BOOKGASM: This is your fourth novel dealing with a underwater creature. How are you able to find new ways to keep it fresh?
ALTEN: Technically it’s my fifth: three MEG books (MEG is short for Megalodon, the 70-foot, 70,000-pound prehistoric cousin to the great white shark); GOLIATH, about a futuristic nuclear submarine, run by a bio-chemical brain; and now THE LOCH. Each of these stories is kept fresh with different characters and plot lines, though the MEG series gets tougher with each book. THE LOCH is kept fresh with breaking new science that was incorporated into the story. I think readers will love it.
BOOKGASM: In writing about the Loch Ness Monster for this book, how did you go from a non-believer to a believer?
ALTEN: I really was a total skeptic and turned the project down at first because I wasn’t convinced there was enough real science to make it work. But a reader poll I conducted on my website overwhelmingly wanted a Loch Ness thriller, so I went back and did the research, separating the science fact from the tons of myth perpetrated by the Highlanders themselves … and I was convinced.
But the final straw came two weeks before I was to turn the manuscript into my publisher when I was approached by a forensics investigator, William L. McDonald, who had been studying Loch Ness since 1993. Bill swore he knew what the creature was and shared his research with me. But Bill had a dilemma: He had to get back to Loch Ness right away, as locals were contacting him about a number of rare land sightings. Bill didn’t have the money, so my publisher paid his way in exchange for the exclusive on his research. He came back with startling evidence, including slide tracks of an animal reported to be 60 feet long. Months later, those two American students discovered the tooth (see www.lochnesstooth.com).
BOOKGASM: How’s Jan de Bont’s MEG movie coming along? Are you still involved as a screenwriter?
ALTEN: I’m still involved, but have been replaced as screenwriter by Shane Salerno of ARMAGEDDON and SHAFT, and he’s terrific.
BOOKGASM: So what can we expect from you in the future book-wise?
ALTEN: My eighth novel will be a political thriller called The SHELL GAME. It’s previewed in the back of THE LOCH. Then maybe MEG 4: HELL’S AQUARIUM, to coincide with the MEG movie.
BOOKGASM: What do you like to read? Anything lately to recommend?
ALTEN: Unfortunately I am so busy and read so much while doing research that when it comes to reading for fun, I only have time for Sports Illustrated, Time and the daily newspaper.
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Yeah, the guy who wrote “Armageddon” and “Shaft” is fucking BRILLIANT! I can see this coming: from the creators of THE HAUNTING and ARMAGEDDON.
However, “Meg 4: Hell’s Aquarium” is one of the best titles I’ve heard in a long time. That’s right up there with “Snakes on a Plane: