The Meg Paperback – January 1, 2018

What a wild ride!I am one of those nerds/annoying people who needs to read the book before they see the movie and then after they see the movie delight in pointing out all the inconsistencies as you roll your eyes and imagine a world without such insufferable bookworms.I imagine that most of you are like me too, though.So after watching the trailer for this SEVERAL times in the theaters, I finally bought a copy, because there's no way I'm not going to see a summer movie about a big old shark trying to eat people.I'm so glad I read this book! What a gem. It truly is "Jurassic shark" like the back cover says, though I think they are just trying to be cheeky about it. What I'm talking about is how it really gets into the science of how a megalodon might have survived, similar to how Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park. He talks about why it hasn't come up to the surface before and why the events of this book create the perfect storm for it to emerge and create havoc. Alten also shows obvious researched knowledge of underwater submersibles and other science and gadgetry, and it adds a lot of authenticity to the narrative.And then there's the action—yes. please! I won't make it any secret that I am not a fan of the book Jaws, it is seriously a snoozefest with a weird and unnecessary adultery subplot and not nearly enough shark action. Thank you, Steven Spielberg (and John Williams) for creating a masterpiece out of that drivel. This book is nonstop once it starts and it is weirdly believable. Though the meg is huge, I could see the action happening very clearly and I found it plausible and very entertaining.I can't say where the rest of the series goes, but as far as this first book, color me impressed! It definitely leaves you at least wondering what the depths of our ocean could be hiding. . .I am still skeptical about the movie—even just from the trailer it looks like they are only using the loosest ideas from the book—but I'm so glad I finally tried Steve Alten. I would like to try his book about the Loch Ness monster next, as I have a soft spot for Scotland.

The book is in good condition when it came in, but it is a bit thinner than the other Meg books. Definitely not a lot of pages but still an amazing story

The Mariana Trench, located in the Pacific, is the deepest part of the ocean and is seven miles deep and 1,550 miles long. You hear the quote that we know more about deep space than we do about our own oceans and it's true. You wouldn't think anything big would be alive down there in the cold dark...but underwater volcanoes have created somewhat of a greenhouse effect on the ocean's bottom. A layer of heated ash has formed a canopy deep below that allows a strata of undersea life, including giant cuttlefish, dinosaurs...and megalodons, huge sharks that grow up to 80 feet long!Two groups of people have converged on the Mariana Trench for different reasons. The Defense Department has sent a Navy ship along with scientists to retrieve mysterious manganese nodules. The pilot of the sub sent down to get the nodules is Jonas Taylor, a naval commander. There is also a research ship studying underwater volcanoes in the area.During the naval dive, Jonas has a run-in with a megalodon and lives are lost. Since Jonas is the only survivor of the dive, the Navy thinks he's crazy when he tells them his sub was attacked by a giant shark. They believe he is delusional and he is dishonorably discharged from the service.Jonas spends the next seven years going back to college to get his doctorate in marine paleontology, with a specialization in megalodons. When an old friend asks for his help in figuring out what is going wrong with an earthquake early detection system set up in the Trench, Jonas begins to find himself drawn back toward making another dive, and facing an old terror.This revised and expanded edition of Meg also includes the prequel ebook Meg: Origins so if you buy this edition, don't make the mistake of also buying that.I'll start this review by saying this is one of the most awful books I've ever read. But saying that, I couldn't help but also enjoy it. It was the horrible fascination of looking at a train wreck, a car wreck, and a plane crash all at the same time. What was my first inkling that it was going to be bad? When one of the characters studying the underwater volcanoes sees a blip on the boat's radar and his first statement is to say its a megaladon! Bear in mind, this is before ANYONE has seen a meg in the book or is even LOOKING for one, or even comprehending there are megs still alive in the trench. But for some reason, this character is just AUTOMATIC....ITS A MEGALADON!! It was so comical.At the beginning of the book, the author Steve Alten argues, and I would say a bit tongue in cheek, that megs could really be alive swimming somewhere down in the depths and offers flimsy scientific evidence for this....but then includes a scene where a T-Rex takes on a meg even though megs didn't exist in the same time period as the dinosaurs. It is fascinating to think that early humans might have actually glimpsed one of these behemoths though, or might even have had to fight against them.There are some other far-fetched components of the book, like dinosaurs evolving gills, but once you realize this is a pulp novel, reminiscent of the early 1930s with modern trappings, you start to relax and let the fact that Meg is the anti-Moby Dick wash over you and you begin to enjoy its horror much as you would an Ed Wood film.All the main male characters are good looking and physically fit and all the women are beautiful and have big boobs. They engage in infantile Me Tarzan You Jane relationships right out of early Clive Cussler or bad 1970s paperback adventure series. Ok, it's not quite THAT bad, but it's on the level of high school boyfriend/girlfriend.There was also rampant drug abuse of prescription medications all through the book. I was kind of amazed how many tranquilizers the pilots and crew of the deep sea subs took when they were operating equipment worth millions and millions of dollars. And the fact that the main character who was supposed to be the best sub pilot had problems with claustrophobia! Doesn't seem like that would be your best line of work!Something else that created a lot of drag on the narrative, at least at the beginning of the book, were these abrupt info dumps of "non-fiction" material that just suddenly appear right out of Wikipedia. You'll be following the plot with the main character Jonas going down into the trench and then out of the blue, you'll have an encyclopedia entry about the trench or megs etc. It was quite jarring and thankfully they ended after the first 20-30% of the book.This book was so bad that it actually opened up its own space time continuum where it is the pinnacle of literature. Once I understood this, I realized that for what it was, Meg is a masterpiece, the Spinal Tap of monster novels. It's all tongue in cheek and is quite fun once you get into the spirit of it.One scene in the novel pretty much sums up the whole volume and it's the subject of the cover art of the edition I read. A surfing contest is going on (have no idea WHY it wouldn't be cancelled with a megalodon on the loose). The meg appears to chomp on the contestants but one surfer is able to juke and jive around the attacking shark, makes it to the beach on his board, WINS the contest, AND asks a pretty girl spectator to go out with him!If you can read the preceding paragraph and laugh, then you'll get some enjoyment out of this book. If you roll your eyes in disgust, then skip it.

I just want to say I read this book when I was about 14 or so years old for the first time and then I read it again just recently and now I'm 25 and I still enjoy it.Just to start off I am not an expert reader. I don't read 25 books in a week. When I have time I like to read. For the people rating this book a 1 star because the characters were not in depth enough, or the story was unbelievable, the language was immature ect.... This book was written to draw in younger readers. I liked that it was kept simple because it kept me interested. As far as it being unbelievable, uhhh....it's Fiction. I don't understand that. I have recommended this book to many friends young and old that absolutely love it. I believe this was Steve Altens first book, and for a first book or 5th book for that matter it was good. If you are a Dean Koontz fan which I am, but I haven't read all of his books but I started reading his books when he was already a BIG author. If you started reading his books after he got big go back and read his first one because it wasn't very good, and in reprints of it he mentions that on a page in the back of the book.I can understand for high end readers that read 20 books a week this book might not be for you because it doesn't go in dept that much but I believe it was just right. Then again if you do read that many "MATURE" books, than this one you should finish quickly.I am not knocking your 1 star reviews everyone should have an opinion. Your opinion is good for those maybe avid readers but some of these reviews make it sound like its a book you might read to your kids when they go to bed. Its not like that at all. Thank you for reading.

Le roman est parfait malgré un point de vue légèrement trop misogyne (male gaze en anglais serait un terme plus adapté). L'édition en revanche est d'une qualité étrange. La couverture laisse voir des pixels et on se rend compte du montage de basse qualité. Décevant pour le prix.

I have watched the movie, The Meg, before knowing it exists as a book. The book is indeed very different from what has been portrayed in the movie. However, as one man's meat is another man's poison, to me this book is indeed a page turner and very interesting to read. I have no regrets purchasing this book and reading it. I am already at the 2nd book now and still finding it interesting. I still have my skeptics about how a book on Sharks can last 5 or 6 books, but for now I am on book 2. However, to really know if a books is really something you would like, it is only the reader themselves that can decide.

bom

I am a big fan of shark movies and so after hearing that one of my favorite actors, Jason Statham, would be staring in a shark movie based on the book Meg I figured, why not read a book about a shark? In this case a Megaladon.The book starts off a bit slow for me. This particular version incorporates the prequel to Meg, Meg:Origins which offers a decent backstory of the main character Jonas and his first encounter with the Meg. From this the story goes in to how the Megaladon comes to terrorize the Pacific Ocean which is both well represented and thought out.The book definitely gets to be more interesting as it progresses and the attachment I felt for the main characters definitely continued to grow until the end.The writing style is engaging however not overly creative in it's presentation of events or interactions. I would say on par with Grisham's style. Tells a good story with engagement but does not blow you away with visualization.I give this a 5 star review as I like sharks and good adventurous tales that involve them and the author certainly did justice to this. Bonus points for giving me actual feelings for the Meg. At times there was sympathy for the million years old life form that is just living it's life and then despising it for killing Whales in a rather vicious manner.

Lot more in it