It Sure as Hell Ain't Meg

There are times when I binge read a certain category of books. Coming off of Jaws, Meg, and The Trench, I was still in the mood for something dealing with sharks, but I wasn't ready to dive into Meg: Primal Waters just yet, so I tooled around on Amazon for a bit and discovered Rick Chesler's Hotel Megalodon. Story sounded interesting, so I picked it up.

I have to admit, the book had potential, and in the hands of Peter Benchley or Steve Alten, I think we would have had a hit on our hands. The story is simple: the development and building of a "luxury" underwater hotel disturbs a megalodon, that then proceeds to launch its attack on the hotel on opening weekend, methodically cutting off any means of escape for the guests and staff. The focus of the book, besides the shark attacks, is trying to get the guests safely out of the hotel and back on land. Sounds thrilling, right? Yawn. Wrong.

The problem we have here is the author not having a firm grasp on his subject matter. And if he does, something got lost in the translation as he put words to page because it doesn't come across. The setting is supposed to be a luxurious underwater hotel, but you don't get the feeling that the place is that luxurious. A kid in the book describe it best: it's like a Habitrail for humans. For those unfamiliar with Habitrails, it was a plastic prison for hamsters, gerbils, and mice. It was made up of a central "living area" with

tubes that led to other smaller compartments. And that's exactly what the hotel feels like, nothing luxurious about it. AND it's opening weekend and the guest list is all A Listers, so they need to impress. And make an impression they do. In the fact that nothing, and I mean nothing, has been tested for functionality, so you know when they attempt to activate something, it's going to fail. Of course. Like the escape pods -- that sink.

The other problem is the characters. You really don't come to care for any of them. The "hero" of the story is a young marine biologist, described as being in her mid twenties, but when you first meet her, she comes across as a fifteen or sixteen year old during a Bring Your Daughter to Work day. She's obviously out of her league here, so you hope she becomes shark chow soon so they can bring in the real star. James White, the man running the whole show and the resident villain, is so inept at his job, you have to wonder who he slept with to get the job. Maybe Mick, the supposed love interest, who breaks the heroine's heart when she walks in and finds him in a compromising position with the dolphin lady -- Carrie, Clarrie, Clarice, whatever the hell her name is. She's not important.

You also get the impression that the only knowledge the author has of marine equipment and sharks has been garnered from reading Steve Alten's books and Jaws, or maybe from an Atari 2600 simulation. When Coco is piloting the sub, it just doesn't seem real. And the megalodon? There were times I felt like I was watching SyFy's Supershark, especially when the shark was breaking windows and attempting to swim into the hotel to get at the guests. It would get itself wedged into a place, then swim backwards to free itself (sharks mobility is limited to forward motion), and often it seemed like the author lost track of his shark. In one scene, he says it slipped from window, and the body was more or less acting like a plug because suddenly the water was pouring in, but then the shark is back to snapping at Coco. Uh, didn't it just extract itself from the window to allow the water to flood the hotel? And every so often the author would throw out terms from out of the blue just to make it sound like he knew what he was talking about. And all you could do was chuckle.

And the ending?!?! OMG, I wanted to throw the book across the room . If I hadn't been reading a digital copy, I probably would have, but I didn't want to damage my Kindle. It was probably the worst part of the book. It's literally like giving a kitten a boop on the nose and telling it to be good.

Sadly, though, the author doesn't pursue what could probably have been one of the more interesting aspects of the book, and that's the old tribesmen that appear at the beginning and the end. You get the feeling that the megalodon is kind of a guardian spirit that rises up to protect the islanders and their way of life, almost like Godzilla defending Japan, but that aspect is never explored.

Overall, this book was a major fail for me, and if you are in the market for a big fish story, I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

And Then There Were Nine...

