Hey guys,

Where the heck did February go?

As we March into April we May see a lot of you who have hesitated to join www.SeaMonsterCove.com change your tune before June when our amazing long-awaited video game makes its debut. Before you know it you’ll be stalking and find yourself being chased by the nastiest sea monsters that have ever live… or, if you prefer your human splattered across the inside of a windshield you’ll have the option of playing the sea monster of your choice. Click here to take a look at the video trailer – no, it’s not the game but it will give you a “taste” of things to come.

Sometime in the next few weeks another pillar of the Sea Monster Cove website will launch – Episode 1 of our animated series: The Adventures of Snowflake and Layla. 

This will be followed by an amazing new VAE (Virtual Aquarium Experience) called FEEDING TIME (described below). This one may get a bit bloody.

I have also included (below) new updates on The LOCH-3: Heaven’s Lake and a special good-bye to a friend.

Enjoy the rest of the update and please stay safe.

Steve Alten, Ed.D.

I am still writing The LOCH 3: Heaven's Lake. For all who ordered or plan on ordering a signed copy will be in your hands sometime in 2021. I have been pacing myself in an attempt to time the last ten days of pre-ordering a first edition (signed) hardback with a big The LOCH movie announcement. Like MEG: Generations, the hardbacks will be published by A & M Publishing. The LOCH: HL will NOT be sold in stores or on Amazon... you can only own it by pre-ordering it at www.SteveAlten.com.

Why pre-orders only? Like MEG: GEN these hardbacks are extremely expensive to produce. A & M Publishing is my company and our team takes pride in our work. While other publishers cut out interior artwork, photos, graphic images, and maps (the higher the page count the higher the price per book), we do the exact opposite (the author is a royal pain-in-the-ass). Of course, the more books we order, the lower the per unit cost so the CEO of

A & M insists we wait until a movie announcement (cheap bastard… don’t you realize many of my most dedicated fans ordered 2 years ago!). If we sold this hardback in bookstores we’d have to “best guess” the initial order, with returns shipped back to our warehouse (and charged back to A & M, including shipping). By only ordering the number of hardbacks pre-ordered, we don’t have to deal with returns and potentially huge losses (see MEG trade paperback – we have 18,000 brand new trade paperbacks we ordered and paid for to sell in stores back in August 2018 and I cannot give them away – and I’ve tried).

Now here is the BEST part – for trusting the author and our CEO, your books will all be worth far more in the years to come ESPECIALLY when The LOCH movie hits theaters in 2023-2024. I promised the same with MEG: GEN, urging MEGheads to buy extra copies to sell privately. The MEG movie was a big hit (#1 in the U.S. and worldwide) introducing my work to a whole new readership – no doubt many of you reading this newsletter. They read MEG, The TRENCH, PRIMAL WATERS, HELL’S AQUARIUM, NIGHTSTALKERS… wait, where is MEG-6: GENERATIONS? Out of print? No used copies on amazon? Currently unavailable in hard back? But I collect hardbacks! WTF, Alten? They email me… I direct them to my social media sites – “Sorry, the only way to purchase a copy is from another fan. The average price… $250 - $500… if you can even find it.” Most MEGheads who ordered extras sold early for $75 to $100 a book. Have an extra copy to sell? My assistant and dedicated MEGhead Kelly Rollyson has sold a few of her extra copies for $300! For a hardback with a pre-order cost of $26.95 plus s & h that’s roughly a profit margin of 1,000 %. Kelly told me, “I have one more signed first edition but I am waiting until MEG-2: The TRENCH hits theaters because I’m asking $800.”

You go girl.

You can pre-order as many copies of The LOCH-3: Heaven’s Lake as you’d like at www.SteveAlten.com 

A VAE is a Virtual Aquarium Experience where members can observe our prehistoric sea creatures from inside a cage in their habitat. A 360 VAE allows the viewer to control the viewing angle using their mouse. Have a try!

Our most ambitious VAE to date seeks to answer the age old question:

If you answered WHATEVER IT WANTS… consider this: To sustain its energy requirements, a 63-foot prehistoric Mako or Megalodon shark would need 2,500 lbs of food per day – the equivalent of eating 1 ½ cows per day. That adds up to 45 cows a month just to feed Snowflake. Add in the Dunks, plesiosaurs, ichthyosaurs… and that’s a lot of cattle. And there’s not a speck of grass on Maug’s islets to feed the livestock.

