by Greig
Beck, 2016 edition (paperback)
The Megalodon shark pretty much deserves its own shelf in
the fiction aisle at Barnes Noble.
From its mention in Jaws to a
raft of novels to its appearance in Meg
and a couple of terrible faked “documentaries,” the big lug has been popular
for a long time.
That make it harder to write original Meg novels, although
authors like Briar Lee Mitchell (Big Ass
Shark) have pulled it off to stand out from the dreck of hundreds of
self-published novels by people who have never seen a shark (or an
editor). Now Grieg Beck, master of the
lost-world novel, has turned his attention to the supershark, hanging out in a
subterranean Alaskan sea. While most authors zoom past the “how did it survive”
question with impossible or rushed-through scenarios, Beck expands that part to
give our heroes not one great adventure, but two. The obligatory showdown on
the open sea is here, but man, did these characters go through a lot to get
there!
I can nitpick the science (e.g., Meg was not closely related
to the modern Great White, and “sharks don’t get cancer” is an ad slogan, and a
false one.). The adventurers need many happy coincides to survive, but this is
a thriller, and everyone needs a few of those moments. Questionably accurate Meg behavior can be
glossed over because the animals had had millions of years to evolve, although
I hated the “this one fish will destroy all commerce in the Pacific Ocean”
thought when it came up in Steve Alten’s Meg,
and I’m not a fan of seeing it again here.
Countering that, any book that slips Dunkleosteus in for a cameo is fine
by me.
Beck’s characters are interesting, three dimensional, and
generally act in character. Kudos to Beck for a cast you can believe in, plus a
stunt early on making you miss-guess who a particular villain is (I won’t spoil
it).
Do I believe this could happen? No. The undersea ecosystem
has too many big animals and no source of outside energy (like sunlight or
really massive thermal vent colonies) to make it keep going. But is
it entertaining? Hell, yes. This is a great book for someone who wants to spend
a few evenings reading of brave American scientists, mysterious Russians, a
deadly monstrosity, some exotic marine life, a cool high-tech minsub, and a
geology lesson to boot.
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