Meg

Meg by Steve Alten was originally published in 1997. My hardcover copy is 278 pages. After reading the third book in Alten's Meg series several years ago I could not resist picking this up from the clearance section at my local used book store in anticipation of Alten's Meg: Hell's Aquarium, which is set to be released on May 19, 2009. Alten is not the best writer around, but his stories are usually exciting escapism, full of action. And let's be honest, I read this as an easy, fun novel over a vacation, not as fine literature. No rating.

Synopsis from cover:

On a top-secret dive into the Pacific Ocean's deepest canyon, Jonas Taylor found himself face-to-face with the largest and most ferocious predator in the history of the animal kingdom. The sole survivor of the mission, Taylor is haunted by what he's sure he saw but still can't prove exists - Carcharodon megalodon, the massive mother of the great white shark. The average prehistoric Meg weighs in at twenty tons and could tear apart a Tyrannosaurus rex in seconds.

Written off as a crackpot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Taylor refuses to forget the depths that nearly cost him his life. With a Ph.D. under his belt, Taylor spends years theorizing, lecturing, and writing about the possibility that Meg still feeds at the deepest levels of the sea. But it takes an old friend in need to get him to return to the water, and a hotshot female submarine pilot to dare him back into a high-tech miniature sub.

Diving deeper than he ever has before, Taylor will face terror like he's never imagined, and what he finds could turn the tides bloody red until the end of time.

Quotes:

"If the T. rex was the most terrifying creature ever to walk the earth, then Carcharodon megalodon was easily lord and master of the sea." pg. 3

"Imagine a great white shark, fifty to sixty feet in length, weighing close to forty thousand pounds. Can you visualize that?" pg. 5

"Theoretically, if members of the Megalodon species inhabited the waters of the Mariana Trench two million years ago, waters that maintain a deep tropical layer as a result of hydrothermal vents, then one could logically say that a branch of the species might have survived." pg. 10

"Do me a favor, Maggie. Next time you take a cruise to Baja, don't come back." pg. 22

"Jonas took a look at the photograph. It showed a UNIS submersible lying on its side at the bottom of the deep-water canyon. The sphere had been cracked open. Its tripod legs were mangled, a bolted bracket torn off, and the titanium skin of the sphere itself severely battered and scarred." pg. 25-26

"But let's just make sure that the reason you're making this dive with D.J. is to assist him and not to go off looking for some tooth." pg. 64

"The Megalodon could detect the faint electrical field of its prey's beating heart or moving muscles hundreds of miles away.....Unlike man, the creature possessed directional nostrils that not only could detect one part of blood or sweat or urine in a billion parts of water but could determine the exact location of the scent." pg. 68