Operation Mermaid: The Project Kraken Incident

by Joseph McGarry

It is May 2026 when a strange anomaly transforms thousands of women around the world into mermaids. As Homeland Security agents begin investigating, they record their observations in a classified United States government report. There is no question that Operation Mermaid, originally founded in 1949, is back in full swing. Days later as several mermaids practice swimming in the open water, one finds a relic inside a shipwreck. Inside are plans for an abandoned Cold War era weapon known as Project Kraken. As a scientist’s true identity is revealed, a Second Transformation rocks the world, increasing the size and scope of the mermaid population once again. As relationships change between mermaids, sirens, and the government, only time will tell if a worldwide disaster has been averted. In this intriguing science fiction tale, the lives of newly-initiated mermaids are intertwined with a failed Cold War project, leaving government agents to solve a complex puzzle.

Genres: Mermaids, Mythology

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2015

Reviews

[Joseph McGarry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi everyone. This is my book. I normally don't like this, but I thought this might help promote the book. I won't say too much about the book here. I don't want to reveal any spoilers.

I am looking for reviewers to get legit reviews. Email me at jmcgarry2011@yahoo.com if you're interested. It's in PDF format only. When you get done, please post the review at http://www.lulu.com/shop/joseph-mcgar.... My only rules are to acknowledge that you received a free copy in exchange for the review, and not to share your copy with anyone else. The book won't be on Amazon or B&N until mid to late February.

FYI, I rated the book 5 stars so I could recommend it to others on Goodreads. They require 4 or 5 stars to recommend it to others. I will let others decide how good it is. I could say it's the greatest novel since War and Peace, but most people would discount that. I know I would. Read it and decide for yourself.

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Operation Mermaid: The Project Kraken Incident is a wonderful mermaid book.The story is presented in a form of documents from Homeland Security which is a unique idea and it flows well. This futuristic sci-fi/fantasy story is about mermaids and sirens that the government has known about and has even had treaties with for decades. The Russians and one of the power hungry mermaids/sirens, the Sea Hag, has a top secret plan to destroy sea life using a underwater device. She tests it out a couple of times and when she does, the result causes many women and girls all over the world to turn into mermaids. The agents and a handful of these mermaids work together to try to stop the Sea Hag. The story is fun as the mermaids experience life as a mermaid, meet others of their kind, difficulties on land, and pregnancy! The story has lots of action, twists, surprises, great plot, fun and well developed characters, and a great ride. Loved the way it was laid out and all the imaginative bits it throws in. A very enjoyable read! I received this book for a honest review.

[Debbie Herbert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mermaids are Coming!

This was an intriguing mermaid tale - science fiction with history and fantasy interwoven in the story. It was also written in a unique style, in the form government reports by Homeland Security. Mermaid lovers will be mesmerized by the premise of large numbers of women transforming into mermaids.

[Deborah Kulish · Rating 5 out of 5]

My curiosity and fascination with the title, Operation Mermaid: The Project Kraken Incident, moved me to read this book. What I received was wealth of information about mermaids, government security, and the San Diego area including the ocean. When Special Agent Ted Waters is tasked with leading the investigation of a resurrected cold war military weapon and the supernatural transformation of humans into mermaids, he gets more than he bargained for. With the help of his wife, Special Agent Angela Starling, they search on land and in the oceans’ depths for the forces behind the attempt to over through the world’s governments.

In this futuristic sci-fi novel of government intrigue and mermaids, the author’s dialogue writing style propels the plot forward, action after action, scene after scene. The combination of the reality of a government project with the fictional use of legions of mermaids and mermen fighting alongside Navy Seals to take back the weapon is engaging: “In all the romance novels I’ve read, this was the time that everyone was supposed to put the past behind them, forgive each other, and live happily ever after. But this wasn’t one of those novels. This was real life. . . .to use one of those stolen secrets to silence sea life, and possibly raise the tides so much as to cause massive destruction all over the world. There’s no happily ever after coming from that.”

