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