Jurassic Shark-Rafael Mendez

In the summer of 1975, thousands of audiences screamed in terror for 124 minutes as they watched a 20-foot white shark shred countless victims to pieces. It’s needless to say that the film Jaws by Steven Spielberg kept many watchers out of the water for months and set a precedent for shark fiction. However, more recently, author Steve Alten has taken the idea of a murderous marine predator with a nasty craving for human flesh and expanded it to create a novel that has made readers shiver everywhere. The book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror is, by far, the best shark novel I have read, and that includes the original Jaws, which the famous blockbuster was based on. But, more than the idea of an underwater killing machine, what caused me to dig my nails into the back cover of the book the most was the scientific way in which the author depicts the resurrection of a 70-foot shark that lived millions of years ago.

The novel deals with a submersible pilot turned marine paleontologist named Jonas Taylor who, after seeing what he was sure was a Megalodon shark in the depths of the unexplored Mariana Trench years before, has dedicated his life to proving that the gargantuan fish is still alive. By doing this, he’s ruined his marriage and any other social connection he might’ve had before the incident. However, when an opportunity to explore the trench one more time comes up, Taylor’s need to know if he was right about the shark proves too strong to resist. He submerges himself in the object of his nightmares for the last few years once again, only to realize that he was indeed correct. Shortly after, disaster strikes. Through a tragic mistake, the mortally wounded male Megalodon Jonas encounters gets tangled in the wires of the submersible and is dragged up. A hungry female, which just happens to be twice as large as the male, sinks its teeth into its mate and is pulled up as well. The male’s blood protects the female from the cold barrier above the trench that has kept these monsters in captivity for millennia, and the female is released into an environment that isn’t built for its presence. To make matters worse, she’s pregnant.

It wasn’t the idea of man messing with nature only to have nature fight back that lured me into reading this novel, since, as can be seen in novels like Jurassic Park, this is an overused theme. Instead, it was the way the author depicted the carnage with scientific detail that interested me the most. He made the prehistoric shark come to life by explaining its bodily functions, how it survived undetected for all these years, and even what it ate during its million-year captivity in the Mariana Trench. The author goes as far as to depict some chapters from the point of view of the monster, thus giving the reader a heart pounding depiction of how the leviathan analyzes its prey, hears its heartbeat, smells its blood, and ultimately sinks its endless rows of razor sharp teeth into its flesh.

The originality of the book also caught my attention. Although, as I mentioned before, the theme of man interfering in nature is overused and, one might say, even cliché, the story Steve Alten built around it is such a crazy and original idea that it sounds almost insane enough to be true. The extensive knowledge on the extinct fish and its modern cousins that the author prides himself in doesn’t help the case, as it contributes to the books terrifying verisimilitude.

However, all the amazing features this novel possesses pale in comparison to the intense, fast-paced storytelling abilities of the author. Alten keeps the reader with their hands ready to flip the page with his suspenseful way of writing, and finally rewards them with a climactic final showdown between Jonas and the creature that has ruined both his life and countless others; a finale that is as far-fetched but at the same time as believable as the rest of the novel.

This book may not have taught me deep lessons or caused philosophic, thought provoking quotes to pop into my head, but it has definitely introduced me to a way of writing and storytelling that is extremely entertaining. A way of writing that an author can use to take a story that would seem cheesy and unbelievable, and turn it into the terrifying object of nightmares. I recommend the book to anyone who has the opportunity of reading it, but I retract the recommendation to those who have a weak stomach or an intense fear of the sea. Why? Let’s just say, Jaws has got nothing on Meg.