Once upon a time, King and Koontz were my DROP EVERYTHING AND READ THE LATEST BOOK authors, but after one disappointing read and another, I started looking for new GoTo authors. Hunter Shea quickly became one of them, especially with his cryptid novels. The other is Jonathan Janz. While I haven't read everything Janz has written, I am working on remedying. To date, Janz has not disappointed me. Which is why The Dark Game, Janz's latest, quickly moved to the top of my TBR pile.

The Dark Game tells the tale of ten writers hand-chosen by Roderick Wells, a celebrated but reclusive writer, to compete in a summer-long contest for a cash prize and a publishing contract. These ten writers have been chosen not only for their talent, but also because they each possess a dark secret, secrets that will be revealed as the competition progresses. Like all competitions, there are eliminations, but unlike other competitions, these eliminations are private. The remaining contestants are told who has been eliminated, and they're somewhat put off by the fact the the departing contestant didn't bother to say goodbye.

Early on, one might think they know where the story is headed, and chances are good that they'll be wrong. And that's one of Janz's strengths. He'll lead you into what you think might be a rehash of something you've read before, but then he'll rip the rug out from under you when you least expect it, leaving you in uncharted territory where you fumble along with the characters to figure out what the hell is really going on. But not to worry; you'll be in good company. Janz fleshes out his characters fully, and there are those you instinctively like and want to fall in with, while others you take an immediate dislike to and hope they'll be one of the ones eliminated early on. But if that were to happen, you would end up with a dull story, so you know some of the bastards are going to stick around.

At first glance, The Dark Game comes across as a potential reality show, only there are no cameras, but you'll soon learn it's so much more than that. There are ghosts aplenty haunting the characters, ghosts from their own pasts and ghosts from those who have gone before. So you might think this is a simple haunted house novel, and in a way you'd be right, but it's more. Janz pulls in enough otherworldly and supernatural elements to keep you on your toes and keep you guessing. Who is the actual bad guy here? Is it the contestants and their dark secrets awakening something within the house? Is it the house itself? Or is it their host? Or some of the other apparently minor characters who eventually take on more importance as the story progresses?

The story moves along at a brisk pace, and each chapter ends with enough mystery to keep you reading. You'll be telling yourself, "Just one more chapter. Just one more chapter." And before you know it. it's 4 o'clock in the morning and you have to be up in three hours to get ready for work. Yeah, it's that good. So do yourself a favor and sign up for the game. You won't be disappointed. If you've read other books by Janz, you'll know by now that he just keeps keeps getting better, so The Dark Game is Janz at his best (to date). I can't wait to see what he comes up with next.

Retail Hell

After seeing Grady Hendrix give a presentation a few weeks ago on Paperbacks from Hell, I figured I'd give one of his books a shot. I mean, the guy was hysterical and I could not stop laughing. And after hearing such great things about Horrorstör, I figured I give it a try. I went into it expecting more of what he gave at his presentation, and after a line like this, "Trinity was one of those happy, super-popular, high-energy girls who reminded Amy of the creatures from Gremlins: she was fun for about half an hour, then you wanted to stuff her in a blender.", well, it seemed to reaffirm my expectations. Sadly, my expectations were not met.

For folks unfamiliar with the premise of the book, it deals with an IKEA-type box store that is haunted, although the employees aren't aware of it. Yet. What they are aware of is somebody sneaking in at night and vandalizing the store in little ways that wouldn't be noticeable unless you stumbled upon it. Like poop on one of the display beds. Since Corporate is planning a visit, the General Manager has tasked one of the floor managers with putting together a team to spend the night in the store with the hopes of apprehending the intruder. Enter Basil, the manager; Amy, a sales rep who gets by by doing bare minimum and avoiding her supervisor (Basil) as much as possible; and Ruth Anne, an elderly dedicated employee who has manned a register for a good number of years and someone who everybody (staff and customers) adores. During their first tour of the floors, Amy and Ruth Anne stumble across "happy, super-popular, high-energy" Trinity and her boyfriend of the moment, Matt. We get the impression that they are just finishing up some business before getting down to business (if you know what I mean, wink, wink), which is trying to film some footage of some ghosts, which they plan on showing to the networks with the hopes of getting their own ghost hunting show. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose, but not before they locate the intruder, who Trinity is convinced is a ghost. What follows is a lot of screaming, a lot of running, and a lot of playing hide-and-seek with an army of ghosts haunting the store as the group tries to make it out of the store alive.

