Customer Reviews

Saucer: The Conquest

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Not that that's bad, but just a departure from what Stephen Coonts fans will expect. In "Saucer - The Conquest", Coonts, one of the kings of the "military novel", creates a light-hearted plot that has his characters romping from the Moon and back. Picking up about a year after the conclusion of "Saucer", the plot begins with the protagionists from the first book, pilot Charley Pine and archeologist Rip Cantrell, parting company. Charley (or Charlotte) takes a job as a pilot under the employ of Pierre Artois, a French millionaire with designs on the creation of a colony on the moon. Rip stays behind with his uncle Egg and "pines" for Charley.

After her first trip to the moon on one of Pierre's French space shuttles (yeah, right), Charley discovers that Pierre's real motivation is not in establishing a lunar colony, but rather a base from which he can use an anti-matter weapon against the Earth. His ultimate goal, of course, is world domination as he sees himself as the next Napoleon.

When Rip senses trouble, he takes the flying saucer that he and Charley used in the first novel of the series (and subsequently donated to the National Air and Space Museum) and heads out to help Charley. Without revealing too much of the plot, let me just say that there's action aplenty (especially the aerial dogfight between Rip's saucer and another saucer that's introduced in the book) in the last half of the book as the heroes fight for the Earth's survival.

My only real criticism of the book is the format in which in was printed. Printing it in the "large" paperback format was a downright dirty trick for those who had already invested in the series. Come on St. Martin's Press, doubling the price by printing the large format was a blatant attempt to simply gouge the consumer.

Not with that being said, the reader needs to go into this book with the idea that it is a wild ride solely based in fiction. That could be tough for some Coonts fans to take because most of his earlier works are at least rooted in some fact. If the reader simply looks at the "Saucer" series as Coonts chance to play a little bit, then it will become an enjoyable read. Certainly, fans of the '50s and '60s Sci Fi "B movies" will enjoy the two books. (And probably a third that seems to be on the horizon.)

With that being said, it's still a good (and fast) read and should be picked up by anyone who enjoyed "Saucer".

Stephen Coonts has steadily made a name for himself as a go-to guy for fans of military thrillers. His novel, SAUCER, from two years ago raised a few eyebrows with its obvious science fiction leanings but was given a popular welcome by fans of that genre who were not necessarily familiar with Coonts's military works. SAUCER: THE CONQUEST is an immensely readable and most welcome sequel to SAUCER, as well as an indication that Coonts has no intention of limiting his immense talent to one genre.

All of the protagonists who made SAUCER such an accessible work are back. The focus is on test pilot Charley Pine, but pilot Rip Cantrell and his quietly brilliant Uncle "Egg" Cantrell play important secondary roles. While the relationship between Pine and Rip that began in SAUCER isn't on the rocks, it has become somewhat bumpy. Cantrell is content to rest on the laurels and wealth he acquired during the events in SAUCER. Pine, however, is interested in new challenges. When a wealthy Frenchman named Pierre Artois offers her the opportunity to fly an experimental space plane to the Moon as a co-pilot, Pine jumps at the chance. The enforced absence grates upon Pine and, more heavily so, upon Rip.

Pine has other things on her mind when she discovers that the plane's cargo includes a nuclear catalyst for a weapon designed to hold all of earth hostage to the whim of Artois. Artois believes that a world government --- with himself, of course, at its head --- will solve all the earth's problems, and he's not going to give anyone a say in the matter. Pine manages to escape from the Moon just as Artois makes his first demand of earth's governments to disband. France's government predictably accedes almost immediately. The United States and Britain, on the other hand, don't act along these lines. Rip and Pine, meanwhile, reunite with the idea of stopping Artois, saving the earth, and incidentally rescuing Uncle Egg, who has been kidnapped to the moon by a half-mad scientist who is in league with Artois and has a saucer of his own. Pine and Rip "liberate" the saucer that they discovered in the first book and the festivities begin.

While the success of their mission is rarely in doubt, SAUCER: THE CONQUEST remains a wild ride. Coonts's science fiction work is reminiscent of the work of Robert Heinlein, who was often described as "The Dean of Space Age Fiction." The majority of Heinlein's work --- those books that preceded STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND and its successors --- dealt with the "can do!" attitude of humanity, with no task being insurmountable. Coonts's protagonists are infused with this attitude as well, a quality that, along with a wild chase through the skies (not the streets) of Manhattan, makes SAUCER: THE CONQUEST a wild and entertaining read.