The author, Joseph McGarry, is very knowledgeable in the understanding of government procedures and mermaids, and he relays it in his novel with detailed description and verse: “The siren guards charged toward us, like they were attacking us. They were armed with spear guns. We pulled out our weapons, the [redacted], before they could fire, and stunned them. There was a big electric glow, then they passed out. Then we went to the cage. . .”

Readers who enjoy government intrigue will delight in reading Operation Mermaid: The Project Kraken Incident, as this story follows Special Agent Ted Waters with the Department of Homeland Security as he investigates a secret government project that affects the entire world and the only way to overcome it is with the help of mermaids.

[J. Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't sure quite what to expect when I started this book. It's not the kind of book I normally read, given the format in which it's written. It's told in a series of transcribed government reports, and although it makes for an unusual read compared to a typical novel, it had it's fun quirks, like multiple uses of [redacting] information and 'changing' names and so on. It felt tongue in cheek, and a clever way of getting around having to name everything, and being able to blacklist information in the name of 'national security.'

It wasn't without problems, however, and I'm solely speaking of the technical side of things for now. The first problem was the fact that it took me quite a while to get used to the abbreviations. TW, AS, HW, MB, CB, DK, DB, RW, WS, SB...when multiple abbreviations are appearing, it can be hard to keep track of it. I had to make a document on Dropbox so that I could refer to it from my phone or computer, with notes on who each character was, their age, and profession.

I think it would've been much easier if the author had simply used their first or last names instead. Having Ted, Angela, Holly, and so on, in place of the abbreviations, would have saved me a lot of time and hassle. I can't fault the book too much, since it could just be due to the fact that I'm not the best at remembering details like that.

It didn't help, however, that sometimes the names would be switched, or the wrong initials would be used. There were several instances where I wasn't sure who was speaking, and one occasion where I noticed that the abbreviations for who was supposed to be speaking had been switched.

Now, for the story itself?

The premise itself was intriguing, and what drew me to the novel in the first place. An incident occurs that has a worldwide effect. There's a noise, and a bright flash of light, and women all over the world, of all ages, find themselves transformed into mermaids. Usually it happens to those that are wearing tails or have some kind of connection to mermaids already. The government tries their best to keep a lid on it, but so many were transformed that it becomes impossible. Ted and Angela, agents of Homeland Security, do their best to uncover the mystery and work with a group of recently transformed women. Along the way, they meet several other women who have been transformed, as well as some children, and learn about the mermaids history, the involvement of another species, the sirens, and possible Russian involvement.

Things start falling apart and getting weird when they learn about Project Kraken, which was a former experiment from the US Government that was believed to have failed and then scrapped. The plans survived, and the sirens, along with the Russians, are trying to use it to cripple and enslave all sea life, including other mermaids, and devastating life on land. It was their testing of the Kraken project that led to the Great Transformation, and the Second Transformation that followed a few months later due to a second test.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with this, and a large part of this is due to what I think of as wasted potential.

Let's cover the basics first.

The first bit was the time period it was set in. The year it takes place is 2026 (although the end reports are from 2027 and recap the story as a whole.) Normally I don't mind too much when a novel is set in the near future...however, there doesn't seem to be any advantage to setting it in this era, and in fact it actually caused a disadvantage later in the story.

As they investigate, it becomes clear that the Russian government is involved somehow, and they begin to dub it Cold War II, saying that if things go poorly, it could become a hot one. Unfortunately, this lacks any real drama or motive - the only reason given in the novel is that Russians have wanted to even the score since the last Cold War and want to rule the world. Again, no actual reasons are given, and in the end, it feels like a comical bond villain plot, despite numerous assurances from characters in the story that "This is real life, not a movie." Why did the Russians wait so long, and why do they want to rule the world? There's no context given, no motivation given, and the whole incident is brushed aside at the end. The actual cold war was filled with years of tension, of back and forth politics, of propaganda on both sides. This is just an entire country wanting revenge. It's hard to care about why it's happening if there's no reason given.