On the outside, it doesn't sound like a bad book, but it's not what I was looking for. I wanted funny ha-ha ghosts, and instead I got scary EEEEEK!!! ghosts, so you'll have to excuse me if I feel a little disappointed. I know, get over it, right? I'll try.

While I try to do just that, let's discuss the book itself. While effective on its own, it fails when you compare it to other books (and movies) that tell a similar story. And when I say it fails, I mean it doesn't deliver anything new, which, I admit, is hard to do when you are dealing with one of the oldest tropes in the horror genre. While reading it, you can't help but notice the influences of films like Poltergeist and The Haunting. Recently I read another haunted house novel, The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz, which really creeped me out. Again, it didn't offer anything ground-breakingly new, but what it did have was atmosphere, and while reading it, I actually caught myself starting at every sound and getting up to turn up the lights. Toy Box, a film I recently watched, attempted to take the haunted house a step further, and the creators gave us a haunted motor home. And I felt that was missing from Horrorstör. You get the impression that Hendrix was more concerned with the chain of events than developing a genuinely creepy atmosphere. And he tended to rely on the tried and true rather than risk trying something new. In so doing, he gives us a supernatural adventure story rather than a creepy (or funny) ghost story.

His characters are quirky when we are introduced to them, which provided ample opportunity to venture into the Ha-Ha territory, and while he may have tested the waters by sticking a toe in, he refused to take the plunge and kept us in the EEEEK! territory. And normally I prefer when an author keeps us within the mindset of one central character, Amy turns out to be a rather blah! character once the story gets going, and you come close to not liking her because she's only out for herself. About three quarters of the way through the book, she redeems herself. She's still blah, but not nearly as selfish as she was in the beginning. I can't help but wonder, though, what would have happened if somebody like Trinity was the central character, or if we had the opportunity to see things from the POV of other characters.

So is Horrorstör worth reading? Despite the issues I had with it, it was a fun, fast-paced read (not as great as everybody made it out to be, but enjoyable enough even if it wasn't funny), and if you're looking for a way to pass the weekend, this is an ideal book. However, if you're looking for something to chill you late at night, I think you'd do better looking elsewhere.

Angel of Death

As part of my "Don't Go Near the Water" summer reading, I decided to follow up Steve Alten's Meg with the second book in his living fossil series, The Trench.

The Trench picks up four years after the events that transpired in Meg. Angel, the baby megalodon they captured, is now a permanent resident of the Tanaka Institute. Jonas and Terry are married, but their marriage is in trouble due in part to Jonas's obsession with the dinoshark and his being consumed, eaten alive, by his survivor's guilt. The miscarriage Terry suffered during the numerous trials and lawsuits didn't help matters. In fact, when everything was said and done, the Tanaka Institute is on the verge of bankruptcy, and is bought by Benedict Singer, an unscrupulous businessman with a hidden agenda--an agenda that includes Jonas.

At about the same time Jonas is being approached by Singer and his protege, a knock-out blonde, Celeste, who has her eyes on Jonas, Angel is becoming more agitated within her enclosure. They think it's because of the migrating whales passing by, but it's more than that. Angel is in heat and is feeling the call of the wild. Her agitation grows, and eventually Jonas's worst fears come true: Angel escapes. Torn between his obsession over the shark and his duty to his new boss, Singer, Jonas opts to pursue the shark, determined to put an end to it before it can kill again, which leaves his wife to fill his shoes with Benedict Singer, making her the only woman aboard the underwater research station.

What follows is a dogged pursuit of the shark while becomes Singer's prisoner once she realizes there's more going on than just planting the UNIS robots.

