Tough times for Steve Alten…

Updated on July 2, 2009 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

Somehow this message got tagged in my spam filter:

Sorry if this is off topic but I’m thinking of buying this book. Curious if anyone’s has checked out the new book “Hell’s Aquarium” by Steve Alten? I know he’s been a best selling author before, but wanted to see if anyone had read this book first? It’s about the ancient prehistoric shark Megalodon, which makes the current Great White Shark look like a gold fish.

This message from is from “Mike,” who originates, coincidentally enough, from www.stevealten.com.  I have to say, if people associated with Alten’s own website are at best “thinking of buying this book,” and want to see if “anyone’s read it” before doing so, well, it’s not much of an inducement.

But hey, Mike, if you do decide to make the plunge, here’s a link:

[Update] Holy crap! Thanks for the notice, Jzimbert! I’m ordering this today.

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  • Ericb

    “which makes the current Great White Shark look like a gold fish”

    Thank you Bill Rebane.

  • jzimbert

    Speaking of books about giant things, has anyone read the short story collection “Monstrous”? It’s got a giant crab on the cover, so it seems like it would fit right in with this crowd.

  • BT

    I have not read Monstrous, but on the recommendation of someone on the old jabootu forums, I did pick up a number of giant crab books by Guy Smith. I’m pretty sure whomever told me to get them was saying they were so bad they were good, and they have not disappointed me. They are reliably awful.

  • BT — I remember those!! Those are those really gory ones where the crabs are always giving people malevolent stares and tearing their limbs off, and the books always offer downbeat endings, right? Man, I should dig some of those up again. Those were indeed hilarious.

  • BT

    It may very well have been you that recommended them to me Ken. They are really awful. The writing is terrible, but by the end of the book, pretty much everyone is decapitated or limbless, including children, if I remember correctly.

  • BT — I wish I could take credit (and who knows, I may have mentioned the books in some odd piece or other over the last ten years), but I don’t recall doing so. I remember having bought three or four of them back in, it must have been, the ’80s at the local Kroch & Brentano’s and reading them while I did the laundry.

    I should have kept them. I doubt they’re easy to find these days.

  • mitch

    Hilarious, Ken, thanks for sharing this subtle example of viral marketing.

  • I think it’s hilarious that they couldn’t cover their tracks better than that. If you’re going to send out dummy e-mails, wouldn’t it be better to get a dummy e-mail account to do so, one that doesn’t actually have “www.stevealten.com” in your id info?

  • fish eye no miko

    @Ericb: OMG, that’s exactly what they say about “Jaws” in Giant Spider Invasion isn’t it? Hee.

    BTW, saying a megalodon would make a great white look like a gold fish is a gross exaggeration… they were only about 3 times bigger than great whites (60 feet to a great white’s 20). They were the same size as (even a tad smaller than) sperm whales, who are also carnivorous sea animals. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t want coming at me, mouth open; but it’s not like they were huge gigantic monsters the likes of what the sea had ever seen or will ever again.

  • Ericb

    “Hell’s Aquarium” gets a mention in the Wikipedia’s entry for Liopleurodon. I’m sure the author stuck it there himself.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liopleurodon

  • “I’m sure the author stuck it there himself.”

    Hmm, I don’t know. Both sentences are pretty well written.

  • JoshG

    I wonder if this Guy Smith was one of the inspirations for Garth Marenghi.

  • actually some estimates of Megalodon put it even smaller – at 40-45 feet, with an unnaturally large head. It’s still a terrifying monster of course.

    But for big fish we still have Leedsichthys which was 100 feet or more. And there have been other horrible death-monsters in the past, such as Deinosuchus, the dinosaur-eating alligator from Cretaceous Texas.