Primal Waters by Steve Alten
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a lively book and Alten stretches his authoring skills as few successful writers ever do, as he breaks out his story in many directions that each could have been it’s own book. Thing is, the whole still feels like an effort to retell the same tale, via editors, to sell books.

I believe Alten does a great job taking on three simultaneous tales. This can be tough to write and make easy for a reader to follow. I believe he accomplishes that. The characters are mostly the same, or a variation of earlier characters.

The writing is so-so. In the effort to weave in three threads, there are kinks and some unbelievable scenes. Alten drives up the action and the creatures and thrills are clearly the main goal to achieve. The book ends rather sudden;y with lots of questions unanswered and seemingly still with a world of megladons, and other creatures, roaming about.

The creatures written are a major slip-up of Alten’s. These are written differently and do what was claimed they were unable to do in his other books. The descriptions well done in the two previous books are missing and the creatures are written more as current sharks than the megladon. The creatures written in the second book are no where to be found in the same location Alten takes his characters.

I found the entire book fun, but with a lot of repetition of generally similar scenes with similar conclusions. The writing is fun, but so much of this book felt mechanically staged. As I read, i could read sections that editors demanded to sell another Allten book.

Bottom line: I recommend the book: 6 out of 10 points.

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