The Trench

By: Steve Alten

Narrated by: Bruce Reizen

Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Its appetite is ravenous. Its teeth scalpel-sharp. Its power unstoppable as it smashes the steel doors holding it in a Monterey, California, aquarium. The captive 20-ton Megalodon shark has tasted human blood, and it wants more.

On the other side of the world, in the silent depths of the ocean, lies the Mariana Trench, where the Megalodon has spawned since the dawn of time. Paleo-biologist Jonas Taylor once dared to enter this perilous cavern. He alone faced the monster and cut its heart out, and he wears the painful scars of that deadly encounter.

Now, as the body count rises and the horror of the Meg's attack grips the California coast, Jonas must begin the hunt again. But to do that means returning to the dark terror of the trench...where the Meg is waiting. Using himself as bait, Jonas will enter the ultimate battle - a fight to the death between man and beast in the darkest recesses of the ocean...and a fight for his sanity from the depths of his own tormented soul.

©2008 Steve Alten (P)2008 Brilliance Audio

Critic reviews

"When Angel rolls back her eyes and opens her jaws for the kill, readers will remember with a thrill why they picked up this novel in the first place." ( Publishers Weekly)

A good listen ruined by monotone narration

Overall, I found the story to be pretty good, but not as good as the first. The book could have been better, except for the monotone narrator. action scenes were ruined by this guy. His atrocious Sean Connery impression didn't help things either. I found myself distracted throughout the whole book by his tone. it wasn't bad to listen to once, but this one won't be a book that I listen to multiple times.

It’s not what you think it is.

The trench is not at all what you would expect going in if your reading a book about giant sharks. The plot is brilliant, the characters are likable, there are so many twists and the action is great. What I really like about it is that the sharks and other creatures in the story aren’t the only danger in the story. There are a couple human villains as well, but everything that’s going on all relates to the shark in some way. Steve Alten is a very clever writer and the trench is probably my favorite of his famous meg series out of the ones I have read so far. I give this book an A+.

love the story

it was a great story, I just did not like the man who read it

Loved this sequel.

This book was as entertaining as the first. Couldn't wait to continue Jonas Taylor's story and enjoyed the continuation of the Meg series. Hope you all enjoy this.

Great narration, somewhat predictable

I haven't listened to many fiction books on Audible so the changes in narration for characters has been fairly banal overall in nonfiction. This was my first foray into fiction that has many characters for the narrator to cover and Reizen did a reasonably good job of it. You can pick on him for being stereotypical or not as effective as possible but at the end of the day, it's a guy trying to do a TON of different voices from women to men to different ethnicities and backgrounds so give them a break in reviews. I could tell the different characters easily and enjoyed the spins he put on them so it was great.

The story, however, was a bit predictable. Granted, I'm a child of 80's and 90's action flicks and read a lot of Tom Clancy so I was somewhat prepared for the intrigue involved. So, I may be a little harsh on Alten's approach. One thing that surprised me is the age of the book itself. I was under the false assumption this series was relatively new but when they're talking about things like floppy disks, I realized he wrote this quite a while ago as well, lending some slack.

Overall, I'd say it's a fun book with good narration and I'll definitely check out the other books in the Meg series from here.

Poor narration

Not wanting to insult, however, I'd rather listen to Siri narrate this book, maybe it would sound less robotic.

great series

I have all 6 books and have read the hard covers of 4 of them. these books keep you on edge and dont disappoint.

Damn

This one was even better than the first book. Jonas Taylor is one bad ass guy

Love it!

Great development to the characters and more big sharks to keep you paranoid about getting in the water!

I really wanted to enjoy it…..

I felt like the story of this book of the the Meg series was good. I feel like it was well written and was a great next installment after the introductory book 1. However, the horrible audible narrator ruined it for me. I don’t understand why this guy was chosen. I don’t even understand how he is an audiobook narrator. His voice sounds like it would be great for radio, but audiobook narrating is just not for him, IMO. Specially when he tried to change the voices up for the different characters, I kept getting taken back to the 80’s and 90’s Saturday morning cartoons when the characters were over exaggerated and superfluous yet very unrealistic. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be cruel, he’s probably a really nice person, but he ruined this audiobook for me. I had to force myself to finish. I haven’t looked yet, but I hope he doesn’t narrate anymore books in this series, or I won’t be finishing it.