Steve Alten's Deep Dive into The Meg & Meg 2: The Trench

Steve Alton, the author of, now the title's a little different, Meg the Terror of the Deep, is that what it was?

Meg the novel of deep terror. That's what the first came out.

When you were researching, when you were thinking about writing the, why Meg? Why not?

Go big or go home. The research that I was doing was on Megalodon because that's where the idea had blossomed with the Mariana Trench. I read an article about it and it was what I used to read back in school from Jaws to Shark Attacks. There was always a little blurb about Farfarn on Megalodon. Sort of married those two ideas. When you first thought of the novel, how did it evolve to when it was finally published originally?

Got the Time magazine in August of '95. I wrote a manuscript in six months. -Wow. -I got a literary agent who really believed in it. And we had the -- We actually had a movie deal in May/June 1996, before the book was sold. -Wow. -That just -- A lot more energy to go to the book. So, 1996, we had the first movie deal. In 2018, we had the first movie.

That just shows how long it moves. Let's talk a little bit about that. Did it live up to your expectations back in the 1990s when you first got the movie deal? Is the end result in 2018 what it would be? Yeah, in that way we're lucky because in 1996/7, the special effects were nowhere near what they are today. So we had a wait, you know, it was worth it.

Absolutely. Although if you ask the 2005 studio, they may disagree with you. You've got so many things going on besides now the second movie is coming out, which You're not really involved with that second film, are you? - What'd you call that movie? What? I broke up for a second. - Oh, I'm sorry. The second movie that's coming out, "The Trend." - Right.

- Were you involved at all with that development of that? No, okay. - No, but the big producer and I are close friends and she's a meg head and so she does it right. - So, meg heads, did you come up with that or did they? (laughs) They named themselves to be honest. Nothing to do with it. They started calling me the Meg Heads and it stuck. (laughing) - Have they given you feedback on the novels that you've written?

Oh, I like this one or I like that he did this or I didn't like this or any of those type things. - They're very honest and I appreciate that. - Let's talk a minute about Meg the Legacy because this is huge. Yeah. So it's seven books and is it six comic books or one of six? Graphic novels. I'm sorry. Seven novels in seven volumes. "Bounded Letter" with a lot of extras.

Really something that's going to hold up for the use. But there's so much more to it. There's one of the six comics that make up the graphic novel. There's four "Angel of Death", the "velas" which are short stories. that I put in chronological order as they sit with the others. So my goal is that I was going to create something that was basically a 40 year character time span that would make like a perfect super novel or in years to come an episodic TV show.

Oh, that would be really interesting. I think people would be interested in that based on the interest they've had for the movies and for the novels. So it sounds like it's a really great set. I know it can only be ordered on your website. No, actually make legacy dot com. Oh, sorry. Meg, like a desktop. But it really is. You know, it's actually guaranteed.

If you're an investor, you want your value to go up. Appreciate it. I can pretty much guarantee that by the time you see the seven now, it will double in value. Yeah. Oh, sure. thousand of them for the whole world. Right, I know. So that's exciting as well. So if you get one of them, you really have a collector's item. Absolutely. You're gonna pass down from family member to family member.

The money that is that some of the profits from Meg Legacy is going towards something special that you are working with right now. GC 6000. Yeah, we're actually bumped up to the next highest one, GC 20,000. Oh, what is it? I don't know if you've been to the site, go on cancer dot com, but explains where this came from. The bio biochemist created not cure cancer, but to repair the damage done to the P53 gene, which is the cell's defense system, which is programmed to kill cancer.

And when we come on top of carcinogens, or as we get older, our diets are on the table, they should be, the P53 gene weakens, and with cancer forms, it can actually be taken over and create something even worse. You know, 50% of cancers are diagnosed with the B53 gene having morphed into something else. What the doctor who passed away two years ago created was something that recharged the B53 gene and that did not only did it reverse the cancer but it started affecting the DNA.

