5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Saucer; The Conquest, 1 April 2006
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
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, but shallow and lightweight, 31 July 2006
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Very Disappointed, 19 Jun 2003
I have to say first of all that I've been a great fan of this author’s previous work. All his previous books have been well written, fast paced with well-observed characters and I have scored all of them either 4/5 or 5/5. This book sadly doesn't fall into that category. It is almost as if it has been written by a different author.
Stephen Coonts previous works have all been the "techno-thriller" category with one foot firmly in the real world. This book however is very science fiction with not one jot of believability.
It didn’t help that I took an instant dislike to the central character, Rip Cantrell, and was hoping that he would die a horrible death once he opened the saucer at the beginning of the book. I was sadly disappointed, as the book would have been much better without him. All the other characters are instantly forgettable. Indeed, having just finished the book 15 minutes ago, I am hard pushed to remember any of their names.
It is a great disappointment when a great author moves away from what he is good at and produces a really different book. If it weren’t for his previous excellent books, a reader new to him could be forgiven for thinking that Stephen Coons was just some two-bit sci-fi author. If anyone were considering this book as their first Stephen Coonts novel I would advise them to give it a miss and try his other works instead.
Conclusion: 1/5 – Must try harder.
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