DOMAIN

Third novel by Alten, author of the bestselling Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror (1997) and its sequel, The Trench (1999), the story of Carcharodon Megalodon, a 60-foot shark from the abyss that in the second installment spawned a whole family of monsters. Here, Alten sets aside his colossal heroine from the deeps, and turns to Mayan archeology and a mysterious forecast from 500 b.c. It dealt with an asteroid that impacted with the globe 65 million years ago and has to do with the end of the world now imminent in the year 2012. Linked sites around the planet, says archeologist Julius Gabriel, spring from an ancient species that foresaw the Apocalypse and registered these in Mayan glyphs in the Gulf of Mexico, glyphs that Julius and his supersmart son Michael have deciphered. Now Michael, incarcerated in Miami as a paranoid schiz, must convince psychologist Dominique Vazquez to free him to face and fight the alien plumed serpent that lands in a Mexican jungle.

Alten aligns galactically with his audience but reserves his biggest delivery for Domain’s forthcoming sequel, Resurrection: Part II. Then back to the immensely appealing Meg the shark?