The Trench is an ambitious book in that it's more than just a Moby Dick-like tale of obsession. There's government conspiracies, international intrigue, and games of cat and mouse, both aboard the William Beebe as it pursues Angel and aboard the underwater research station, and Alten handles it all flawlessly. We learn the real reason why Jonas was in the Mariana Trench eleven years ago, when he had his first run-in with the megalodon, and who the divers were who were killed. The problem is, Alten's Big Bad in The Trench is not as fleshed out as one would hope and becomes a caricature of the villain holding the damsel in distress.

As the novel progresses, we know there's another major predator loose within the Mariana Trench, as it already destroyed one sub. This is the reason why Terry is aboard the research station. She needs to file a report, but her report, while complete, isn't entirely truthful, as information has been hidden from her. She's given just enough to come to the conclusion that the destruction of the submersible was pilot error and not because it was attacked by some unknown creature lurking in the shadows. While Alten has to opportunity to bring another megalodon into the picture, he chooses not to, and brings in another prehistoric life form that's been thriving beneath the thermocline. Which makes you wonder what else is loose down there. If you've read The Loch, then you know some of what will be encountered in future books, as the sequel to The Loch, Vostok, is also the prequel to Meg: Nightstalkers, you'll have some idea of what's to come. So I am eager to jump into Primal Waters.

Graphic, at times, as the body count is high in this one, it doesn't detract from the narrative, which is evenly paced and thrilling. Meg was a fun read, The Trench is even better: more action, higher body count, underwater battles between leviathans. Definitely a must-read for fans of killer shark fiction.

Jaws on Steroids

After reading Steve Alten's The Loch, I felt it was time to re-visit Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, especially after I found out that the sequel to The Loch was a prequel to one of the Meg novels.

The novel opens in prehistoric times with the meg taking down a tyrannosaurus rex. Then it jumps to present day with a deep sea explorations of the Marianna Trench, considered to be the deepest part of the ocean that has never been explored. As is the case with many horror novels (yes, Meg is a horror novel), you don't go sticking your nose where it doesn't belong because you end up releasing some sort of monster you can't lock away again. And sure enough, isolated from the rest of the world by a layer of freezing cold water is a tropical world containing many species long thought extinct. The Meg being one of them.

Right from the start we are told there's more than one giant shark, and we know one is male and the other is a pregnant female. The male is unintentionally killed, which allows the female to rise to the surface as she travels through the icy waters in the warm bloodstream of the butchered male. The body count starts to climb almost immediately once this living fossil surfaces, and it is up to Jonas Taylor to hunt down this monster.

Taylor was, at one time, considered the best submersible pilot around, until an encounter with the megalodon traumatized him so badly that he retired from the sea and devoted his life into the study of the prehistoric shark. He's become quite the renowned paleo-biologist whose theories were often greeted with ridicule from others in the field. But he's also a man haunted by his past. His actions during his previous encounter cost the lives of two men, and while he firmly believes that he'd come face to face with a giant prehistoric shark, there's the niggling of doubt that continues to eat away at him like a cancer. But with the surfacing of the meg, he's vindicated, and all those who laughed at his theories and those who accused him of murder because he overreacted in a stressful situation are forced to swallow their pride and admit they were wrong.

What follows is a thrill ride as Taylor and his team pursue the meg in an attempt to capture the beast so they can study her. They are in a race against time, as they know the meg is pregnant, and they need to catch her before she gives birth. They are also in a race against time with the military, as the military is hunting the shark with every intention of killing it before it can kill again.

While the focus of the novel is the hunt for the giant shark, there's more going on than just the chase. You have Taylor's disintegrating marriage, the betrayal by his wife (who's just as vicious and hungry for success as the meg is for flesh and blood) with his best friend. She's an overly ambitious news reporter who will stop at nothing as she climbs the ladder to fame and fortune, and that includes setting up her husband to look like a laughing stock. He's a man on the edge thanks to the events of his past, and she unashamedly is making every attempt to push him over the edge so she has grounds for a divorce. She wants to paint herself as the victim to Jonas's villain. In Heller, who personally holds Jonas responsible for the death of his friends, you have a Captain Ahab-type character. After witnessing the death of his brother in the mouth of the shark, he loses it; now it's personal, and he will not stop until he kills the megalodon. And lastly, you have the budding relationship between Jonas and Terry Tanaka, a woman reeling from her own losses; they are thrown together in the pursuit of the shark and take comfort from each other as their losses become more personal.

