From Library Journal

Carcharodon megalodon, prehistoric ancestors of the shark, survive in the abyss, trapped in place by seven miles of frigid ocean water. Paleontologist Jonas Taylor, helping a friend recover scientific sensing units that have been mysteriously damaged in the ocean trench, watches helplessly as the "Meg" that destroys his friend's capsule is then ripped to shreds by its mate?who then migrates to the surface. The female Meg is pregnant and hungry and far too large to be contained. This first novel offers nonstop excitement, as Taylor and other scientists try to corral the beast, while idiotic tourists and news crews flock to the scene to watch. Only Taylor understands the size, power, and ferocity of the Meg. Meg is slated to become a Disney movie, and there should be immense demand. Buy multiple copies.
-?Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Ia.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From

Who would believe the old ploy can still hook 'em? Doubleday, that's who. Twenty-two years ago, the house published Peter Benchley's Jaws, which Steven Spielberg turned into his career-launching movie, which spawned film sequels aplenty, which spurred Benchley to try the trick again (_Beast_ [1991], in which the bogey from the brine was a humongous squid) and again (_White Shark_ [1994], in which the monster turned out to be a Nazi!). And now . . . this: an exaggeration--in scale and carnage--of all the above, with a Carcharodon megalodon (a really BIG shark) doing the romping and chomping. Supposedly 100,000 years extinct, the meg, as everybody in the book calls it, is actually, as our hero Jonas Taylor (sort of a paleo-ichthyological Indiana Jones) suspects, still alurk at the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific, where the heat of volcanic vents maintains a livable warmth, and six miles of lethally cold water above that environment keep the 60-foot fish from the surface. Keep it, that is, until early in this yarn that seems more novelization of a screenplay than novel. The action is nonstop, the characters are all pumped and touchy (even the women suffer from testosterone overload), and the dialogue is risibly cliched. But is it a hoot, anyway? Yep, and guess what? Disney's filming it. Ray Olson

From Publishers Weekly

So how bad is this spawn of Meg, which Doubleday declined to publish (albeit perhaps in an earlier version)? About as badAand as goodAas its predecessor. Alten can still write a mean giant prehistoric shark scene, but he flails like a fish out of water at nearly everything else (of his #1 human villain, psycho billionaire Benedict Singer, he writes, "Benedict stood before the window, his arms outspread, emerald eyes blazing as he reveled in his glory"). It's four years after the bloody doings of Meg, and Angel, the daughter of the Carcharadon megalodon of that novel, is now terrifying tourists at a Monterey aquarium. She escapes, however, and starts eating themAmunching on yacht-goers, a kayaker, a submarinerAand swallows other animals, including a media-darling whale named Tootie, before she returns to her home in the Pacific's Mariana Trench. The novel isn't all d?j?-vu shark action, though, since Alten bifurcates the narrative. While paleobiologist Jonas Taylor, who killed Meg, pursues Angel across the seas, his wife, Terry, suffers misadventures galore in the Trench as she tries to uncover exactly what that billionaire (who's in partnership with her father, who owns Angel), is up to 35,000 feet down: nasty work involving nuclear fusion supplies for terrorists, it turns out. Alten's evocation of the Trench and its dangers (including more prehistoric beasts), and of the machineryAsubs, minisubs and a giant underwater stationAthat would challenge them, is evocative and backed by rigorous scientific detail. His human vs. human conflict is screechingly melodramatic and his dialogue littered with exclamation points, but when Angel rolls back her eyes and opens her jaws for the kill, readers will remember with a thrill why they picked up this novel in the first place. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The Meg (Carcharodon megalodon, a really, really big shark) is back in this sequel to Meg (LJ 5/1/97), which picks up right where Alten's last killer thriller left off (in the second chapter there's even a two-page synopsis recapping the previous action and plot to bring new readers up to speed). Angel, the female offspring of the Meg killed last time around, is being held in captivity and displayed by hero Jonas Taylor and aquarium-owner Masao Tanaka. But Angel is huge and deadly; when she escapes from the aquarium, the predictable rock 'em-sock 'em mayhem ensues. So Jonas must face death and his own fears once again and return to the Marianas Trench in another attempt to rid the world of this prehistoric menace. Nearly a carbon-copy of Meg, this action-packed technothriller reads like a movie script and won't provoke many thoughts but will satisfy fans of Meg and Peter Benchley. Recommended for most fiction collections.ARebecca House Stankowski, Purdue Univ. Calumet Lib., Hammond, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly

The giant prehistoric shark, carcharadon Megalodon, that put Alten on bestseller lists with his debut novel, Meg (1997), and its follow-up, The Trench, returns in a messy, exuberant, potboiling action thriller. It's 18 years since Angel, spawn of the "meg" in Meg, chomped her way through many humans (as well as through most critics' sensibilities); her nemesis, Jonas Taylor, is now 63—and in financial trouble. For money and perhaps a retaste of youth, Jonas agrees to star in a top-rated reality series, Daredevils, unaware that a meg-lover who's envious of Jonas's fame plans to feed Jonas to a meg lured to the middle of the ocean. Meanwhile, Angel returns to her California hunting grounds and another meg creates havoc on the coast of Washington State. The narrative runs in overdrive from start to finish, as Alten munches on the reality show phenomenon, ocean ecology and family issues (tensions among Jonas, his kids and his wife), but all those are merely the fibers connecting the novel's powerful muscle: the shark attack scenes, which are numerous and exciting and, toward the end, intercut as frantically as an MTV video. This title probably won't sell as well as Alten's first two Meg novels, but the novelty of an aging action hero adds general interest, and the author's many devoted fans should devour it.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From

