History Literature / Meg

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Four of Angel's five daughters. Runts Mary-Kate and Ashley were named for the Olson Twins. Their older half-sisters are Elizabeth, or Lizzie for short, who is named for Elizabeth Bathory, the infamous "Countess of Blood". Belle, or "Bela the Dark Overlord" (so named for her dark coloration, as she is the only known megalodon with pigment) is named for American serial killer Belle Gunness.
* NonMaliciousMonster: For all the death and destruction they cause, all of the {{PrehistoricMonster}}s in the series -- the various megalodons, the kronosaurs, the Liopleurodon -- are simply acting on their instincts to find food, reproduce and survive. Even the Liopleurodon [[spoiler:killing Kaylie in the fourth book]] is portrayed as a total accident, with David's quest for vengeance in ''Night Stalkers'' being entirely one-sided. The only exceptions seem to be Bela and Lizzy, and it's not clear how much of their shown intelligence and maliciousness is Jonas projecting onto them.

** In the fourth book Brain Suits seems to be your typical obstructive BadBoss to David as he tries to train the Crown Prince's recruits. However, from Suits' point of view David may be a brilliant pilot but he's also arrogant, unwilling to take advice and awful at working in a team. He gives David an assignment to fish a corpse out of the waters off Dubai with Monty as his copilot, one they flunk spectacularly. Afterwards, Suits makes the point that if they screwed up in 100ft of decently-lit water, how could David be expected to survive down in the Panthalassa, something a humbled David agrees with.

A film adaptation was in some truly memorable DevelopmentHell since 1997 under the now defunct Hollywood Pictures. In the mid-2000s, New Line Cinema held the rights to the series with Jan de Bont (Of ''Film/{{Speed}}'' fame) and Creator/GuillermoDelToro involved. Creator/EliRoth later came onto the project, but it fell through. Principal photography finally began in October 2016, with Jon Turteltaub as director and Warner Bros. scheduled to release the [[Film/TheMeg film]] in March 2018, before being bumped back to eventually airing in August 2018.

* ALighterShadeOfBlack: Angel. She may be TheDreaded to the human characters for her appearances in the series , but she's frequently shown to be the lesser evil against the kronosaurs (in ''The Trench''), her male offspring (in ''Primal Waters'') and the Liopleurodon (in ''Hell's Aquarium'').

** The ''Meg: Origins'' prequel novella does this for the first few books, tying in the concept of the Navy wanting the Manganese ores introduced in ''The Trench'', while featuring an appearance by Michael Maren's father spying for Benedict Singer, establishing how Maren came to be working for Singer in ''The Trench''.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome: Mac marooning Maren in the wastes of Alaska is treated as a satisfying LaserGuidedKarma moment considering Maren had been trying to ruin Jonas. The following novel, however, reveals that it wasn't just something to be shrugged off -- it cost Maren most of his toes due to frostbite.

* BizarreAlienSenses: When Kwan begins his transformation, he gains electroreception, which he notes is like "feeling the heartbeats" of people in another room -- not hearing them, but somehow able to distinguish them.

"Meg" is short for "{{Megalodon}}", the name of an actual giant prehistoric shark (although its size, strength, intelligence, and probably its ferocity are frequently exaggerated in the books; that, and it ''glows''.). The books detail the adventures of Cmdr. Jonas Taylor (and later, his family), a former member of the Navy who came face to face with the shark while diving in the Mariana Trench, reacted about [[{{ScrewThisImOuttaHere}} the way you might expect]], and was drummed out of the Navy for allegedly going insane. Later, having become a marine biologist obsessed with proving he isn't crazy, Jonas ventures back into the trench, meets the shark again, and accidentally unleashes it. Terror, thrills, and more all ensue.

* ''Meg: Origins'' (2011) -- an e-book set in 1989, detailing Jonas Taylor's first encounter with the Megalodon.

* ActuallyThatsMyAssistant: Subverted in ''Hell's Aquarium'', and also used to show why this trope often doesn;t work in a modern high-tech world. When Bin Rashidi and the other Saudi representatives come to pitch Jonas on capturing the Panthalassa creatures, the Crown Prince presents himself as merely one of Bin Rashidi's entourage. However, Jonas and Mac have done their homework via their government contacts and know who he is in advance, forestalling any attempt at this.

** Fiesal Bin Rashidi in the later books desires to be head of the Dubai-Land complex, and takes charge of the efforts to capture the Lio. He's ALighterShadeOfBlack to the Crown Prince in the fifth book, but his fury about beng bought out by his cousin and a desire to found his own aquarium with Paul Agricola leads him to deliberatley saboage the effort to free Brutus, leading to the deaths of over 40 people when the whale goes berserk.

*** To be fair, this theory is not especially held to today, as Killer whales did not become big-game hunters until the Pleistocene, after Megalodon went extinct.