If you are only familiar with Meg from the god-awful movie (which I've seen dozens of times--it's really not THAT bad), forget about everything you saw. The only similarities between the book and the movie is the shark, and even that wasn't adapted accurately. While the movie is a family friendly flick about a giant shark where the body count is downplayed. the book is most definitely a horror novel that takes great relish in describing the deaths in grisly detail. It is Jaws on steroids, so if you liked Jaws, you'll LOVE Meg. If you thought Jaws was meh!, you'll like Meg. Start your summer off right. Read Meg.

Don't Mess with the Ness II

I had bought Steve Alten's The Loch a number of years ago, shortly after finishing The Trench. I had tried to read it then, but it just wasn't grabbing me. But recently I picked it up again to give it another shot. I don't know what my problem was back then, but this time I could not put it down.

The Loch opens with marine biologist Zach Wallace diving into the Sargasso Sea with the hopes of discovering the mythical giant squid. He dies indeed discover the giant squid, but he's also discovered something else. what the US Navy has named Bloop. Before he has a chance to document his find, the creature attacks his submersible. During his escape, Zach dies but is resuscitated. This is the second time Zach had drowned. The first time was seventeen years prior, when, at the age of nine, something attacked him in Loch Ness. He knows it was Nessie that attacked him, but over the years he has come to accept what the doctors and other involved have told him, that he had become entangled in a coil of barbed, which would account for the teeth-like scars that encircle his waist.

The current attack also triggers his night terrors again, and he develops of phobia toward water, not a good thing for a marine biologist. His world spins out of control as his "partner" in the dive made it look like everything that went wrong with the dive was Zach's fault, which is not the case. Spiraling into depression and taking comfort from the bottle slowly had him turning into his father, who he hasn't seen in over a decade. But then, suddenly, he is summoned back to Scotland because his father is on trial for murder, and it isn't until he arrives "home" that he realizes his father, an abusive, womanizing alcoholic, has set him up. You see, dad's blaming Nessie for the man's death, and he's hoping his son will go out and find the creature to prove he's telling the truth. Is he? Maybe. As reluctant as Zach is to go chasing after a legend, that's exactly what he ends up doing because the body count is starting to rise. The big question he has and wants answered is why has Nessie suddenly started attacking and eating those people.

If you go into The Loch expecting a straight forward monster hunting novel, you're going to be disappointed. Yeah, that's a part of it, but there's so much more going on here. The novel is about family; it's about loyalty and conspiracies, and it's about history. Not being a historian, I don't know how much of the history laid out within the novel is accurate and how much is a result of creative license, but Alten weaves it all together seamlessly and delivers a thrilling ride. I see so many reviews comment on the historical aspect of the novel dragging it down, but you need that background in order to make the rest of the story work. Without it, the driving motivations of many of the characters becomes pointless.

I also see comments nitpicking the science and its inaccuracies, and to that I say, get over it. It's fiction, and while a certain amount of research is required, it is, after all, a novel. It's not a How To guide, and it doesn't claim to be a scientific text. The average reader isn't going to know all the intricacies of submersibles and diving gear, and quite frankly, I don't believe they care. What they are looking for is an engrossing, believable tale, and that's what Alten delivers. The only real stumbling block I came across in the novel is the dialogue. I've heard it said that writing for the ear is sometimes a sign of lazy or poor writing, that a writer should be able to establish a Scottish accent based on structure and rhythm. But Alten writes dialect, which can sometimes have readers wondering what he's trying to say. Would you rather read "Ah dinnae ken" or "I didn't know"? Or, for that matter, would you even know what "Ah dinnae ken" means? It takes some doing, but eventually you figure it out, and once you figure it out, it no longer becomes an issue. However, there is a learning curve needed, especially if you've never heard a Scotsman speak. For some readers though, it's enough to stumble them right out of the story.

And the only other thing I had issue with is the romance aspect, which I found to be a bit unbelievable. Zach's been away from Scotland for how long? And suddenly he's head over heels in love with his best friend's sister? There's nothing early on that prepares you for this, and there's a point in the novel where you get the impression that True is whoring out his sister. It's mentioned that the sister was thrown out of the house when she was sixteen. Wouldn't Zach have known this if he had such deep. long-lost feeling for this woman? But he doesn't. In fact, there's so much about her that he doesn't know and you feel he should if they have this history. You could probably cut out this romance aspect and not lose anything story wise.

All in all, though, The Loch is a thrilling adventure/horror novel that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and it's something I would highly recommend if you're into cryptid fiction.

The Sound of Silence

Not too long ago I stumbled upon a Netflix original movie. It was an adaptation of Tim Lebbon's The Silence. For me, it was a rehash of movies like The Happening, and more recently A Quiet Place and Bird Box. But it took it one step further, at least for me, which made me curious about the book, so I picked it up.

To say I was immediately captivated by the novel would be a lie, but I pushed on because I was curious to see how it differed from the film. I'm doing things backwards here, because normally I would read the book prior to seeing the movie, but when other people are involved, things don't always go as planned.

In both the novel and movie, the story focuses on a young deaf girl and her family and how they survive against a sudden invasion by a previously undiscovered species of... Well, nobody knows for certain. They've been slapped with the name Vesps, meaning wasps, but there's nothing insect like about them. They resemble bats, but are larger and more voracious. They are blind and hunt by sound. And they have an appetite for blood. Where did they come from, and why have we not heard about them until there are too many to control? They were sealed in a cavern,locked away from the world until a mining team ripped through the ceiling of their enclosed ecosystem and unleashed them on a world not prepared to handle an invasion of this sort. For Ally and her family, they already live in a world partially ruled by silence. But for the rest of the world? Tell someone to be absolutely quiet for one hour. No noise whatsoever. Many won't be able to do it, not even if they know their lives will depend on it.

Normally, when it comes to adaptations, they always say the book is better than the movie. Most times, I agree. However, in this case, I have to weigh the balance. In the novel, the story takes place in the UK, with the creatures being released in Romania (vampire, anyone?). In the movie, the location has been switched to New Jersey, with the creatures being released in Pennsylvania, which to me makes the family's decision to flee their urban environment for a more isolated area more believable. The threat is closer to home, only a state away, as opposed to being on another continent and being separated by thousands of miles and a large body of water. And the actual invasion of the vesps comes more in the movie than in the novel. In the book, we're more than half way through before the vesps are actually encountered by any of our central characters. And even though it might only be a matter of a couple of days, it seems to take forever to get to the meat of the matter. Once the vesps actually attack, the novel flies. And while character development normally isn't an issue, in this case to have it so isolated in the beginning instead of spread throughout, it slows the pace of the narrative. Lebbon has created a hook but then leaves the reader hanging. Not even the tidbits of information gleaned from news broadcasts and social media is enough to keep the reader (at least this reader) enthralled, and I found myself tempted to skip ahead until the vesps finally appeared.

Many of the elements of the novel have been transferred successfully to the film, and the film has even added a few scenes for dramatic impact. The rattlesnake in the drainpipe, for instance. But I found the pacing of the film to be more balanced than in the book. And thus is the curse of seeing the movie first. Had I read the book first, I probably wouldn't have found an issue with the pacing of the first half.

So is The Silence worth reading? Absolutely. Provided you haven't seen the movie first, The Silence is a captivating read, and if you're a fan of apocalyptic fiction, it's definitely one to add to the list.