Extinct

Rating:
Summary: Implausibility and banality can strike anytime!
Review: As a shark lover since age 5, I had to get Charles Wilson's Extinct as soon as I saw it in the Airport bookshop. However, while a mildly tasty little treat, Extinct is rather inferior to Steve Alten's Meg. The story concerns two young boys dissapearing in the muddy waters of the Missisipi.I love stories that start like this! Sure enough people suspect this to the work of one or many elasmobranches, but what kind? I lost my copy so I forgot the names of the characters and can't remember various small time occurences, but you can guess how these things go; mysterious deaths and an overall sensing of death in the water leads up to the appearance of two massive sharks of the thought-to-be-extinct genus, Charcaradon Megalodon, the supreme hunter. One the beasts is about the same size as the shark in Jaws(and behaves very similarly)the other is a giant, 45 foot hunter that enjoys chasing and eating boats and swimmers on nocturnal forays in the coastal regions while his smaller brother is busy munching fishermen, boyscouts and alligator gars in the river. Can the male protagonist, his love interest and an eccentric old Navy scientist stop this rampage? Can birds really lay eggs? All in all, Excinct is a fun read(With a great cover)and Wilson does seem to know a good deal about the megalodons. His brownish creatures are considerably smaller than Steve Alten's 60 foot albino nightmare, but exhibit the same ferocity to a lesser extent. Wilson does go for some absurdity here:No, Megalodons almost certainly had white teeth and its pretty doubtful that a large deep sea shark can live in freshwater. He also diminshes their terror by giving them a high pitched, baby-like scream so that they may communicate with each other(Apparently, thriving in the Abyss, the massive charcharians evolved enough intelligence to have a whale-like family society. Go fig)Read Extinct and have fun. There's no shame, but Meg's got the goods(read my Meg review if you'd like).

Rating:
Summary: AT TIMES EXCTING BUT TOO OFTEN SLOW PACED
Review: I found EXTINCT was excting at times but often more times than not I found myself wanting to do something else. I found this book too unrealistic at times i.e. the length of the megaladons that are described, especially at the end when the 200 foot long giants appear. Now I know we don't realistically know how big the megaldons really grew. But I found that length to be a bit much. Also I really couldn't relate to the characters at all. .They just didn't grab me and make want to rally behind them. Also, I doubt megladons would leave any part of a human being behind. since 6 grown men can fit in thier jaws. I believe this is could be, or may have been the shark that swallowed Jonah whole in the bible . All in all, in all I can't really recommend Extinct.

Rating:
Summary: I looked for months for this book, it was worth the wait!
Review: This book was a page turner. It will make you think twice before you go into the water. Wilson took you on a wild ride that was over to soon. It's a book I will read again and again. I hope the movie is half as good.

Rating:
Summary: Good reading, surprisingly realistic
Review: Made very believable by research worked into story. Of course, made even more realistic by the real fact of the sighting a couple of years ago of a shark over "over fifty" feet in length by a navy destroyer offf the Phillipines. Maybe a "Roswell-big foot" story, and maybe not. In any case, a very good, realistic story with a lot of suspense and tension throughout. Maybe the author's best science-based story. I like his "When First We Deceive" (also found at Amazon.com) or maybe his "Nightwatcher" as his best mystery. As far as the reader/critic who talked about the author calling the shark's teeth black, there is no such reference in the story, except one to do with the burning by fire of the shark. In fact, the author specifically calls the teeth an "off-white to light-beige" (the same color as today's toothed fishes, not to mention humans) on page 265. Where some readers come up with their critical comments, I'll never know.

Rating:
Summary: Poorly researched, numerous grammatical errors
Review: I can't believe this book got so many favorable ratings. It was ridiculous. Aside from numerous grammatical errors and strange references to "real-life" evidence of the shark's existence, the book was pretty bad. My biggest issue with this book is that Charles Wilson doesn't seem to know what a fossil is. His Megalodons have BLACK teeth. It seems he once saw a black fossilized Megalodon tooth and assumed the creature's teeth were black. A note to the author: Fossils are, by definition, hardened remains of plant or animal life preserved in ROCK. The rock is black, not the original tooth. No living sharks have teeth of any other color than white, and I'd like the author to find any living fish/animal with black teeth.

Rating:
Summary: Certianly a page turner for the summer!!!
Review: I searched for this book all over the Southeast. I finally found it and could not put it down. The rural vivid scenes captivate and spell-bind the reader. Wilson has a terrific way of placing the reader right onto the page. I can't wait until the mini-series.

Rating:
Summary: Better than Meg, still implausible.
Review: One word: Mediocre. Again, as a Marine Bio grad student I might be biased, but sharks as large as Charles Wilson describes are very implausible. I do remember reading about the Megalodon as a kid and that it was thought to potentially reach a hundred feet or more in length, but this was based on a misunderstanding of the tooth to jaw ratio when using the largest Megalodon tooth discovered. Later it was determined that the tooth would belong to a 40-50 foot long shark. Sharks having the kinds of communications skills related and the 'concern' for their offspring are also very hard to swallow. However, the writing style was far better than 'Meg', and the relationships between the characters seemed real rather than forced. To tell the truth, I was more interested in finding out how the characters would grow than I was in the shark element.

Rating:
Summary: Like Shark Stories.......Loved This!!!
Review: With quick pace and exciting storyline, this novel kept me in anticipation for the next "bite" from the monstrous terror of the Mississippi coast. I am a fan of Peter Benchley's JAWS and was tempted to compare, but this is a different story altogether. This title seems to have been well researched, which certainly makes one wonder if the monster may actually still exist. A great novel that I will read more than once.

Rating:
Summary: Extinct is a well written thriller
Review: Extinct has an advantage over MEG...it's well written. The author does however waste too much time with the smaller 25 feet megalodons. Jaws was the same size, so this is not new territory. The real monsters don't show up until the very end. The idea of these monsters in shallow fresh water is new and pretty scary. Extinct is the better book, but MEG will be the better motion picture. In movies, you don't need much of a plot or deep character development

Rating:
Summary: The shark should eat the author
Review: While the prehistoric Megalodon is a terrific monster, Wilson's treatment of it is completely unbelievable. First, there's size: two hundred feet? That's four times the size supported by the fossils. Then there's behavior: these don't act like any shark that ever lived. They act like mammals, with family bonds and sound communication. Add to that a string of implausible events and you have a book which may (I say may) be even worse than its competition, Adler's MEG.