Meg

Rating:
Summary: Summer Reads Don't Get Much Better
Review: Fantastic, frightening, and fast. Read this book at the beach and see if you aren't casting a frequent eye to the waves in search of Alten's "lord and master of the sea." Alten has pulled off a very difficult trick here -- endowing the reader with the same sense of awe, love, and respect that he so obviously feels for the creature that he writes about.The critics have it all wrong when they refer to want of Jonas' character development. Jonas is not the protagonist here, no more than Goldblum is in Lost World. Meg is who counts and she snatches the spotlight and holds it as fast as those unfortunate boats and subs that she happily chomps on during her rampage.Someone else complained of lack of realism. Bulletin: if you want realism, do not pick up books about 60 foot, prehistoric sharks downing helicopters. But if you want action, fast and furious, if you want to perhaps feel meg-teeth sinking into your dream flesh, then you can do no better than this work.

Rating:
Summary: exciting jaws like story.
Review: I always wondered what it would be like if the megalondon still existed and menaced people the way it's decendent the great white did. Well here it is in this book. The opening chapter is probebly the most incredible ever to deal with this sort of story. When in science fiction move or book or palentoloigy book has a tyrannosaurus been mutilated and eaten in such grisly fashion? When have we ever read of a huge tyrant lizard wailing in agony with it's mouth a fountain of blood at the hands of the huge meg the absouloute ruler of the sea. the greatest predator ever to exist on the earth. Then the discovery of a still exicsting meg at the bottom of the mariana trench that surfaces and runs amok in the pacific. This is truly jurassic shark as is stated on the back. True, the humans are not too sharply focused, but the story is full of excitement and thrills, how could people on this weg site throw this book away and claim that it never should have been published. Alten did a great job writing this and I hope that it will be a movie soon. a garunteed summer blockbuster like jaws. If anyone came face to face with meg I'm sure that they would come to understand what the author is telling us here. once again the opening chapter is truly original and unforgettable, Move over T=rex, meg rules.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing - interesting premise, bad delivery
Review: Disappointing. "Jurassic Shark" said the Los Angeles Times, succinctly summing up the plot, the discovery of a prehistoric giant shark in the depths of the Marianas Trench that finds its way to shallower waters to wreak havoc. Two-dimensional characters, most of them unlikable, trite and boring. Showing occasional flashes of promise that kept petering out, it nevertheless captured my attention long enough for me to want to find out what happened in the end. The author is obviously not a scuba diver himself, constantly referring to tanks of "oxygen" and "air" in the same paragraph, which is really annoying. Pity, because the premise is fascinating but the author fails to deliver.

Rating:
Summary: Summer Reads Don't Get Much Better
Review: Fantastic, frightening, and fast. Read this book at the beach and see if you aren't casting a frequent eye to the waves in search of Alten's "lord and master of the sea." Alten has pulled off a very difficult trick here -- endowing the reader with the same sense of awe, love, and respect that he so obviously feels for the creature that he writes about. The critics have it all wrong when they refer to want of Jonas' character development. Jonas is not the protagonist here, no more than Goldblum is in Lost World. Meg is who counts and she snatches the spotlight and holds it as fast as those unfortunate boats and subs that she happily chomps on during her rampage. Someone else complained of lack of realism. Bulletin: if you want realism, do not pick up books about 60 foot, prehistoric sharks downing helicopters. But if you want action, fast and furious, if you want to perhaps feel meg-teeth sinking into your dream flesh, then you can do no better than this work.

Rating:
Summary: Read before you go swimming...Great Book! ! !
Review: ...the most dangerous predator in history...is no longer histroy...
Yup, that's right, Steve Alten went above and beyond in creating this masterpiece. It's what I call the new "JAWS" read, only bigger and better.
The action is stunning when the Megalodon appears and the overall plot is gripping and never slow paced.
Trust me, if you like "JAWS", "BEAST", and all the other classic monster books and movies, you'll love MEG!!!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing - interesting premise, bad delivery
Review: Disappointing. "Jurassic Shark" said the Los Angeles Times, succinctly summing up the plot, the discovery of a prehistoric giant shark in the depths of the Marianas Trench that finds its way to shallower waters to wreak havoc. Two-dimensional characters, most of them unlikable, trite and boring. Showing occasional flashes of promise that kept petering out, it nevertheless captured my attention long enough for me to want to find out what happened in the end. The author is obviously not a scuba diver himself, constantly referring to tanks of "oxygen" and "air" in the same paragraph, which is really annoying. Pity, because the premise is fascinating but the author fails to deliver.

Rating:
Summary: Great book! A real page turner!!
Review: I read Meg several years ago and found it on my shelf the other day and reread it. I forgot how much I loved that book! I just loaned it to one of my friends and he can't put it down! Its a very exciting novel filled with suspense. Its unlike any book I've ever read!

Rating:
Summary: Good book, bad point
Review: It's unfortunate that the author felt it necessary to make snide remarks on belief systems within a decent story line. The story was well written and actually entertaining. BUT, by repeatedly including lines such as "miracle of evolution", the author caused a distraction from the story line by making fun of evolutionary beliefs. Yes, their are "miracles" necessary for evolution to be true, but leave that for scientists to deal with, not fiction novels.

Rating:
Summary: I just gouged out my eyes!!! YES!!!
Review: Unable to deal with the horrifying possibility of accidentally reading another book as bad as this one, I have just finished tearing my eyes out with a shrimp fork.

For the love of God, spare yourself the screaming agony I now feel and DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK!

Why you ask? What offended you so seriously? Was it the scene where the giant glowing shark sinks the nuclear submarine? Were you disturbed when said shark leapt 60 feet out of the water to snap at a helicopter? Was it emotional for you to try imagining 8 helicopters accidentally crash into each other? Did you feel ill when the hero drove his rocket-powered sub into the glow-sharks' stomach, cut out it's evil heart, then piloted the rocket-sub back out through it's mouth?

Actually, what really disturbed me about this book was the quality of the writing. Wow, this was the worst written book I've ever read. Clunky pace, ruined suspense, unbelievable characters, silly dialog, poor descriptions, no inspiration, and science you just can't swallow-even if you're a giant glow-shark.

Rating:
Summary: Modern and artless but sleek and visceral- MEG delivers
Review: Unlike its sucessor, THE TRENCH, MEG is a straight up shark thriller, an excercise in thrills and chills and shock and awe, and a successful one because it has no other pretensions.

This debut thriller is a knockout opening the MEG trilogy, which was followed by a serviceable but bloated sequel, TRENCH, which bogged down in too many subplots and flat drama. In other words, it's following the MATRIX trilogy in terms of style.

Because we live in a day and age of excess and the need for non-stop stimulation has drenched the entertainment culture, Steve Alten provides us a shark that is 60 (or thereabouts) feet long and revenous with hunger. We get the usual attacks on scuba divers, beachgoers, and mariners. We get the opening scene which is a display of the violence that the creature can create. The hero is a likeable, troubled man with many enemies that serve as dry-land antagonists which we hope will be eaten sooner rather than later, and their inevitable comeuppances are satisfying.

While MEG doesn't break any genre rules, it at least honors them and doesn't try to be anything else, a wise move for the first-time author. Instead, Alten serves up a hearty helping of blood and gore and violence and death and destruction and chaos and mayhem and carnage and sharks and ravenous feeding frenzies and dead stuff. Enjoy!