There's also nothing really in the story that feels like it takes advantage of being set in the near future. With all of the developments in recent years, and over the past couple of decades, the idea of a government cover-up concerning mermaids seems like it would be a bigger deal than it is. The idea that the Russians would be trying to build up to a new Cold War would be huge, and that would be impossible to cover up on that kind of scale. I mean, at one point, they have a discussion about classified information with over 10,000 mermaids in attendance. If you're going to tell me that at least one person there wouldn't leak the information to the public (and several of these mermaids are reporters, I should add), then the story loses all credibility. There's attempts in the story to keep things under wraps, but then they pull stunts like having a conference with that many mermaids, and it becomes hard to accept.

If the author wanted a cold war scenario, setting this story in the time of the actual cold war probably would have been a better choice. Using the Russians as villains because they want revenge is fine, but without an actual compelling reason behind it, it just seems silly. The plot treats itself too seriously and it's a bit jarring otherwise.

A larger problem is that there's too many side characters that are otherwise useless to the story as a whole. The most glaring examples are David Broghammer, the boyfriend to mermaid Michelle Bergin, and Stuart Barton, boyfriend to mermaid Callista Bergin. They don't do anything in the story. They're introduced, they say a few lines, they go for a swim, and then they don't do anything or impact anything in any way, except for the fact that they get married to the girls at the end, which is just mentioned as a side note.

That wouldn't be so bad, except Michelle and Callista are more or less pointless in the plot as well. They don't ever accomplish much, and indeed, there's actually a large wasted opportunity with the two characters. While they were present for many events in the story, they didn't really do much. They swim around, they talk to characters, they do a few things at the end, but I barely know anything about them, or why they wanted to be mermaid performers, how it was for them to adjust so completely, or any of the downsides involved. Their relationship with their boyfriends is almost nonexistent, so there's no connection there on any kind of level. If they were removed from the story entirely, nothing would really change at all. Before the Great Transformation, they were mermaid performers. After the Transformation sweeps the world, now they're real mermaids, and they keep up business as usual, learning that other transformees in the past have already been doing so. Their arc is more or less pointless and flat.

We never really get to know the characters at all. We see a little bit of their performances, but otherwise, they're side characters in the larger plot. This is true for many of the side characters, many of whom are introduced, then more or less swept aside in favor of the larger plot. There's a reporter, an employee of the Padres, a banker, and so on - all of them could have had fascinating perspectives on what this new life meant for them, the struggles of adapting, but instead, they're minor voices at best, and they barely impact the plot. The only major character is Dina Karama.

Dr. Dina Karama ends up playing a major role, though by the end of the story, I didn't care much for her at all. She begins the story as a former professor who has spent a good deal of her career disproving the existence of mermaids. Surprise surprise, mermaids have existed for centuries, and she's transformed into one during an interview with Michelle, Callista, and Holly. In her first swim in the ocean, she ends up loving the experience so much that she never wants to turn back, and hooks up with a random merman in the area named Ryan. Ryan shows up a couple more times but is otherwise useless. However, Dina is now pregnant and has superstrength because she's drawing strength from both herself and the merbaby - this is credited to the special bond between mothers and offspring, but they might as well have said "magic" since that's essentially what it seems like.

Later in the story, it turns out that the main villain, the Sea Hag, is actually her mother, who was thought previously to be the second in command. It was kind of a weak plot twist. We already knew she was a villain. Revealing her as the main villain instead of the second in command isn't much of a twist.

It also turns out that two other characters are Dina's sisters and also the daughter of the Sea Hag. But this doesn't matter at all in the plot, and barely factors into it, so I'm not sure what the point of that was either - an uncomfortable trend for the majority of questions I have.

