R.I.P. Gerald Isaac Stiller ~ June 8th, 1927 – May 11, 2020

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R.I.P. Jerry Stiller

I took her out for coffee. She seemed to sense I had no money, so she just ordered coffee. Then she took all the silverware. I picked up her check for 10 cents and thought, ‘This is a girl I’d like to hang out with.’

~ Jerry Stiller relating how he met his wife, Anne Meara, to the Associated Press ~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meg: Generations (Meg #6), by Steve Alten ~ 2.5 Stars

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Adult Fiction, Horror, Thriller

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Release Date: July 21, 2020

384 Pages

Synopsis: Dubai: An impossibility is being taken to the Middle East. The transport vessel Tonga is carrying a lioplerodon to the City of Gold. But while investors gawk at the prehistoric creature, an even more dangerous creature is beginning to stir.

The megalodon shark that Jonas Taylor worked so hard to capture is coming out of its drug-induced stupor and refuses to be contained. Now both ancient creatures, older than mankind itself, are loose in the waters of the Arabian Sea, and the region will never be the same.

I have been a fan of Alten’s Meg series since it debuted in 1997. For sheer popcorn pleasure, these books are adrenaline-filled insanity, so it pains me to say this 6th adventure with Taylor & Co. flounders badly. There are just way too many characters, both prehistoric and bipedal. For fanged, people-eating monsters in addition to the Megs, there are: Pliosaurs, Titanoboa, Pleseosaurs, Mosasaurs, among others. When you have a series about the re-emergence of Megalodons, one of the largest and nastiest aquatic creatures who ever lived (they make great white sharks look cute and cuddly), it’s the stuff of nightmares. But when you throw in all these other deep sea monsters, well, the bloody mayhem that follows just gets redundant after awhile.

In addition to the monsters, there are numerous groups from across the world that all want a piece of the action. And if that isn’t enough, there’s the family of a man killed by a Meg, who are determined to hunt down and kill all the Meg pups in revenge. Somewhere in this murky mess are the Taylors, but except for Jonas’s son David, for the most part they’re sidelined by Terri’s battle with cancer and Parkinson’s. There are so many storylines that not only does this do a disservice to the characters, but it makes it almost impossible to follow what’s happening. And to make matters worse there’s a confusing time jump that came out of nowhere and left me thoroughly confused.

The only saving grace is that the final quarter of the book manages to pull itself together and is much more entertaining. Overall though, Generations left me longing for the previous books in which the Taylors and Megs were worthy adversaries, and you were never quite sure who was going to win. Given the cliffhanger ending, I’m fairly certain there will be a seventh book and if this is the case, I hope Alten returns to the formula which served him so well: Taylors vs. Megs. Although this latest book was a disappointment, I still highly recommend the series if you love scary monsters with loads of blood and gore.