No hair loss, no side effects, it's all natural which is the only way I think it's going to work because natural is our body knows how to process natural. It's food, it's just food. But, you know, the pharmaceuticals, they don't want natural because they can't patent naturally. So how has it been working for you? I know you've been taking it. You have a medical diagnosis that was cancer.

And so is it do you find that you feel better? Do you find that it's helping medically when you go for checkups? Does it seem to be helping? I'm going to go for another CAT scan in September, so I'll be able to answer your question. All right, well, we will follow up. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. You also have something called Sea Monster Cove.

And that's an online-- it was really interesting when I went to the website. Tell me a little bit more about it. It's an interactive website where numbers can go to observe and interact with the most dangerous sea creatures ever parked on this planet. It's also through video games, it's a private library of all my books they have access to. Nice. You can do cage dives with the creatures not only know that you're in in there but they don't like it.

(laughing) They attack your cage. - You're in their space, sorry. It's like almost like Meg movie. - There are two big sharks in there, so that's like an island. - How did that start? Did somebody come to you with that idea? Did you think? - And that idea came to me in 2018, in December 2018. And at first I thought it was gonna be a episode of TV show, but then the more I worked on it, the more I realized I want something better than this.

I want a TV show and an animated show and I want the video games and I want interaction with the species. And I also want, I wanna see these things for myself, so that's what it all came from. I got into some totally problems, Fortunately, but you know, we're going pretty good right now. So if you're interested, go to Seamastercode.com. Six dollars for membership.

Six dollars when you get all that. I'm sorry, six ninety nine. Oh, sorry. So seven dollars if you get all those. All we have to do is read one of my books a month a year. You're at the beginning of our other series that you do. I want to touch on them briefly. Mayan history based on the world ending, their calendar, and then also the Loch Ness Monster.

What did you in those two areas that made you decide to write? These are trilogies, if I'm correct. Yes. The Mayan calendar doomsday prophecy, the first book in the US was called Domain, the second book, Resurrection. my mind fear, Phobos mind fear. But where it really did well, right before 2012, this is when everything was supposed to happen. The Spanish publishers took it out and changed the title.

The Mayan Testament would begin with number one bestseller in Spain, Mexico, and Argentina, and bestsellers in Germany and France and the United Kingdom. I was fascinated by that whole thing there, the doomsday and the calendar and what they saw all those many, many years ago. Loch Ness Monster. It seems more of a almost like a goofy kind of thing the way he's been portrayed.

So when you approached those books, did you have a different idea in mind? Did you want to kind of dispel that goofiness in a sense? Because I passed on it when my manager asked me to do it. I had the same reaction. But then I contacted a friend of mine who's a cryptozoologist who's been in the loch bits many times. And he told me what it really was.

And when he told me that, I realized There's the myth and there's the science. It's my job to create a character that handles both. That is a scientist so he refutes the myth that says it's a plesiosaur which is ridiculous. But it is, it actually is a fish, and a predatory fish, and a big one. - Wow. - So by taking that angle, I'm able to satisfy both science and entertainment.

- That's terrific. I like that idea as well. A science behind things makes it so much, it kind of lends a little bit of truth to it 'cause it is scientific. Through all your novels, for everything that you've written and everything that you've done, what's the most surprising thing that you learned, whether it was about yourself when writing the novels or researching, doing that scientific work, what was most surprising for you for any of the series?

- I do a lot of research, like you say, I call it facts and not fiction, facts surrounded by fiction. Because as you blow the fine, it becomes even more entertaining. But I wrote about so many different things, and then I find that they're starting to come true. Like, you know, I got in an argument with some ridiculous guy when my first book came out, that he decided there were no hyperthermal vents in the Mariana Trench.

Like he was down there looking at him, you know, seven miles down. Well, eight years later, scientists found, lots of them, hydrothermal vents in the marion trench. They also found sharks that glittered in the dark. And the pioneers, which I also wrote about, they found geothermal sites that created like a insulated layer above the hot water, just like I described in the book.