There's a huge emphasis put on the importance of mothers and daughters and their connection. Some mermaids have a psychic connection because of this closeness, and it seems to give them a certain degree of superstrength at times. It's mentioned over and over that this is a very special connection and the women feel it instinctively. Using a mother's connection with their offspring is fine, but it felt over emphasized, and never really paid off in the end. There's also never any mention of a merman having any kind of connection like that, and indeed, mermen hardly factor into the story, even though they do exist.

Dina lacks such a connection with her mother, and when her mother is left to die, feels nothing. I didn't feel anything either, because why did it matter? I didn't care about her mother, or about the whole 'rule the world plot.'

The entire motivation of her mother is "I want power." That's it. There's no reason given. We don't even know why she wants the power. We know nothing about her. Her history. Why she left. How she got involved. Why she sided with the sirens. Why she had three kids with different fathers. What was the point? What were her goals? Why did she wait so long? Why did the Russians help her? How did she get so much power? How did the sirens constantly get around the blockades? Why didn't the Us Military deal with the sirens decisively? Why didn't the mermaids do the same? No answers are given.

Project Kraken is also vaguely defined. It's a sub that has an EMP powerful enough that it can deafen all sea creatures, except for sirens, and cause the tides to rise and devastate the coastal cities. I'm not sure how an EMP would accomplish that. It would kill all the electronics in the area, sure, but as far as I know, an EMP doesn't effect organic life, nor would it effect the tide levels at all. I can handle vague technobabble fine enough, but the author was specific enough to make me question it, and too vague to make it sensible.

The sirens as villains are kind of pointless. They have the ability to control others with their songs, but the government has a counteragent to it, and nothing major ever happens as a result. In the end they're back to being imprisoned, like they already were. Why they keep them around at all isn't ever explained, and they don't seem to serve a purpose. Even the mermaids don't like them.

There's a group called the Ancient Ones, which seem to be godlike beings, consisting of people like Neptune, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and so on. They show up to give a few vague warnings, do a few tricks, and warn that the heroes need to save the day or bad things will happen. There doesn't seem to be a limit to their power. And in the end, I was left wondering why they couldn't just interfere directly and point out where Project Kracken was the entire time, or simply wipe it out. There was no reason given. If you're going to have godlike beings, that don't end up solving the day, you at least need to give a reason why. And even then, at the end, Aphrodite gets involved and helps with the final battle. Why she doesn't help more isn't explained, or why she got involved in the first place.

Finally, there's the fact that the story just glosses over what could have been the most interesting part of the book, and indeed, what I thought the story would be about - the world changing event that is the mermaid transformation.

In the book, it happens, and by the end, over 100,000 women worldwide have been transformed. We see a few glimpses of how things have changed and how people are coping, and the President gives a few vague addresses, but other than that...it has no effect on the world. Women that are transformed are all fine with it. No one is ever upset at having been turned into a mermaid. Over a hundred thousand women transformed, and hardly a single downside is mentioned. No one is upset at the transformation. Everyone is thrilled, everyone loves it, there's no complications at all. It's secretly been their dream to be closer to the sea, because that's where man evolved from. To paraphrase, being a mermaid let's them return to the sea where they belong without having to give up their humanity to do so.

Nothing really changes. People keep their jobs, become CEO's of companies, get married and start families. Even when the government reveals that they've known about mermaids for years and there's an entire species out there, nothing changes. No one seems upset about a cover-up, no one tries to do anything. Everyone seems to accept the mermaids as they are, and the transformed mermaids seem happy.

This is so totally unrealistic. With that many people effected, there would be a lot of chaos. People would be FREAKING OUT. People would be hunting them, worshiping them, proclaiming them as demons, and so on. People can freak out over the smallest things in our world. Something on this scale would have a huge shake up. And you can't tell me that a single person wouldn't be upset at the change. They're forced to completely change their lives to fit this new existence, and no one is upset at it? What about the people that were transformed and don't live close to the ocean, or those who had professions that required active movement, or women in third world countries. So much of this is glossed over, ignored, or lumped into "The President gave a speech, it's all good now." The kind of material you could generate from such a massive change could fill an entire series, and here, it's treated as a plot point and otherwise useless.