Coonts leaves enough unresolved issues --- as well as a startling discovery --- at the end of SAUCER: THE CONQUEST to hint at the possibility of at least one more novel in the series. While these books may not be of interest to all readers of Coonts's military works, they should certainly appeal to fans of old-school science fiction who fondly recall the genre before it was hijacked by wookies. Recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

After the adventures in SAUCER, Rip Cantrell and his girlfriend Charley Pine donated the flying saucer to the Air and Space Museum. A bored Charley accepts Pierce Artois' offer to pilot a space plane to the moon to bring supplies to the station being built there. While she is on the space plane, Charley notices inside a locked compartment an object marked with a radioactive warning label; nothing on the manifest indicates that anything radioactive is on the ship.

On the moon, Artois and his associates are building a mysterious machine that disturbs Charley. She soon learns that they are constructing an antigravity beam that will destroy anything in its path even from the distance to earth. Artois wants to be emperor of the world and he has a good chance of succeeding. Charley hijacks a space plane and returns to earth. She and Rip steal back the donated saucer so that they can try to destroy Artois' fleet leaving him stranded on Luna, rescue his abducted uncle, and ultimately obliterate the weapon of mass destruction.

SAUCER: THE CONQUEST is a rip roaring space adventure novel filled with a dashing hero and a courageous female champion, vile villains ready to commit genocide for power, and numerous space battles that make Star Wars look like a romance. Rip is a modern day Flash Gordon leaping from one adventure into another while Charley is the only person who can out leap Rip yet keep him somewhat on an even keel. Gifted Stephen Coonts provides an innovative yet in some ways old fashioned space tale that will appeal to anyone who enjoys the Star war sagas.

Harriet Klausner

Great '50s sci-fi space opera in the best Heinlein-esque tradition; ray guns, robots and rocket ships. I read it in one sitting as I could not put it down. So, why doesn't Amazon sell "Saucer"? I can't find it anywhere on the site. I went looking for the start of the series but could not find it anywhere. Too bad, lost another sale to Barnes and Noble's.

This is a rating of the AUDIOBOOK VERSION ONLY. I've listened to the first 45 minutes and can't take anymore of this reader. I've heard elementary school students read better! Does he even know what punctuation marks are? It seems every sentence, he reads the first 3 or 4 words, stops (as if a period) and starts again as if a new sentence. Most is monotone, and what inflection he does exhibit is in the wrong place!

It's so awful I simply can't follow the story line. I liked Saucer and so was very much looking forward to this sequel. I guess this will just have to be one of the ones I actually READ rather than listen to. Darn! (Besides the fact that I wasted money on buying this audiobook version.)

First - this is more Science Fiction than anything else Coonts has written. It's a great read, with nice twists and some good action scenes.

It's fast paced, and well... I read it all too quickly. Shame it wasn't a few hundred pages longer.

I greatly recommend this book, but read the first book first, Saucer, as there isn't enough backstory explained, Mr Coonts assumes everyone has read the first book.

I never thought the author of "Flight of the Intruder" would ever take me as far as the moon. This book was quite the adventure, and very believable with where it goes.

While the first book had that "initial discovery" feel about the whole saucer, the sequel doesn't quite hold up. I was a little concerned because now all the main characters aren't just geniuses, they're *rich* geniuses! How was I going to relate to any of these guys?!

Any review on Amazon will tell you the story. I just wanted to input that Coonts obviously had a blast writing these two books and it shows. His blatant pokes at the president are laugh-out-loud hilarious...by far the best scenes in the entire book!

Enjoy!

If you have read Saucer by Stephen Coonts, then you probably thing that the story is over because the ship is resting inoperative in a museum. I saw no way that there could be a sequel, but Coonts raised the flag of excitement again when he wrote Saucer The Conquest. The main reason that his story is so compelling is that he uses fictional scenarios that may not be fiction in the foreseeable future. Many of us are fascinated by the moon, and he uses our nighttime sphere to full advantage in his book. Just as with his previous book Saucer, I couldn't put this one down either!

I am a Steven Coonts fan of sorts. I have read several of his books, and enjoy the way he writes. He gets you drawn into the story and then your hooked to the end. The books are always well written and you are not disapointed when you reach the end. Edge of your seat reading. I read many books and many authors but Steven Coonts is right up there near the top.

Saucer: The Conquest, as a BookOnCD, is heavily abridged and loses much of the details and plot of the book. If you're going to spend money on this, get the paperback as well and decide if the BookOnCD is worth keeping. If someone were to do an Unabridged version, get it! Otherwise, just get the book rather than the BookOnCD.