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Summary: Can't wait for MEG3! :)
Review: This book was such a page turner! I had been anticipating another shark novel for such a long time and I was excited to find this one! Jonas Taylor encounters a MEG (carcharodon meglodon), thought to be extinct, but still thrives in the depth of the ocean. Steve Alten keeps things going...can't wait to read more upcoming novels!
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Summary: READ ME!!!!!!
Review: Meg, was an excellent read. It had me from page one and I couldn't put it down until I was finished. It was well written, and if you think Jaws was scary, read this.
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Summary: Forget the water, stay out of the bookstore
Review: In Meg, Steve Alten resurrects the Megalodon, the largest shark to have ever swum the earth's seas, but why? Assuming a great plot, appealing charachters and absorbing nautical scenes, the megalodon itself doesn't manage to be scarier than any of today's sharks - who cares whether the fish coming at you is 6 feet or sixty feet long? Unconcerned, Alten just keeps pumping out numbers, certain that meters or feet, rather than a mouthful of teeth, will shock. Actually, as Meg makes clear in the first couple of pages, shocks aren't on the menu. The prolog, occurring about 65 million years ago, pitting a T-rex against the mighty megalodon, is supposed to rely on our memories of "Jurassic Park", and once the shark wins, we're supposed to think that Meg has conquered that earlier blockbuster as well. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. Though T-rex is meant to embody all that was mighty in terrestrial life in the age of the mighty lizards, he might as well be a gila monster, as there are no people or even minor mamals to give the lizard king any scale. Alten, seized bythe power of numbers, sets the whole thing according to measurements, even though there won't be anybody around to set them, or even invent them for 65 million years. The battle with T-rex is the weakest scene in the book, but the tension doesn't exactly shoot up from there. The marine biologist-hero, obsessed with Meg, is supposed to be sewized by a fear of the meg, but he goes gamely after the monsters after...actually, I'm not sure why he goes after the monster, or what he wants to do with it. the shark itself seems smarter than most of the humans in the book, knowing just who to eat - the biologist's media-ambitious wife; her rich boyfriend; and the crew of an American submarine who aren't going to let a few hundred jurassic-era teeth beat American nuclear-know-how. Everybody is practically begging for a bite, but none of these paper-charachters seems worthy of a guppy's attention. Throw it back!
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Summary: And I Thought 'Jaws' was bad
Review: There has never been a succesful giant shark novel written, and the pattern doesn't break now. The characters were poorly sketched and had few personality traits, and before I had read the first 100 pages I found myself hoping that they would all be devoured by the overgrown Jaws. Descriptions were boring, and the end is hopelessly ridiculous in which the lead character, a retired deep-sea diver, saves the life of his young love by entering the shark's stomach and sawing her heart off with a fossolized Megalodon tooth. The only reason this literary failure got two stars from me is because the plot seemed exciting (if not already over-done), but bland characters and awful descriptions failed the book.
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Summary: What a Page Turner!
Review: I just finished reading Meg last night. What a great book! I just couldn't put it down. it's the first book I have read in a while and I finished it in 3 days. For me with a 1-1/2 year old running around - that's pretty quick. Alten really makes you see and fear the predator. I won't go into the plot too much - don't want to ruin it. But I'll simply say this is a great book. I enjoyed it & can't wait to read the sequel, The Trench.
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Summary: "Toothless" Meg
Review: One-dimensional characters you're glad to see eaten, questionable science and events so far-fetched they defy the laws of physics and common sense. A waste of time.
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Summary: I can't help feeling that I've heard this all before...
Review: This novel was definately a disappointment. One can only recycle the same story so many times before it becomes a bland mess. Alten manages to create a tepid conglomeration of Jurassic Park, Deep Blue Sea, Jaws (the sequels, that is), and White Shark. The shallow characters and predicatble, meaningless plot make this book hardly enjoyable. It is kind of like the literary equivalent of watching Jerry Springer on daytime TV. It deserves one star because the novel managed to keep my interest up enough (barley) to finish the entire book. Despite these drawbacks, Alten shows some growth potential for future endeavors as soon as he advances beyond the somewhat simplistic writing present in MEG. Better luck next time!
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Summary: Gripping!
Review: This book was both average and excellent. I wanted to give it only three stars because of the anemic supporting character development and the sometimes weak plot progression. On the other hand, I wanted to give it five stars for grabbing me by the throat and not letting go! I settled on four.While the main character was fleshed out pretty well, the supporting characters were two dimensional and clunky. The reader never gets a handle on their motivations. They just seem to be along for the ride. This, I thought, was one of the problems with the plot progression. Due to the weak characters, the story seemed artificial at times. It was as if the author was forcing it forward rather than just letting it happen. However, this was offset by the fact that, by page 2, I was thoroughly absorbed in the book. I didn't want to put it down until I finished it. I just had to see what happened next. Granted, some of the things that did happen seemed forced at times, but the action was so good, it was mostly unnoticeable. The climax was slightly unbelievable, but the sheer audacity of the main character forced a suspension of disbelief. The only other thing I didn't like was the very ending of the book. It seemed kind of abrupt. I think the book would have benefited from an epilogue. Other than that, I think this was a good book and would recommend it to most anyone.
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Summary: meg, steve alten
Review: i read the book and was really impressed, ive been looking for a good book on the megalodon shark and steve alten hit the nail on the head with this one!
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Summary: prehistoric peril in the Pacific
Review: I had never heard of this book until I read the reviews of Charles Wilson's Extinct, and I decided to try it. Jonas Taylor spends the better part of his career trying to convince the public that prehistoric megalodons could survive in the warm waters of undersea canyons. When a submersible dive goes awry, he spends the next 7 years in psychotherapy and trying to convince himself that he only imagined seeing a megalodon. But when a friend shows him a picture of what could be a megalodon tooth lodged in the old wreckage of the submersible, Jonas decides to make the dive again. What he discovers on the dive leaves him paradoxically excited that he can finally prove that he is right yet upset that he loses another friend and inadvertantly brings the female to the surface. Everyone, including the media and the U.S. Navy, gets into the act once the megalodon surfaces. The ensuing chase and capture of the megalodon is exciting and will keep you reading, constantly wanting to know who will win out, man or beast. Like any good shark book, Meg is filled with "good guys" and "bad guys", and I can't deny that I felt a certain satisfaction when the meg snacked on the cheating wife. I only wished that the lover and news reporter had met the same fate. Of course, I also never understood why Benchley's great white never got to munch on the mayor of Amity! Unlike many of the reviewers below, I remember that this is science fiction, and what does it matter how big the tooth is, how long the meg is, or how many millions of years ago it lived? It IS fiction, after all. I found the explanation of how megs could survive in the Mariana Trench and how one of them could swim to the top bathed in the warm blood of the dead meg plausible. However, even I had trouble with two points: the meg is able to leap out of the water almost its entire body length (straight up, too--to attack a helicopter) and Jonas (Jonas, not Jonah) pilots the submersible inside the shark and kills it from the inside (maybe all action heroes should conveniently carry eight-inch meg teeth around with them). Yes, I remember that the great white in Jaws 2 also jumped out of the water to attack a helicopter, and I had trouble with that 25 years ago, too. I don't think that Meg will keep readers out of the water like Jaws did (the real shark attacks on the Gulf Coast of Alabama are doing that), but it will give you something to think about. Overall, this was a great read, the excitement building and building until the dramatic climax. Like many of the reviewers below, I will read the sequel and I think Meg would probably make an exciting movie.If you are a fan of shark books, you will like Meg, but then read Extinct; it is better.
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