SHARK WARS

Title: Shark Wars

Media: Book

Genre: YA, action, adventure

Rating: N/A

Creator: EJ Altbacker

Edition Reviewed: 2011 Hardback Edition (Library Binding)

(Before we begin the review, I would like to apologize for the lack of reviews last week. My grandfather passed away due to cancer, and I didn't have the time to work on or publish anything. This is also why this week's review is so short: I was busy helping my family prepare for the funeral. And now to the review.)

Books about animals going on gritty and gory adventures whilst existing in their own society have been popular for centuries. Watership Down. Animal Farm. Warriors. And now, Shark Wars. Written by EJ Altbacker, the series chronicles the adventures of Gray the Megalodon (which isn't nearly as big of a spoiler as the first book pretends it is) and Barkley the dogfish as they create their own shiver (aka, their pack/school/herd/other such terms) and battle evil.

Sounds awesome, right? Sharks existing in their own society and playing by their own rules, showing that they are more than mindless eating machines.

If only Mr. Altbacker had bothered to do some research.

 

Yes, he got some things right. Some species of sharks will hunt in large packs, for one. Megalodon could have easily been mistaken for a really big modern-day great white, as well. But there are so many glaring mistakes in the book that could have been easily fixed with a quick trip to the library.

 

For starters, electric eels (Electrophorus electricus) and bettas (Betta splendens) are not saltwater fish. They are freshwater fish. This is the error that annoys me the most. Especially the fact that he placed a betta in the middle of the ocean. I have had experience with bettas since I was a child. Then again, so have most people. Bettas aren't exactly hard to come by. Anyone can raise a betta. Anyone can figure out that saltwater would suffocate them painfully. Anyone can figure this out.

If the author really wanted a fighting fish to mentor Gray, why not use a saltwater fish that is both as beautiful and as vicious as a betta? A moray eel (while not exactly “aggressive”) could have fit the bill: graceful, beautiful, and in possession of a large mouth filled with sharp teeth. Clownfishes, Moorish idols, and groupers are all examples of reef fish that could be considered the betta of the sea: territorial, vicious, and graceful.

There are other issues I have with this book besides the “freshwater fish in saltwater” one. Such as species misplacement, like the leafy sea dragon that shows up in the Atlantic ocean (they are only found on the Great Barrier Reef, which is in the Pacific Ocean). Or the fact that the sharks aren't written to sound like animals at all; instead, they sound like a bunch of human kids. One of the reasons the books I mentioned at the beginning of the review were so popular was because of how inhuman the characters sounded. And there are yet other issues: if I were to list them all, we'd be here all day.

But, to be honest, the “freshwater fish in saltwater” thing is what irks me the most. If a person must write about fish, then do some research. Fish are not all cut-and-paste the same: they have different habitats, different feeding habits, different socialization skills, and so on and so forth. Writing a freshwater fish into a saltwater setting shows that they simply do not care.

Now, I know what you're thinking. I'm being way too hard on this book series. It was written for twelve-year-old boys, after all. You're simply out of its age range.

And who says those twelve-year-old boys will go easy on this book? Twelve-year-old boys are notorious for correcting others they think are wrong. I have had boys correct me many times whilst I was working at the aquarium, even though I have worked there for ten years and would therefore know what I'm talking about. If they have done lots of research on sharks/fish and consider themselves to be experts on the subject, why would they just sit by and let these errors go unnoticed? 

Perhaps EJ Altbacker improves as the series goes on. Maybe he even comes up with a clever excuse as to why a betta is living in the ocean. But my disgust at the lack of research that went into the first book makes me reluctant to see for myself.