* AssholeVictim: More than a few jerks get eaten by the Megalodon and other predators. [[spoiler: Could also apply to Angel and her offspring Bela and Lizzy. All are responsible for a ton of death and destruction before getting killed by the Liopleurodon]].
** In ''Generations'', traitor [[spoiler:Cyel Reed]] sneeringly proclaims he'll dance on [[spoiler:the cancer-stricken Terry's grave]] as Mac kicks him off the ship. Needless to say, his gruesome Megalodon-related death follows not long after.

* DespairEventHorizon: After all the years of Megalodon-related tragedies, [[spoiler:Terry's cancer diagnosis]] is explicitly stated to be the thing that finally cracks Jonas.

** Bud Harris, a friend of Jonas who's also been sleeping with his wife Maggie in the original book. After she's killed by the Megalodon and he fails to kill the shark itself in revenge, Bud blows his own brains out.

* GreaterScopeVillain: The Arab conglomerate (including [[HarsherInHindsight Osama Bin Laden]]) that backs Benedict Singer's organization. The UAE royals behind Dubai-land are this for the later books, as their drive to create their theme park for profit leads to Megalodons, Liopleurodons and various other monstrosities going on the rampage.

** Zigzagged with the Megalodons themselves, and explained fully in ''Generations''. Prehistoric megalodons were active parents that taught their pups how to hunt. However, when the species descended into the Mariana Trench, the limited food supply led to their perceiving all other megs as threats, even their own pups -- Angel's mother devours the runt of her litter of pups shortly after birth, and Angel attempts to do the same when her two male pups are born. Born away from this, Bela and Lizzy are the first megs in thousands of years to return to active parenting, claiming the Salish sea as a nursery and [[CurbStompBattle massacring]] the local orca pods to give their pups a fighting chance. More notably, when Paul Agricola captures one of Bela's pups, the enraged shark and her sister attack his boat in a futile attempt to rescue it.

** The original Meg gives birth to Angel and two other offspring (neither of which survive) in the first book before being killed, while Angel gives birth to two male pups at the end of ''The Trench'' -- one of whom later impregnates her again in time to have given birth to a new brood for ''Hell's Aquarium''. This becomes a major plot point in that novel when it turns out that the Megalodon species has evolved to the point where the females inseminate themselves, basically disregarding the males to produce genetic clones of themselves.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Four of Angel's five daughters. Runts Mary-Kate and Ashley were named for the Olson Twins. Their older half-sisters are Elizabeth, or Lizzie for short, who is named for Elizabeth Bathory, the infamous "Countess of Blood". Belle, or "Bela the Dark Overlord" (so named for her dark coloration, as she is the only known Megalodon with pigment) is named for American serial killer Belle Gunness.

* ParentalIncest: Benedict Singer and his daughter Celeste in ''The Trench''. Also Angel and her nameless elder son in ''Primal Waters'', though it's portrayed as less unnatural given the very low numbers of surviving Megalodons.

* PrehistoricMonster: As the series has gone on, more and more of these have been introduced. Aside from the titular Megalodons, there have also been Kronosaurs, a giant Liopleurodon, Mosasaurs, Livyatan melvillei (an 80ft ancient sperm whale with a lower jaw shaped like an orca's) and most recently a near-200ft Panthalassa variation of Titanoboa. Interestingly, aside from the prologue to the first book, no actual dinosaurs appear.

** ''Generations'' not only introduces a Panthalassa subspecies of Megalodon whose average member is bigger than Angel (who was enormous by the standards of her Mariana Trench genetic line), but near-200ft aquatic Titanoboas.

* ShoutOut: Alten clearly binged the ''Franchise/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' spinoff ''[[Series/SeaMonsters Sea Monsters]]'' prior to ''Hell's Aquarium'', as virtually every major Mesozoic predator from that series shows up in the book. The illustrations of the Liopleurodon in the book even use the same colour scheme as in the series, even though the later books describe it with dark brown colouring.

->''"Two Words: Jurassic [[IncrediblyLamePun Shark]]!"''

And yet, the series at its peak is affable in its cheesiness to the point of being like an old B Movie--SoBadItsGood, if you will, and there's just something about a man slaying a shark by [[spoiler: letting himself be swallowed and then cutting up the shark's organs using one of its lost teeth]] or a shark attacking [[spoiler: a baseball game, of all things]] that has the ability to put a smile on readers' faces, even as they shake their heads.

* ''Vostok'' (2015) -- sequel to ''The Loch''. Part 1 of the book is set between ''The Trench'' and ''Primal Waters''; part 2 alongside ''Night Stalkers''. [[spoiler:Then most of its events are undone by time travel.]]

** Taken UpToEleven in ''Hell's Aquarium'', which gives us a 122ft, 100-ton Liopleurodon -- a good five times the length and ''50-100 times the weight'' of the actual historical Liopleurodon. This is justified InUniverse as being an evolutionary adaptation to cold water living, but this still violates the SquareCubeLaw, as a Liopleurodon that size would weigh well over two hundred tons.

* ''Meg: Purgatory'' (announced in April 2018; scheduled for June 2022) -- sequel to ''Generations''.
* ''The Loch: Heaven's Lake'' (announced in February 2019) -- third in the ''The Loch'' series.

