Customer Reviews

The Trench

5 star:		(161)
4 star:		(46)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

The Trench was pretty good. The plot tended to get a little elementary with twists that one could see from a mile away. The ending was a little hokey with all the fighting in 36000 feet of water. I know the book was a work of fiction but it was also supposed to have an underlying truth to it as well. As opposed to the first book, Meg, I personally thought that this book was written better and was more entertaining. I won't reveal the ending to the people who havent read the book yet, but I was more pleased with the ending in The Trench than with Meg.

The giant prehistoric shark, star of Meg, is back.

Meg has been living in a water park as a tourist attraction. People pay to see the incredible shark (especially at feeding time). The lower pressures of the surface and regular feedings have allowed the shark to grow to more than 80 feet in length. It is now the greatest living killer in the water.

Well, guess what? Yup, the shark manages to escape and the hunt is on once again as Jonas Taylor must face the giant one more time.

But this is not just a repeat of the previous book. No, the meg wants to return to the trench it considered home. But there is more in the trench than we knew. A massive research station has traveled to the bottom for purposes to be revealed. There are also other nasty denizens from prehistory that have retreated to the trench bottom.

While the first book was an excellent action adventure, this on adds to that and becomes a techno thriller as the goings on at the trench bottom are revealed to the reader.

More, fun, more action and more giant shark. Another great read.

Rarely do sequels outperform their predecessor, but in the case of Steve Alten's "The Trench," I think that the sequel is much better than the original. Not that "Meg" was a bad novel. In fact, I loved it. But "The Trench" seems to be better in that Alten seems to have grown as a writer.

This time around, there isn't just a prehistoric killer on the loose. This time we have international scandal, terrorists(including Osama bin Laden), spies, double-crosses, marital problems, etc. Not to mention that Angel, the original Meg's offspring, has decided to break free of the Tanaka Institute and head back home to the Mariana Trench.

The sinister Benedict Singer is the perfect villain in this book. I'm not giving anything away by stating this, because it is obvious right from the start that he is up to no good. Dr. Jonas Taylor returns, so does Mac, Terry, Masao and the AG II. A few new characters, namely the seductive and sexy Celeste, are also thrown into the chaos.

This book is much more suspenseful than the original, and the entire focus isn't on just capturing Angel, but all of the aforementioned problems as well.

Much like the original, the action is fast-paced and bloody. There is definitely a higher body count in this one, and the introduction of another prehistoric killing machine as well.

If you enjoyed the first "Meg" book, you'll definitely fall in love with "The Trench." I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Alten. I also recommend it to anyone who loves creature features, mystery, sci-fi, and adventure tales.

If you liked Steve Alten's NY Times best-seller, MEG, then you'll love THE TRENCH. It's a high octane, thrill-a-minute, pulse-pounding, heart-stopper of a read, with plenty of villains to hate, heroes to root for, and subplots to get caught up in.

THE TRENCH has something for everyone: for the science buff, fascinating details about deep-sea submersibles and the exotic life forms that lurk in the ocean's depths; for action lovers, literally dozens of action sequences that would be mind-blowing on the big screen; for the romantic at heart, a subplot that is a touching testament to the power of love.

Some people, such as "a reader from Philadelphia, PA" (see review below), seem to think that Alten is aiming for a Pulitzer Prize with THE TRENCH. To such people I say: "Lighten up, will ya?!" To any discerning reader it should be obvious that Alten has no such literary aspirations. If you're looking for a detailed examination of controversial social issues or profound insights into the human condition, look elsewhere. But if you want to be thrilled, entertained, and scared even, then read THE TRENCH. (About the only weakness in the book, and it's a minor one at that, is the occasionally sloppy editing.)

In short, THE TRENCH is a Hollywood blockbuster just waiting to happen. It's a fun, fast and thrilling read. But don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself!

Ah. A good question. The problem, you see, is that I am battling a life-long obsession with marine creatures with specific concentrations on the great white shark and giant squid. So I, admittedly, rather stupidly, plunk down my ten dollars anytime I see large teeth or tentacles on the cover of anything. This cannot be a good thing.

I have read JAWS. I have read BEAST. I have even partaken of EXTINCT. I am an idiot.

