It is almost summer and the beaches are opening again! Whether you head to the sand to lay by the turquoise water or just to your back yard to soak your toes in a kiddie pool, you need a good summertime read. For me, that means over-the-top and action-packed.
Published in July 1997, Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror certainly fits the bill. The book actually starts out with a fight between a prehistoric shark and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I was hooked! After this epic battle, the story skips forward a few million years to Jonas Tyler, a Navy submersible pilot, and marine biologist. In the depths of the Mariana Trench, Jonas comes face to face (uhh… snout?) with Carcharodon Megalodon, a shark estimated at 65 feet long and weighing 20 tons. Besides the obvious problem of the shark being able to swallow his small submarine in one gulp, this particular species was supposed to have died out 2.5 million years ago! The shark attacks and kills a colleague. Jonas manages to escape the Trench, but not the memories of what he saw.
Fast forward several years and Jonas is a slightly over-the-hill, slightly out of shape, disgraced speaker. The Navy did not believe him about the Meg and he was discharged. Still trying to convince everyone what he saw was real, Jonas has not been unable to go back into a submersible. An old friend, Masao Tanaka, tracks him down and convinces him to enter the water once again. Tanaka’s expedition has lost contact with a remote submarine in the Mariana Trench. They want Jonas to retrieve it. His decision to go triggers the events for the rest of the novel, which of course include more Megalodon sharks.
This book reads like a summer blockbuster movie – shark attacks, bitter exes, action, romance, media frenzy, and an ending that sets the stage for sequels. There are currently six novels featuring Jonas Tyler and family as they chase down and are chased by Megalodon sharks. I highly recommend Meg as a good-time summer beach read.
Note – In 2018, a movie based on the book came out in theaters. Named The Meg, it starred Jason Statham as the hero, definitely not over-the-hill and definitely not an out of shape deep-sea diver. As so often happens with movies, most of the subplots were ignored because of time. Still a good movie – perfect for a ‘safer-at-home’ movie night!
Seven years ago, and seven miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, Dr. Jonas Taylor encountered something that changed the course of his life. Once a Navy deep-sea submersible pilot, now a marine paleontologist, Taylor is convinced that a remnant population of Carcharodon megalodon—prehistoric sharks growing up to 70 feet long, that subsisted on whales—lurks at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. When offered the opportunity to return to those crushing depths in search of the Megs, Taylor leaps at the chance… but the quest for scientific knowledge (and personal vindication) becomes a desperate fight for survival when the most vicious predator that the earth has ever known is freed to once-again hunt the surface.