* CoolVSAwesome: Megalodon vs. Kronosaurus in ''The Trench'', and a super-sized (read:bigger than a blue whale!) Liopleurodon vs. Angel in ''Hell's Aquarium''.

** In the original edition of the very first book, both of Angel's brothers are killed off, one moments after birth by its mother, the other at just a few days old by a pack of orcas.

* NotSoDifferentRemark: At several points in his narration, Zach does this with himself and his father Angus - once he descends into alcoholism after his life falls apart and again when he punches out his former coworker Caldwell.

"Meg" is short for "{{Megalodon}}", the name of an actual, over-sized, prehistoric shark. (Although its size, strength, intelligent, and probably its ferocity are frequently exaggerated in the books; that, and it ''glows''.) The books detail the adventures of Cmdr. Jonas Taylor (and later, his family), a former member of the Navy who came face to face with the shark while diving in the Mariana Trench, reacted about [[{{ScrewThisImOuttaHere}} the way you might expect]], and was drummed out of the Navy for allegedly going insane. Later, having become a marine biologist obsessed with proving he isn't crazy, Jonas ventures back into the trench, meets the shark again, and accidentally unleashes it. Terror, thrills, and more all ensue.

** ''Leviyatan'' wasn't really any bigger than modern sperm whales, being more on the order of 50-60 feet long than 80. However, sperm whales have also been known to grow exceptionally large.

** The behaviour of the megalodons is portrayed as unrealistically aggressive and bloodthirsty (such as on numerous occasions when they abandon huge whale carcasses to eat some puny humans that happened to be nearby). In real life, most predators don't immediately and persistently attack competitors with intent to kill on sight (since risk of fatal injury is too high). When mating and reproducing, they are depicted as instantly trying to kill and eat their own mate and pups the moment they separate, making their aggression verge on a species-wide TooDumbToLive.

* BrainsAndBrawn: It's stated that Lizzy (the brains) and Bela (the brawn) have this relationship, although it doesn't ''quite'' fit this trope because Lizzy (being a fifty-foot great white) has brawn to match.

* ShoutOut: Alten clearly binged the ''Franchise/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' spinoff ''[[Series/SeaMonsters Sea Monsters]]'' prior to ''Hell's Aquarium'', as virtually every major Mesozoic predator from that series shows up in the book. The illustrations of the Liopleurodon in the book even use the same colour scheme as in the series.

** Fiesal Bin Rashidi in the later books desires to be head of the Dubai-Land complex, and takes charge of the efforts to capture the Lio. He's a LighterShadeOfBlack to the Crown Prince in the fifth book, but his fury about beng bought out by his cousin and a desire to found his own aquarium with Paul Agricola leads him to deliberatley saboage the effort to free Brutus, leading to the deaths of over 40 people when the whale goes berserk.

* AmbitionIsEvil: In this case it turns you into a fame-hungry gold-digging {{Jerkass}}; Maggie's need for attention and recognition lead her to constantly sabotage Jonas (at one point hiring David Adashek to provoke him into a public incident as grounds for divorce), mine every aspect of the Meg story to establish herself as a credible reporter, and ultimately gets herself killed when her accurate hunch about the shark's behaviour leads her to try and film it underwater instead of informing Jonas and the authorities of its location. Even her initial attraction to Jonas is presented as being as much a result of his fame as a Navy pilot as his physical attractiveness.

* TheDreaded: While the megs and later the Liopleurodon are this generally due to their size and ferocity, Angel holds a special dread for virtually all the main characters, and the fear of her escaping is a prevalent theme [[spoiler:until the Liopleurodon kills her]]. It's even revealed to be the reason for Bela and Lizzie's symbiotic behaviour, as their mother's scent led them to constantly swim in formation to give the appearance of a much larger animal.

* ItCanThink: Alten really started playing up the Megs' intelligence from ''Primal Waters'' on. In the later books Lizzy is actively portrayed as being able to outsmart the human characters on several occasions.

** In the fourth book Brain Suits seems to be your typical obstructive BadBoss to David as he tries to train the Crown Prince's recruits. However, from Suits' point of view David may be a brilliant pilot be he's also arrogant, unwilling to take advice and awful at working in a team. He gives David an assignment to fish a corpse out of the waters off Dubai with Monty as his copilot, one they flunk spectacularly. Afterwards, Suits makes the point that if they screwed up in 100ft of decently-lit water, how could David be expected to survive down in the Panthalassa, something a humbled David agrees with.

** In the fourth book Brain Suits seems to be your typical obstructive BadBoss to David as he tries to train the Crown Prince's recruits. However, from Suits' point of view David may be a brilliant pilot be he's also arrogant, unwilling to take advice and awful at working in a team. He gives David an assignment to fish a corpse out of the waters off Dubai with Monty as his copilot, one they flunk spectacularly. Afterwards, Suits makes the point that if they screwed up in 100ft of decently-lit water, how they David be expected to survive down in the Panthalassa, something a humbled David agrees with.