In Jurassic World, the Mosasaur was fed a Great White shark. Maybe that was intended as a message, but selecting a protected species with virtually no body fat to fuel up on doesn’t work in a virtual aquarium where your most devout members know better and expect to see their favorite apex predators hunt for their food – the bloodier the spectacle the better.

The most popular delicacy at the prehistoric buffet was the Leedsichthys or Leed’s fish. These giant ray-finned fish lived in the oceans of the Middle Jurassic and grew 90 to upwards of 115 feet long and weighed 100 tons. They were the size of a Blue whale and were just as benign as they too were filter feeders, feasting on tons of krill. Krill are zooplankton that float in huge swarms to the surface every night to feed on algae in what is the largest animal migration on Earth.

In the Maug Aquifer Food Chain (as in the prehistoric seas) bio-luminscent Krill feed on bio-luminescent algae. The Leeds fish feast on krill. Predators feed on smaller fish. Apex predators hunting in packs will attempt to bring down a Leed’s fish.

FEEDING TIME (360 cage experience)

Each night when the moon rises over Maug’s lagoon, trillions of bio-luminescent plankton rise through the volcano’s main vent into the lagoon to feed on biol-luminscent surface algae.

Why all the bio-luminscence? Watch what happens when dolphins swim thru these tiny creatures!

Now imagine the spectacle as we open the security gate deep inside Maug’s volcano and allow a few Leeds fish to ascend into the lagoon, drawn by the krill trail. While the big fish are eating, we’ll spin the wheel and select one of our habitats to engage in the hunt which can be viewed from a cage or from a hot air balloon.

If you wait until the wife uses it to clean the shower tile grout – better read on.

To find out check out this article from Healthline: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-often-should-you-change-your-toothbrush

The USC marching band was still on stage from Tusk, so why not add a brass section on the band’s best song. Creates a great happy mantra... saw them in concert on this tour – Lindsey Buckingham can flat out play, Mick too.

Cove members: Be sure to register with Kelly at kellyrollyson2020@gmail.com

On January 29th, 2021 Temple University, the city of Brotherly Love, and the basketball world lost a living legend – Hall of Fame basketball coach John Chaney. I am proud to say he was a mentor and friend.  

 

Long before I set a goal to be an author, my first love was basketball. Having taken my playing career as far as a slow white 6-2 inch Jewish power forward could take it (I played for Penn State-Ogontz in 1978-79 (the campus name later changed to Abington), I tried out for the team at Main Campus but didn’t make it. No problem, if I couldn’t play I would coach. I met with assistant coach Dickie Stewart who allowed me to watch practice, then I applied for a graduate assistantship at the University of Delaware, needing a masters to coach in college. Head coach Ron Rainey welcomed me as an assistant on his staff, and my second year he promoted me to head jayvee coach -- an amazing experience. Seeking another 4 years of avoiding a “real” job, I applied to Temple University hoping to repeat the same experience under Head coach John Chaney who was entering his second year coaching the Owls after spending a decade at Division II Cheyney State College where he had won a champonship. I was accepted into the doctoral program and was awarded another graduate assistantship (free tuition plus a small stipend for teaching physical education courses to undergrads) I sent a letter to Coach Chaney, hoping he‘d interview me to be a volunteer assistant. He called me and said no – the NCAA was very strict on how many coaches were on a team. I explained the school was already paying me as a grad assistant. He said no again and hung up.

 

My advisor, Dr. Michael Jackson was in-charge of the Sports Administration program and a friend of Chaney’s. He told me to go downstairs to the basketball office, walk in, and introduce myself. So I did. Coach Chaney can be quite intimidating. He invited me to take a seat in his office and again said no. He went on for ten minutes, explaining that he had a fierce temper and cursed a lot. I told him I also knew all the words and didn’t give a f**k if he yelled and screamed – I was here for 4 years and I wanted to learn from him. We talked basketball for two hours, at which point he said, “Steve, I can’t add you to my staff, but if you want to watch practices and learn from me – fine. We practice at 5:30 am.”