Now, just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse in the prose waters, Steven Alten trudges along with MEG and THE TRENCH. My question to you, dear reader, is, when will I learn?

They are, quite possibly, (and please feel free to include all of the above-listed oceanic masterpieces on this list), the worst things I've ever read.

Oh, ho! What didn't I like about them? Why that's like reflecting light into a mirror. I bounce it right back to you. The real question is, is there anything I did like about them?

Well for pure comedic purposes:

I love how news of a marauding, 70 foot prehistoric killing machine, doesn't reach the country of Canada, presumably because we have not the technology to listen to news reports, even though it's, quite celarly, a path the beast is following.

I love when semi-annoying children are gobbled in front of their apathetic sister's eyes. Explain that one to dad, honey.

I love how the creature would have to use it's baby front teeth to nibble the head off of the poor upside-down underwater-photographing kayaker, so as not to create a wake and play a pretty mean-spirited joke on her husband when he flips her over.

I love the speed of the submersibles, and their miraculous ability to withstand quick-changing oceanic pressures and hard hitting sea monsters.

I love how the shark is unhappy wth his kayaker-meal, and reaks havac on a nearby coastal restaurant , (staffed by the world's most obnoxious french waiter), stilted in waters that could not possibly be deep enough to actually swim in.

I love the sadistic latin/philosophy-spewing villain, his equally sadistic lover, and their meditations on the trials of life. I learned quite a bit from these moments about myself, my friends and my loved-ones. And the villain's dumb-as-nails Russian henchman. Him, I love too.

I love that the deep-trench sea creatures have a good sense of ironic and comedic timing when they decide to attack their victims straying to far to the subersibles opening.

I love how the esteemed Dr. Taylor sets the record for shark-attack victims, (four, I believe) in one week and recovers a day or two later. I believe in Mr. Alten's universe, a shark attack is very much like a bee-sting if you are the hero of a novel: pull a tooth out and lie down for a few hours. If you're a mischievous teenage, however, or evil scientist, you're mulch.

Of course there is more. There is more on every single darn page. That's the problem. So there it is. I hate it. Kill me, if you will.

On the other hand, it is also perhaps the funniest thing I've ever read. So read it. Please. I greatly look forward to either Mr. Benchley or Mr. Alten's take on sea-horses or jelly fish. I believe they should, respectively, be called SEA HORSE and JELLY FISH.

"The Trench" is a book I picked up on the spur of the moment. The more and more I started to read it, the more and more I wished I had thought more before buying "The Trench". There were way too many action sequences between man and shark and man and reptile and shark and reptile. This book was not so much a thriller as it was obviously the author's attempt to write in science fiction and fantasy. There were times I wanted to put the book down, put away, but the more I read, the idiousy of this book just kept bringing me back. Toward the end, it was like driving past a car accident-you know you shouldn't look but still do because you feel compelled to do so. With "The Trench" I couldn't stop looking because while I wasn't afraid I'd miss yet another dead body, just that I'd miss something that might actually miss something that made sense or wasn't some part of a truly outrageous number of coincidences. I've finished it, laughed the the whole time, and I've placed it properly out of view in a drawer to never be seen again.

Is no one else bothered by the fact that Steve Alten can't write? The man supposedly has a master's degree, but his prose indicates illiteracy. "The Trench" reads as if it were written by a middle schooler who stayed up late one night copying down every detail he could remember about every shark movie ever made...the really, really bad ones. Its predecessor, "Meg," had unbearably bad writing as well, but the plot at least was gripping enough to make me overlook this flaw. But this sequel lacks the sort of plot that kept me reading "Meg," even when the grammar was as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard. The villain and his femme fatale sidekick are absolutely comical. Jonas Taylor, the protagonist, and his wife, Terry, are no longer sympathetic, just pathetic. I wanted them to be devoured this time around. And I kept hoping against hope that the shark scenes with Angel, the albino megalodon, would make up for the boring human characters. When they nicknamed her "The Angel of Death" early in the book, I admit I felt a chill of anticipation. But after a while the shark-eats-someone scenes just felt like a cry for attention. In summation, utterly redundant with deplorable prose. Skip it!

Oh, my, it's embarassing to think that I did recommend Steve Alten's Meg some time ago. This sequel is actually so bad that I'm having second thoughts about Meg itself, which I had like in first place.

