Steve Alten's March Newsletter
Read Angel of Death FREE!
To my readers:
 
There is a saying, “may you live in interesting times.” This is more like topsy-turvy Alten novel times. Lately I have been wondering what story or theme from one of my novels will be featured next on the evening news. Let’s see… civilization threatened by pandemic virus…  GRIM REAPER: End of Days ? Check. Political conspiracy theories and Big Oil refusing to step aside for Global Warming/Climate Change? The SHELL GAME . And you’d better read The OMEGA PROJECT before the Climate deniers/society dividers turn our democracy into a banana republic, our Constitution into toilet paper, and Truth, Justice & the American Way into an Orwellian nightmare.
  
But the closest Alten novel to what is happening with the corona virus and society was a Vampire story I started back in 2014-15 called RAVENOUS. I wrote the first 114 pages and then pushed it aside as it wasn’t ready yet. (Note to WRITING COACH CLIENTS – this is why you never begin a book until the beat sheet is completed). Back then I didn’t know where the story was going… now I know. And it is surreal and too real.
Here’s the logline:

An African tribesman, tortured and left for dead, becomes part messianic figure - part vampire, as he leverages a massive outbreak of Ebola in an attempt to end 50 years of civil war in South Sudan - a dirt-poor country besieged by violence, rape, and murder.
 
The outbreak is caused by starving South Sudanese tribes forced to eat Mega-bats (no, I’m not making this up.) Want to read the first 114 pages? I am swapping it out for Mintz Meats, the next scheduled offering at TheSteveAltenProject.com (Mintz Meats is hilarious, but RAVENOUS is happening now. The unfinished novel will be posted on March 10 (turnover day).
      
I know there was a lot of concern and confusion over the “cancellation & refund” sent by Amazon regarding the Angel of Death novella ebook and The LOCH: Heaven’s Lake ebook. Amazon has a policy that, when an ebook is not delivered by the listed pub date they refund the money and list the book as being cancelled. Pub dates on books still being written are guestimates. We posted the pre-sale to generate some anticipation and link it to character contests. There is really no advantage to me pre-selling these ebooks as the money only comes to me 60 days after the ebook is sold and delivered.

I finished MEG: Angel of Death 1.1 SURVIVAL late last week. My editors are finishing their work and it will be posted on Amazon. It can take up to 4 days to load the title and then you can purchase the ebook for $9.99…

Or

You can read it TODAY for FREE if you are a member of The Steve Alten Project.com  The novella will be yours to read in the TSAP library along with amazing new versions of GOLIATH and UNDISCLOSED, followed by RAVENOUS on the 10th. As for The LOCH: Heaven’s Lake, I should be finished the first draft in a few months. All hardbacks pre-ordered before April 1 will be signed.
BIGGEST NEWS!

What if the next Alten novel coming true on the evening news was MEG & MEG: Hell's Aquarium? Sometime in March, a 4 part documentary on several mind-blowing discoveries made over the last ten years in the Mariana Trench will go public. Last month I learned the first episode deals with the accidental netting by a Filipino fishing vessel of a pregnant Great White shark… a really BIG Great White shark. How do I know? One of the marine biologists involved is a MEGhead; he contacted me back in late 2013 - early 2014 (I honestly can't remember the date but it was about three years after the incident). After I signed an NDA, they started sharing bits and pieces with me, at one point actually consulting with me as if I was a marine biologist. That ended when they brought in a real paleo-biologist and I did not hear back from them for a good six years - until The MEG movie was released. Anyway, I have no clue what is in this documentary or exactly when it will air (the last I was told was late March 2020). Before it is poste to youtube they are sending it to a dozen sponsors’ websites---- and SteveAlten.com is one of them. Before I do a victory dance, Warner Bros. did the same thing with the trailers - which I received 5 minutes before they posted theirs. I actually nearly blew that privilege a few Saturdays ago when I posted the info and added a photo a MEGhead had sent me of a trawler netting a huge Great White. I didn't realize it had been photo-shopped from old posts. MY APOLOGIES.
This newsletter is late because the MEGhead biologist promised to send me a promo image... which arrived a few hours ago. I have sent it to 4 graphic artists and, except for adjusting the contrast all four believe it is real.

Hell yeah!

Stay tuned.

--Steve Alten
March schedule for The Steve Alten Project:
Today: MEG: Angel of Death 1.1. SURVIVAL available for reading in the library.

March 8 at 3 pm on the facebook page: LIVE with Steve Alten 3-4pm est. (new members please contact Kelly Rollyson at [email protected]

March 10: Changeover Day: Ravenous available for reading.
2017 Mariana Trench Expedition Mirrors
MEG Series
One of the scientists in the new documentary was a member of this expedition. He explained to me that the unusual steep vertical subduction of the Pacific Plate beneath the Philippine Sea Plate indicated the existence of an anomaly located BENEATH the sea floor (sound familiar MEGheads)?