 

Whoa. I was living back home in NE Philly. It was a 30 minute drive to Temple; to get there on-time I’d have to wake up at 4:30am. I also taught undergrads from 8am until 2pm, then had a break -- my graduate courses running from 7pm to 10pm. That’s a long day, so I brought in a mattress and slept in the afternoons on the floor of my office which I shared with two other grad assistants. 

For the next three years I attended every practice I could, sitting alone in the bleachers at McGonigle Hall, learning basketball and life from an absolutely amazing human being. The players knew me (three were in my basketball class I taught to undergrads). Did Chaney yell and curse? Hell, yes. But he was not “the black Bobby Knight.” With all due respect to Coach Knight, Chaney’s players did not fear him, they loved him and he loved them back. He recruited athletes from broken homes… kids that deserved a chance to make it but the rules made it impossible. For his entire career Chaney fought the NCAA and their insistence at using standardized tests to determine eligibility. 

 

Coach took me under his wing, his office always open to come in and talk (mostly listen). He invited me into the locker room and I tracked his pet peeve- turnovers - at their home games. Chaney had two paid assistants, John Maloney and Dean Demopoulos. Dean had been accepted into the masters program a year earlier – he essentially did what I was hoping to do – when a spot on Chaney’s staff opened he was there. That gave me hope. Dean arrived in 1983, I got there in 1984. Dean stayed until 2000 when he was hired by the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics to teach Coach Chaney’s intense match-up zone. I graduated with my doctorate degree in 1988 and was hired as the Head Coach at Jenkintown High School.I stayed one season (there were only 50 boys in the entire grades 9-12 school), then spent three years selling water treatment equipment before writing MEG in 1995. Years later I wrote PAPA JOHN, a TV series about a black Division I intercollegiate basketball coach in Philly fighting the windmills of injustice to insure his players had a chance to fulfill their dreams. Coach worked on it with me as co-writer. He also endorsed my Adopt-an-Author teen reading program. Unfortunately, I did not have a show runner to rep it and it remains free and clear if anyone has connections with a network. I will post the pilot at www.SteveAlten.com and invite all of you to read it (it still remains one of my favorite stories).

 

There was only one John Chaney and I am a better person having met him.

Thank you for everything, coach. 

1. What do a nearsighted gynecologist and a puppy have in common? A wet nose.

2. How do you make your girlfriend scream during sex? Call and tell her about it.

3. An old woman walked into a dentist's office, took off all her clothes, and spread her legs. The dentist said, "I think you have the wrong room." "You put in my husband's teeth last week," she replied. "Now you have to remove them."

4. Why does a mermaid wear seashells? Because she outgrew her B-shells!

5. When is it okay to beat up a dwarf? When he's standing next to your girlfriend and telling her that her hair smells nice.

6. What does one saggy boob say to the other saggy boob? If we don't get some support, people will think we're nuts.

7. What did one butt cheek say to the other? Together, we can stop this crap.

8. A man and a woman were making out in the middle of a dark forest. After about 15 minutes, the man finally gets up and says, "Damn, I wish I had a flashlight!" The woman says, "Me too, you've been eating grass for the past ten minutes!"

9. What does the receptionist at a sperm bank say as clients leave? Thanks for coming!

10. What's the difference between an oral and a rectal thermometer? The taste!

IF YOU HAVE A JOKE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE, please e-mail to me at MEG82159@aol.com Put JOKE in the subject line.

I am a chocoholic. This is seriously amazing and good for you! Many thanks to my sister, Sue for sending it.

4 ripe avocados

1/4 cup light coconut milk

4 tablespoons unsweetened dark cocoa powder

3 tablespoons honey

2 ounces of dark chocolate, 72% or higher, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Whipped cream, coconut whipped cream, sprinkles, cocoa nibs.

Remove avocados from the skin (and pit) and place in a food processor. Blend until combined and creamy. Add in all remaining ingredients, blending until pureed, scraping down the sides when needed to combine. Taste and season/sweetened additionally if desired. Blend for a good 1-2 minutes until completely creamy, then serve with desired toppings.

*IF YOU HAVE A RECIPE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE, please e-mail to me at MEG82159@aol.com Put RECIPE in the subject line.

Sticking with the recipe theme, the 3 wise men teach us how to prepare a Thanksgiving feast.

Stay safe… stay in touch, get your vaccine shot ASAP… and be sure to check out the new content at www.SeaMonsterCove.com

Steve Alten

Steve Alten's Books