To say that the Trench is pure formula is an understatement. A deep one. Compared to the prose in this book Stephen King is Shakespeare, and I don't like Mr. King particularly.

The reviewers below tend to say that the science in The Trench is far superior than it is in Meg. I'm no science expert, but I can assure you that, if the science is better, the writing is much, much poorer.

I can only imagine that Mr. Alten wrote The Trench as a tremendous pun, as a parody of himself. Take, for instance, the risible chapter titles. Can you really take seriously titles like "Bad Karma", "True Confessions", "Risky Business"? I swear there's a chapter entitled "Seafood." Dead serious.

Then there is the character of Jonas. In Meg he was a human being. In The Trench he is again a parody of himself, a stupid Rambo-macho-thing unable control either his fears or his fists. Jonas goes hospitalized three times in this book, with severe injuries, and he is always up and well again in the next few pages, ready to kick off Angel's menacing extended gums again.

And the dialogues? Where in hell were these taken from?

"Remember, all of the truly significant battles are waged whithin the self."

"I'd rather die with you than live without you."

Enough said. Skip this one.

With his debut novel, Meg, Steve Alten chilled us. As we flip the pages to this exciting can't-put-it-down-until-it-is-over-book, an incredibly frightening thought cascades through each of our heads: what if the Charchorodon Megalodon really existed? Anyone who read the book had at least one nightmare after reading it. Now Alten has released the equally terrifying sequel, The Trench.

In The Trench, some of Alten's most loved characters return to fight the battle of the deep, such as fun-loving, not-afraid-of-anything Mac; and the knowledgeable Masao. Of course, the main characters are Jonas Taylor and Terry Tanaka. The two sparked a love interest nearing the end of Meg and were married in between novels. Unfortunately in the four years they have been married, they have fallen upon rough times. Terry loses a baby after eight months of carrying and Jonas has become entirely work obsessed.

Jonas Taylor's work is focused on Meg's offspring; a 72-foot female Megalodon comically named `Angel.' The prehistoric monster is being held in captivity at the Tanaka Lagoon. Unfortunately, the lagoon has also fallen on hard times due to many suits from angry family members of Meg's meals in the first novel. As a result, the company has joined with Benedict Singer, an emerald-eyed millionaire.

The Trench is absolutely jam-packed with antagonists. Oddly enough, the Megalodon seems to be the least of the reader's worries. Perhaps the most frightening monster in the book would have to be Benedict Singer's protegee, a stunning platinum-blonde beauty queen by the name of Celeste Singer. Celeste's manipulating antics are liable to get someone killed. Also, the newly discovered prehistoric reptile the Pliosaur. This marine-adapted reptile hunts in packs, deadly packs. They have already killed a group of workers aboard the Prometheus, and they are yearning to taste human flesh again.

However benign Angel seems throughout the book, she is killing. Jonas and a group of others are tracking the female and attempting to either kill it or trap it to return to the lagoon. Not to mention the fact that while Jonas is chasing the Angel of Death, Terry has been caught in a web of lies and ends up in the Marianna Trench for over a week. Understanding that there are several people who want Terry dead, she begins to show amazing courage and strength while in the Trench.

This spine-chilling page-turner makes the reader really evaluate life and what life would be like if some of these mind-boggling predators existed in life today. With only two novels left in his path thus far, Alten has already become a very well known and very well liked author. So cheers to Alten, for releasing an excellent, five-star quality novel for the public to read and enjoy for generations to come.

The sequel to MEG loses something as author Steve Alten adds [human] violence, sex, and a rediculous plot to control the world to make THE TRENCH more mainstream. Taking place several years after the events of MEG, which saw a female Carcaradon megalodon escaping from the ultra-deep Mariana Trench and eating lots of unsuspecting folks, we find our hero, Jonas Taylor, severely distraught after years of playing nursemaid to Angel, the captive daughter of the original Meg. Angel eventually escapes, and is chased by Jonas and his crazy copter pilot friend Mackriedes while they simaltaneously battle Big Corporate Baddies. Like MEG, TRENCH's shark scenes are terrifying (especially if you're scared of sharks in the first place), but the Evil Corporation plot that takes up the other half of the book is stupid, though enjoyable. Despite its shortcomings, I highly recommend both it and MEG.