This latest novel in Alten's MEG adventure-thriller series concerns a 57-foot, 64,000-pound prehistoric shark loose in the South Pacific. The "most fearsome creature in the sea," the Megalodon shark has ruled the planet's oceans for millions of years, surviving the cataclysms that wiped out the dinosaurs and adapting to climate changes that devastated other prehistoric marine species. Alten begins with an informative description of the Pacific Ocean and its inhabitants, the Monterey Bay off California, and the islands of New Guinea and its surrounding waters. He also offers a brief history of the Ice Age, setting the tone for the fictional narrative that follows. Now enter Jonas Taylor, who joins the crew in filming a TV survival series called Daredevils aboard a replica of a Spanish galleon. Taylor eventually comes face to face with this monster--which, of course, comes as no surprise to readers. Who wins this violent struggle probably won't come as a surprise either, but Alten's imaginative tale will keep readers turning the pages to make certain their guess, intuition, or "readerly" instinct is correct. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Description

The most fearsome predators in history…are no longer history.

The Philippine Sea Plate: The most unexplored realm on the planet.  Hidden beneath its primordial crust lies the remains of the Panthalassa, an ocean that dates back 220 million years.  Vast and isolated, the Panthalassa is inhabited by nightmarish sea creatures long believed extinct.

Tanaka Institute, Monterey, CA:  Four years have passed since Angel, the 76-foot, 100,000 pound Megalodon, birthed a litter of pups far too numerous and aggressive to keep in one pen.  Fortunately, a Dubai royal prince who is building the largest aquarium in the world seeks to purchase two of the “runts”—if Jonas Taylor’s twenty-one year-old son, David, will be their handler.  Jonas reluctantly agrees, and David is off to Dubai for the summer of his life, not realizing that he is being set up to lead an expedition that will hunt down and capture the most dangerous creatures ever to inhabit the Earth!

About the Author

A native of Philadelphia, Steve Alten earned his Bachelor’s degree from Penn State University, his Master’s from the University of Delaware, and his Doctorate from Temple University.  He is the author of the bestselling Meg series, Domain series, Goliath, The Loch, and his most recent bestseller, The Shell Game.  Steve Alten is also the founder and director of Adopt-An-Author, a free nationwide teen reading program used in thousands of secondary school classrooms across the country to excite reluctant readers.  For more information, please visit SteveAlten.com and AdoptAnAuthor.com. 

A dazzling look at Mayan mythology incarnate from New York Times bestselling author Steve Alten

For two thousand years, the Mayan Calendar has prophesied the end of mankind on a date equating to December 21st, 2012. As that day approaches, greed, corruption, economic collapse, and violence seem to be pushing our species to the predicted brink of disaster. But there is another Doomsday threat looming in our near future, a very real threat that can wipe-out not only humanity but our entire planet.

Phobos: Mayan Fear, Steve Alten's third book in the Mayan Prophecy series, is a doomsday rollercoaster ride of adventure that follows Immanuel Gabriel to the end of the world and back again for one last shot at salvation. During Immanuel's journey with his deceased grandfather, archaeologist Julius Gabriel, Julius reveals everything the Mayans knew and feared - from the secrets of creation that predate the Big Bang to the existence of extraterrestrials that have come to Earth to save our species.

The universe is not what it seems, nor is human existence. The ticking clock of physicality that begins at conception and terminates with our final breath is neither the end nor the beginning, but an elaborate ruse constructed as a test.

We are failing miserably.

Pressestimmen

"Beunruhigend, beängstigend und fesselnd." (_James Rollins_ )

Kurzbeschreibung

Am Ende aller Zeiten steht ein neuer Anfang ...

Einst rettete der Archäologe Michael Gabriel unsere Welt, musste dies jedoch mit dem Leben bezahlen. Wie in einer alten Maya-Prophezeiung vorhergesagt sind seine beiden Söhne dazu auserkoren, die Menschheit vor einem finsteren Schicksal zu bewahren und die Rückkehr ihres Vaters zu ermöglichen. Die entscheidende Schlacht zwischen den Mächten des Lichts und der Finsternis steht bevor ...

Das Ende aller Tage ist gekommen...
666 Jahre nachdem die Pest Europa heimsuchte und die Hälfte der Weltbevölkerung dahinraffte, ist der Schwarze Tod zurückgekehrt. Mitten in Manhattan bricht die Seuche erneut aus. Die Stadt wird hermetisch abgeriegelt und versinkt im Chaos. Nur eine Handvoll Überlebender vermag die Zeichen des Untergangs richtig zu deuten. Wird ihnen die Flucht gelingen?

Beschreibing Redaktion:

(source: Bol.de)