BEIJING—The Mariana Trench “is a little crazy,” Jian Lin says. The scythe-shaped cleft in the western Pacific sea floor, 2550 kilometers long, plunges nearly 11 kilometers, deeper than any other place in the oceans. But what wows Lin, a marine geophysicist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, is the zany topography. The trench marks a subduction zone, where one slab of crust slides beneath another. But whereas many other subducting plates slope gradually downward, in the Mariana the Pacific Plate dives nearly vertically.

Scientists have long wondered what accounts for that precipitous dive, and why the massive earthquakes that generate long-ranging tsunamis at other subduction zones have not been recorded in the trench. Now, a Chinese-U.S. team has planted an array of seismometers on the Mariana’s slopes. By listening for seismic waves, says Lin, a project co-leader, the 5-year, $12 million Mariana Trench initiative aims to image in fine detail the warped rock layers in and around the trench, looking for clues as to what shapes them.

“It’s very exciting,” says Robert Stern, a geologist at the University of Texas in Dallas, who is not involved in the effort. “It should provide valuable insight into the peculiar characteristics of the deepest place on Earth.”

The initiative focuses on the trench’s deepest spot, a slot-shaped valley called the Challenger Deep. Battling rough seas, scientists aboard the Chinese research vessel Shiyan 3 last month deployed 33 broadband seismometers around the trench, at depths of up to 8137 meters (see map, below). Able to withstand pressures of up to 1000 atmospheres—greater than any other seismometers—the instruments can pick up vibrations from earthquakes and from powerful air guns aboard the research ship, which probe the rock underpinning the trench.

Investigators plan to compare the data with findings from a seismology campaign in 2012 in the shallower central Mariana Trench, where the dipping angle is more gradual. That should let them “test various hypotheses about why the Challenger Deep behaves so strangely,” says expedition chief scientist Sun Jinlong, a marine geophysicist at the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology in Guangzhou, China. In a modeling study, the team reproduced the Challenger Deep’s topography and fissure pattern only after factoring in a massive and mysterious downward force tugging at the Pacific Plate (a.k.a the Panthalassa Sea).

Recommended Read:
THE GOSPEL OF SCIENCE
#1 in New Metaphysical Releases!
Worried about the future? Top experts in the fields of Mind-Body and Personal Growth, Physics, Sociology, Economics, Government, and Theology highly recommend this unique book, written by the Founder of World Healing Day (and MEGhead) Bill Douglas.
Living Tips:
Prevention & Treatment of Corona Virus
There is currently no vaccine to prevent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The best way to prevent illness is to avoid being exposed to this virus. However, as a reminder, CDC always recommends everyday preventive actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including:

DO YOU HAVE A STORY TO TELL? IS YOUR GOAL TO BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR in 2020?
One spot remains in my WRITING COACH PROGRAM . This is for storytellers who have always dreamed of being published (not self-published -- the real deal). In the last eight years, I've selected only 14 clients in the program. Four have already been published, with more to follow very soon. Cost of the program is $4,495 which covers as long as it takes for he writer to be published. We'll develop your story, edit the chapters, then I'll help you write a query letter to agents and publishers. If you think you have what it takes...
  
STEP 1: E-MAIL me a synopsis of your story at [email protected]   
 
STEP 2: I will offer feedback (free). If I see potential, I will arrange a phone call where we brainstorm the idea. These calls are always exciting as they flush out the idea (no charge).

STEP 3: If we both agree to move forward, I send you a commitment letter that commits my services to your project. 

PLEASE DON'T GO THRU THE PROCESS IF YOU CANNOT PAY THE REDUCED FEE.
Music Video of the Month
The quiet Beatle:
Joke Of The Month
An excerpt from DOG TRAINING THE AMERICAN MALE

(Ventiloquist Jacob Cope and his dummy, Pesident George W.Bush share a memory…)
 
One time, me, Vice, and Rummy got snowed in on a hunting trip and we had to sleep together in the same bed. Naturally, as the Decider, I decided to take the middle where it was warmest. 
 
About three in the morning Rummy and Vice start moaning, waking me up. 'Hey Cheney, what gives?' Dick says, 'Mr. President, I just dreamt I was getting felt up by Trump's wife.' 

Rummy says, 'That's amazing, Mr. Vice President, I just had the same dream.' 

W said, 'Heck, fellas, you two sure are lucky. All I dreamt about was skiing.
    
IF YOU HAVE A JOKE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE, please e-mail to me at  [email protected]  Put JOKE in the subject line.
Recipe of the Month:
Honey-Garlic Chicken Thighs
Ingredients
4 skinless, boneless chicken thighs
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup honey
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dried basil

Directions: Lay chicken thighs into the bottom of a 4-quart slow cooker. Whisk soy sauce, ketchup, honey, garlic, and basil together in a bowl; pour over the chicken. Cook on Low for 6 hours.

IF YOU HAVE A RECIPE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE, please e-mail to me at [email protected] Put RECIPE in the subject line.
Finally... 
Your monthly dosage of smiles, brought to you once again by the 3 wise men… I mean, 3 wise guys.
Thanks again for supporting my work,
 
 -Steve Alten , Ed.D
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