The Soapbox: Rants and Commentary: Book Review: Meg Composed by Dan O'Leary(dano@cybercomm.net) Have you ever finished a book that made you furious for wasting your time? I've had a few -- "Lost World," "Sphere," "Andromeda Strain," "Omega Incident," "The Seventh Scroll," "Eric's Charm." I'm adding "Meg," by Steve Alten, to my list. I came across this bestseller in the library. The book had gotten some decent press, so I checked it out. Here's the premise: Carcharodon megalodon, the great white sharks's extinct ancestor (the "meg") is first shown devouring a wading T-Rex millions of years ago (to show us "you thought the T-REX was fierce?"). Flash ahead to modern times, deep-sea paleontologist Jonas Taylor believes the megs survived the Ice Age by taking refuge in the volcanic thermals seven miles down on the ocean bottom in the Marianas Trench. His close encounter with one seven years ago killed two of his crew and have burdened him with guilt. He hasn't piloted since, and (of course) no one believes his story. When a business-tycoon friend of his offers him a chance to dive in the area again, he accepts. Ok, not TOO bad yet, right? What we have here is Jurassic Shark (as one reviewer said). It's Jaws meets The Lost World, and a hero who must conquer his fears to solve a mystery. This is where everything goes straight to hell. Jonas' wife, Maggie, is a career-driven local TV news anchor who is sick of hubby's meg obsession, and sets out to destroy him when he accepts the new dive. She has her lover, Bud, follow Jonas. A former student, Terry, becomes Jonas' new love interest for no reason whatsoever and joins the mission. In the Trench, Terry's brother is killed by a male meg. Jonas spots a larger female nearby. As the small sub is hauled to the surface, the male shark gets caught and killed in a tow line. The live female manages to get through miles of icy water by gorging herself on her mate's entrails and riding the trail of warm blood. (uh-huh) The shark surfaces attacks (among other things) several fishing boats, a school of whales, a helicopter (flying 50' above the water), a nuclear sub, Maggie's shark cage (she's killed early in the book -- Bud takes up the antagonist role but later shoots himself for no reason), and several bad guys picked off from the deck of a ship. The prose repeats the same desciption each attack, and are filled with comic-book style WHAAAM!'s, KABOOM!'s, and CRAASH!'s. The characters are thinner than my wallet before payday (sympathetic characters? motivation? we've got a REALLY BIG SHARK!), and your suspension of disbelief is stretched beyond limits. The shark is finally killed 600 feet below the surface by a swallowed Jonah, er, Jonas, who carves open its stomach and heart with his lucky fossilized meg tooth. The sub scenes read like "Red October" outtakes, and a surfer's near-miss with the meg reads like a Frankie and Annette opus. Predictibly, the female gives birth to a litter of new megs, guaranteeing more trees will die to print a sequel. The prose reads more like a screenplay than novel. This "novel of deep terror" isn't terrifying or deep. The reader is left wondering "Why? Why switch antagonists in the first third of the book? Why do the heroes try to save the shark and just kill it anyway? Why did I keep staring at this book like a gruesome auto accident and keep reading? WHY!" Almost as bad as the cliche' minefield are the inaccuracies in this "heavilly researched" book: decomissioned nuclear subs battle-ready in days to chase sharks, misspelling the location where 90% of the action takes place (and ten minutes online will reveal there is NO volcanic activity in the Marianas Trench), sharks sinking said sub by ramming into it, among others. And...the true terror of this book... Disney's filming it for release next summer. Maybe it'll get a severe rewrite and be released as "That Darn Shark" or "Air Meg." I checked out Amazon.com's reader reviews of this book. People either gave it 1/5 stars and tore it a new one, or gave it 5/5 stars and wrote reviews like these below. Assume "(sic)" where appropriate. For all you people that said this book is the dumbest book in the world then your are tripping on weed because this is the best book i have ever read. For people that want to critize this book then go back to your picture books because this book is way too good and advance for you MEG!!! I could'nt put it down!! I believe that this was a good book expecilly for a first time author. And to all you critics out there remember that this book is fiction NOT NON-FICTION you are supposed to use your imagination and not to find every mistake or anny falsehoods of the book. If you didnt like this book then you have no taste for science fictoin books. And you ad no purpose reading the book in the first place. Buut personally I thought that this book was a great suspense thriller but dont take my word for it.....READ THE BOOK YOURSELF It scares me to see more raves than rants about this book. I am being hopeful about the general reading public's IQ level, though, since one observant Amazon.com visitor fittingly quoted Dorothy Parker by saying "This book shouldn't be tossed aside lightly, it should be thrown with great force." Ok...I'll let it go. I feel better now. Response by Cormac O'Sullivan (cormac@optonline.net) That was a horrible book that spawned more megladon books. However there are worse books that get raves. There is a book about a T-Rex loose in Antartica wreaking havoc. Despite the freezing temperatures, and being repeatedly shot with .300 Win-Mags(big gun) it kills a few dozen people. It was bad,and I couldn't put it down. It's like a bad movie, one that you rent because it will be so bad. 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