keeping the five megalodons captive without any incidents (suffice to say that didn‘t work out), but also without a single character in the novel that seemed to be worried about the well-being of the sharks. That made me feel a little uncomfortable for most of the first half of the book. It was less of an issue later on when the deep sea action became the focal point of the story. But then the detours to the second plotline just felt like an unnecessary distraction from the fun parts.

In general this book is just too long. Alten‘s penchant for overexplaining pretty much everything is a little annoying. Or as my friend Cathy puts it, he is the Lord of the overly detailed info dump. I couldn’t say it any better, so I just quote her here.

The third-person present tense also feels kind of wrong. But that’s just a personal preference maybe.

Anyways, in spite of all the problems I had with this novel, it really was entertaining, and I see it as an improvement on the two previous books in the series.

3.5 stars, and having fun again.

This has been a buddy read with Cathy and Russ, planned a year ahead. And we’re likely going to read the next one together as well. Probably in another year’s time.

Guilty Pleasure--Shark Book!

Again with the split rating, because judged on literary merits alone this is probably a 2 - The characters are stock, the "love story" is cackle-inducing, and it's overall cheesy as hell - but it's a 4 on sheer big summer fun factor, because Steve Alten writes great giant monster shark books. When you've got a gift, run with it, I say. The Meg books are the written equivalents to Syfy's Saturday Night made-for-TV monster movies. Any day now I expect a new Meg book to be titled Megnado.

The story is simple - A wealthy evil Arab sheik is building the world's largest aquarium theme park of deadly prehistoric beasts, and not only does he want to buy the new Megs for it, but he also wants our hero to lead a deep sea expedition back to the underwater Pelucidar of the series to drag up more weird stuff like Liopleurodons.



The mission may as well read, "Dive into the secret under-ocean and bring back everything that tries to eat your sub."

And... That's basically that. If you've read one of these before, you know you're getting the standard ingredients - a "love story" that appears out of nowhere with zero chemistry between characters, metronomic chapter structure that alternates between what the main characters are doing and what "Newly introduced vacation family from Vermont" is doing before they get eaten, bad guys who may as well twirl their mustaches and pet fluffy white cats, and a whole lot of giant shark action. God forbid I don't want to sound like the Standard Angry Feminist, but it's worth noting that Alten's female characters come in exactly Two Types from book to book - Either a histrionic, unpredictable, slightly insane woman that the hero is inexplicably in love with, or a Mata Hari villainess who's a psychotic ball of emotional frenzy spackled over with cool and cruel disdain, but who's also secretly in love with the hero only to be passed over in favor of the "good" girl who's also batshit crazy because, "Hey, women, ya know..?" ...but at least she doesn't drop victims into giant shark tanks.

OK, so it's not a paragon of progressive social virtues either, but what it is, is a whole lotta fun, a 70's drive-in monster movie that somehow escaped into modern times. By the time the deep-sea rescue operation starts, you expect Charleton Heston to come swinging in hanging from a helicopter ladder and grimacing about how this was a bad day to quit amphetamines. Most bodaciously excellent beach reading.

Best title ever! But I do feel that very last bit was unnecessary. Onward to Meg: Origins!