Product Description

A team of surveyors working in the Sahara happen upon an object buried deep in the rock. The object turns out to be a flying saucer and it is older than the rock it is buried in - 140,000 years old at least. Rip, a student working with the team, is keen to find out as much about the flying saucer as possible. But so are many other people, including the US Military, a team working for a billionaire Australian businessman and a group of Arabs. Rip foils their attempts to commandeer the craft with the help of a disillusioned female pilot called Charley. Together they steal the saucer and Charley takes them both into orbit. Rip's plan is to take the saucer to his uncle's Missouri farm - but first he has to avoid being tracked down by everyone else.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #341379 in Books
• Published on: 2003-01-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

About the Author
Stephen Coonts is a former naval aviator who flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. Since his debut FLIGHT OF THE INTRUDER he has become one of America's most promising writers of military fiction.

Customer Reviews

Saucer; The Conquest
More than thirty years have passed since humans have walked the dusty lunar plains. Sadly we have neglected our closest neighbour in space - the silent, lonely airless Moon. Since then we have languished in low Earth orbit.
But not to worry. Coonts takes you there in his thrilling sequel to Saucer. It is an action-packed space adventure with endearing characters. I loved it

Juvenile, but a good fun read!
I'm sure I would have loved this book if I were 16 years old. I'd have given it 4 or 5 stars and thought that the 22-year-old hero, Rip Cantrell, was "too cool for school", as Rip himself puts it.

Unfortunately (?), my age is such that I review books based on how I think most adults will see them, and I'm afraid that results in me labeling this book as being "juvenile" and giving it only 3 stars.

Rip Cantrell finds a real genuine flying saucer buried in the sands of Northern Africa. Together with a couple of other guys he digs it up. The flying saucer is 140,000 years old! And it still works!! All it needs is some fuel, which happens to be plain water!!!

A pretty woman turns up and Rip demonstrates his savoir-faire by insulting her. We can rest assured that this love-at-first-sight relationship will blossom and become a major driving force in the story.

Everyone wants the flying saucer, especially the American military and an Australian media mogul (very loosely based on Rupert Murdoch), and both are willing to use serious force to get what they want. Soon Rip and the pretty girl are on the run, flying the saucer on a fantastic journey across continents and oceans. And then things start to get really exciting.

After the public becomes aware of the existence of the saucer there is widespread panic. The military and the politicians are all up in arms, and are depicted as being a bunch of idiots. So it's not just exciting but also rather humorous at times.

Actually, the book presents a fairly good story, and I liked it. But the tone is definitely juvenile. And what is one to make of a statement like this: "This thing is so damn up-to-date that it hasn't been invented yet."

Not a book that makes you think very hard, but a good fun read, especially if you haven't had your 20th birthday yet.

Rennie Petersen

Entertaining, but shallow and lightweight
Have to say that I was looking forward to this book, having enjoyed the first 'saucer' book. Sadly although enjoying it, I was ultimately a bit dissapointed.

The story picks up a few months after the events from Saucer, with little having happened to the main characters. Then follows an entirely predictable series of events, with outcomes that you can see coming pages in advance. Its a fun ride and some passages of the book are quite gripping, but there is a nagging feeling that you know what will happen next - and sadly I it often does.

No time is spent on developing the main characters, who behave much as they did in the first book. The supporting cast are cardboard cutouts who appear randomly during the story and are instantly forgettable.

That said, I did enjoy the story line but so much of it went unexplained. How for example did the beam weapon get manufactured? Where did the French Space program come from?, and why did the author fall back on the old chestnut of the Roswell saucer?

It feels like this book was written in a rush over a weekend by the author and thus skimped on large amounts of essential background content. He obviously had a grand plan for the book, but didn't bother to put any effort in and was ultimately embarrassed by what he produced. I say this as on the very last page, something takes place which sets up the main characters for their next adventure. This is a cheap hook put in by an author who recognises he has not written a good book and wants to keep us interested so that we buy his next effort.

I was going to give this 2 stars, but I instead award 3 as I strangely find myself wishing I had my own saucer! Thus I found myself enjoying the 'boys own adventure' angle that the book takes at times.

If you bought Saucer, you should buy this book, but only if you don't have a friend that you borrow it from. I hope that the author invests his time wisely and producces a better book for the next in the series.