It's a story that had a lot of potential, but it ended up not going anywhere. I wanted to like it, because I liked the premise, and I like stories with mermaids, but there isn't enough here for me to recommend it, or to have enjoyed it too much. By the end of the story, I was ready for it to end.

The story lacked a human connection. It was too impersonal. It's not even the fault of the format. It kept the characters at arms length. It tried to give a message about the importance of maternal love, but it fell flat in the narrative and felt overemphasized and over-exaggerated. The plot with the sirens and Russians felt like a James Bond plot, but without the fun and energy that comes with such things. It takes itself too seriously, while using outlandish ideas that could've been fun with the right tone.

It's not terrible, but in the end, this feels more like a first draft than a finished project.

[Noelle Walsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an interesting book to read. It's written in the form of government reports and reads more like a play. Mermaid fan would still enjoy it. For me, I would get slightly confused by the constant use of initials and have to keep going back to the guide provided in order to remember who it was that was speaking. That was the only downside for me. Otherwise, I did enjoy this book.


*won as a GoodReads Giveaway*

[Alana Haase · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so much FUN! I really enjoyed the creativity of how it was formatted as a crime scene reports, this lead to some hilarious one liners! Just a fun, fun story and a great read! Highly recommended!

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a profoundly terrible book.

[Jennifer Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Operation Mermaid: Project Kraken
Joseph McGarry paints a beautiful mythical tale with a futuristic twist. Taking us all the way into 2026, we read into this amazing event as a transcript from the government. After a flash across the world, women everywhere are turning into mermaids, and no one can seem to find out why. The transcripts prepared by agents of homeland security. We follow a group of women that the agents sought out when this event happened. The agents test the women and slowly see what they can do.
They discover other mermaids and an old box in a shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean. Another secret of the government was a project called Kraken. All other evidence of this failed project was destroyed, or so they thought. A doctor working on the project took the project to a new level of evil. The mermaids and homeland security have to work together to keep all of us safe. And I thoroughly enjoyed this story, other than the grammar and spelling errors, would love to get a paperback copy.
Joseph asked for reviewers on a website I frequent and I signed up to review this book. So I want to say thank you to Joseph for giving me the chance to read and admire this gem that might be overlooked on Amazon otherwise.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, but found it a little hard to read; it reads more like a play, and uses initials instead of names each time someone is talking. It would have been easier for me to read if it had the names instead of the initials (that I had to go back and reference a few times). With that being said, the story itself was captivating, flowed well, and kept my interest. It really was a good book. The story is told mainly from the view point of Homeland Security, walking us through the trials and tribulations of saving the world, from the Sea Hag and the Russian government, when the plans for Project Kraken emerge and are put back into use.

[Gwen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book. It's the second mermaid story I've ever read. It's definitely an original story. I like the document format of telling the story. My only issue (and its slight) is that the ending seemed rushed. Would have liked to known more about the mermaid armies that were gathered to fight, the fighting styles, more info about the ancients and more involvement in their part. I also didn't understand some of the motivations in the ending. But other than that, I did like it and would recommend it to others.

[Theresa · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I first heard about this I thought it sounded interesting, but after reading it by about 20% in I changed my mind. It’s written as a bunch of government redacted top secret reports and mainly is just a bunch of interviews with women who were surprised they became mermaids at their kid’s birthday parties, etc. and how the government has to keep this from the public. Especially since they’ve been aware of real mermaids since the 40’s.

Change mermaids to aliens and you’ve got it.

If your idea of reading a bunch of government reports I your idea of interesting this is for you.

[Kelli Santistevan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book from a Goodreads giveaway. I don’t know how long I’ve owned this book but I enjoyed it. I am interested in Mermaids and I like the way the book was written.