And now the most amazing thing, and I never thought this would come true, now discovering aquifers or hidden ancient seas beneath the ocean plates. Huge, vast, unexplored ocean dating back millions of years. This is what I wrote about in Hell's Aquarium, the night stalkers and generations and the last book made perfect for it, which will be out in - 24, 22.

- In those vast oceans that we are now just learning about, have they discovered any life forms? I figured they might have seen something all the way down there. - I don't know. Have you seen it on the news? Then you know they did. - Yeah, absolutely. You, which some people may not know, are not just a novelist, you are a very educated man. Bachelor's from Penn State, your master's degree, and you are a doctor.

- Yeah, now let's tell the real truth behind that. - Uh-oh. - Pennsylvania State University, love Penn State. I was a physical education major. - Mm-hmm. - And I learned to coach, I learned to coach basketball. I went on for my master's and got a master's degree in sports medicine, but it's more like an athletic trainer. - Okay. - So I'm a medical.

As far as a doctor, yes, I have an EDD, an education doctorate, but I never use it as far as a title. (laughing) 'Cause I'm not, I don't consider myself a doctor. - With all the stuff that you've got going on, what are you thinking about next? - Well, I know it's next. Lock three, I'm finished right now. I've been working on it for a long time. I have to take a break because I was a little burnout that came back strong.

That should hopefully be done in three or four months. And then it's on to make purgatory. And then when that's done, hopefully everything's going okay and we'll continue. But like you said, the big one right now is this get make legacy going. That's gone. First thought is almost done. And I'll send it out to printers, probably September 1st. So if you want to order now, it's a good time.

- Yeah. - And if you want to now, you've got your book signed. They're gonna need it more value. - Absolutely. I just lost my train of thought. I was just gonna say something else about that. Oh, you, for the legacy that you added some additional. lot of extra 200 pages of original material. Wow. It's my bio, things that happened to me during the course of a 26 year career, some of which are just bizarre.

Are you, were you an avid scuba diver? Not at all. No, I could see the authorized and caged diving accident, you know at the docks you're drowsy. I could tell. Yeah I can understand that. I kind of agree with you on that. You have a birthday coming up too. Any special plans for your birthday? Well first let's get to it you know that's not discounted just knock on wood but yeah you got three weeks yeah i think it'll be a big blowout party for you and anything you know that it won't it's a London song when i'm 64 and then we'll call it what else would you like to discuss about legacy or anything i didn't touch upon the the Lochner series, the Mayan series, the website.

What else? Well, of course, the movie's coming out this week, so we might as well mention that. Yeah, yeah. And it looks good, but I'm excited to see it. See you on Thursday. Oh, okay. So you have not seen it yet? Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, for critics, they didn't have an advanced screener, so I haven't seen it yet either. So we'll just have to see it together and see what we think of it.

I'm sure it's great. I'm sure it's going to be exciting if it's anything like the first one. It was humorous and fun and very heart pounding. All those years ago, could you have imagined where you are now with so many novels written and movies and all of that when you first started writing. Could you have imagined this? I did imagine it every time I went to the theater.

I told my wife one day we're going to be sitting here watching my movie. She just like, you know, ignore me. You know, if you don't see inside your own thoughts and you create and make it come true. I didn't think that I'd have Parkinson's. Yeah, I think I'd have some other things going on medically. but you have to take the bail with the bit so I'm fulfilling with fighters.

Well I am I'm so excited for the movie to come out just because I like the first one so much and all these other things that you have going on it's so much it's so exciting even with your medical issues and concerns that are going on I'm extremely excited for you I can't wait to see all the things coming in the next year and you know next time we'll talk about other things you'll be cured and you'll Parkinson's will not be doing any damage and everything will be great so thank you for taking the time to talk with me today and really have a wonderful birthday have a great movie on Thursday night and thank you again thank you very kind.

I appreciate that. Absolutely. Thanks. We are fellow Floridians who are transplanted. Hit like, smash subscribe, and get notified for when our reviews, interviews, and news go live. [ Silence ]