Steve Alten - MEG: Hell's Aquarium

The Philippine Sea Plate:
The most unexplored realm on the planet. Surrounded by subduction zones and no less than six abyssal gorges - including the seven-mile-deep, 1,500 mile long Mariana Trench, the sea is also home to an incredibly anomaly, for hidden beneath its primordial crust lies the remains of the Phantalassa, an ocean that dates back 220 million years. vast and isolated, the Phantalassa is a purgatory of existence, inhabited by nightmarisch sea creatures log believed extinct.

Tanaka Institute, Monterey, CA:
Four years have passed since Angel, the 76-foot, 100,000 pound Megalodon returned from the Mariana Trench to birth her litter of pups - five females - far too numerous and aggressive to keep in one pen. As accidents mounts, one solutions presents itself: A Dubai royal prince is building the largest aquarium in the world and seeks to purchase two of the "runts".
The deal hinges on hiring Jonas Taylor's twenty-one year old son, David, to be their handler.
Jonas reluctantly agrees, and David is off to Dubai for the summer of his life, not realizing he is being set up to lead an expedition that will hunt down and capture the most dangerous creatures ever to inhabit Earth.

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The Tanaka Institute located at the beautiful coast of Monterey, California, holds the most desired attraction for shark fans and therefore the most dangerous monster ever captured alive: Angel, the Carcharodon megalodon and her litter of five pups. Since the pups are getting too big for the aquarium and "casualties" have already happened, Jonas Taylor faces decisions on how to handle their space problem. The offer from Dubai to buy two of the pups and some submersibles comes just in time as the animals become more and more annoyed with each other. Maybe this will keep the activists threatening to boycott the aquarium away for a while.
He reluctantly agrees to send his young son David with the sharks to keep an eye on them and also to teach a group of pilots how to handle the submersibles.

David didn't anticipate that the main goal wasn't to get him as a teacher but rather get him into diving the depths of the dangerous Phantalassa. He is lured into the deep dive with more than the possibilty to never come back.

Jonas knowing what awaits his son deep down has to react when he learns his son's submersible is missing.

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What an adventure packed in a single book that easily could have been two books with two themes ! I couldn't get enough of the happenings in the Institute and on David's
excursion into the difficult to imagine depths of the ocean.
Having read all of the MEG books I easily say this one is the best of them all.
The pups are food for your nerves, never letting you sit back in your seat and relax. The book mostly keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering how crazy one would be about a movie and a movie it should be.

Meet old characters of the Taylor family and their closest friends and get to know the new generation of Taylors' and their friends, most certainly building the foundation for more dangerous adventures.

All I can say is, that I want more and already took out the older novels to re-read them again.

Rating:
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Hardcover: 342 pages
Publisher: Variance Publishing LLC (May 19, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1935142046
ISBN-13: 978-1935142041

Steve Alten - The Shell Game

The events of September 11th, 2001...the invasion of Iraq...the threat of radical Islam...an impending showdown with Iran. What do these situations have in common?

Oil. And the world is running out.

The SHELL GAME is far more than a thriller, it is a MUST-READ cautionary tale that exposes the next “9/11 event” a deception that will lead to a retaliatory chemical weapons strike on Iran and the terrorist elements the regime supports. Though the novel is written as fiction, it is filled with all-too-real details provided by insiders in the oil industry, military, and Middle Eastern affairs that extrapolates real events from the past and present that will lead us down a path of self-destruction...unless we stop the insanity now!

The story opens in 2007 when two CIA spooks meet with an American Colonel in military intelligence. The war is going badly, and President Bush, who steadfastly refuses to back down, remains unchallenged at home as Democrats and Republicans continue to toss verbal grenades – positioning themselves for the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear energy will yield enriched uranium within five years -- uranium that can be used to manufacture suitcase nukes.

The United States’ military is too drained to invade Iran, and a preemptive strike is out of the question...unless a nuclear detonation were to occur on in American city -- the enriched uranium traced back to Iran. A U.S. reprisal would strike a death-blow against radical Islam, quell the insurgent violence in Iraq...and yield more oil. Yes, the cost is unthinkable – but if we sit back and do nothing then one day a dozen suitcase bombs could go off in a dozen American cities – bringing with it anarchy and the collapse of Western civilization.

December 2011: Ashley “Ace” Futrell is an oil expert working for PetroConsultants, married to Kelli Doyle, a former National Security Advisor and one of the CIA spooks from the opening scene. When Kelli threatens to expose the plot, Ace finds his existence hurtling down a rabbit’s hole of deceit where the orchestrated lies of the powerful few could lead to the darkest days of human existence... and the death knell for billions.

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When it comes to political novels it's always a challenge to learn about what's the truth and what's the author's fiction. Considering that this book is mainly about the U. S. and Saudi Arabias Oil dealings I did a lot of research to get deeper into this topic. It actually made me think and afraid to think about what really happens if some day there just isn't enough oil left. That might not happen tomorrow, next year or in the next 30 years but in the end that's what really will happen. Ask yourself what you could do to preserve and ask yourself what your government does or not does.

Coming back to the book, I also read a lot of reviews and it seems that a lot of people just forget it is a piece of fiction written almost like it might become truth. A frightening thought but think about it. In my opinion it's not too far fetched.

I really liked the embedding of true facts prior and past 911 but it also was a lesson to research and learn more about false flag operations. Also the environmental issues mentioned, alternative sources of energy etc. were greatly researched.

The book is researched, plausible, overwhelming and unsettling and in my opinion it is absolutely recommended. Some one did his work ! Thanks !

Rating:
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Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Sweetwater Books; First U.S. edition (January 22, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1599550946
ISBN-13: 978-1599550947

Watch the trailer !