- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Orion (11 Jan 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752876910
- ISBN-13: 978-0752876917
- Product Dimensions: 17.4 x 11 x 2.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 51,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Rip Cantrell and former Air Force test pilot Charley are back! When Charley takes a job flying space-planes to the moon for the French lunar base project, she finds an anti-gravity beam generator, a weapon that the crazed project director intends to use to make himself ruler of the earth. Charley steals the plane and returns to base. In retaliation, the French kidnap Rip's uncle and force him to fly the saucer hidden in Area 51 to the moon - and the only thing capable of catching it, is the original Sahara saucer, now stored in the National Air and Space Museum. The chase is on!
About the Author
Stephen Coonts is a veteran naval aviator who flew combat missions during the Vietnam War. His previous novels have been worldwide bestsellers. A former attorney, he resides with his wife and son in Maryland.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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
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
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Entertaining Techno Thriller
An entertaining novel. Not too long, characters not over develped and a nice plot that basically criticises the excesses of governments and corrupt big business. Read more
Published 8 months ago by RL Cloherty
Five go off in a flying saucer
Seriously, this is a truly dreadful book, and to compare the standard of writing and characterisation to Enid Blyton is probably rather generous. Read more
Published 10 months ago by fat man on a bicycle
Rollercoaster ride
If you're looking for science fiction as philosophical sounding-board for our own civilization, some decent characterisation, or treament of weighty universal themes, keep looking. Read more
Published on 8 May 2007 by A. Nelson
Fun lightweight sci-fi
The story is a simple one. Young Rip Cantrell and his colleagues find a 140,000-year-old saucer in Sahara. Read more
Published on 26 Feb 2007 by NoWireHangers
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... Read more
Published on 22 April 2004 by Rennie Petersen
Saucer - Different Not Worse
Differs in style to America, Under Siege, Hong Kong and Cuba, all of which I enjoyed, and true, the characters lack depth compared with the aforementioned, but the story still... Read more
Published on 17 Aug 2003 by "john_turk"
Don't even think of reading this if you are over 12!
This book is truly awful, a 1950's magazine editor would be embarressed to publish this work. I read 'Final Flight' years ago and thought it was fairly good, and bought this book... Read more
Published on 30 July 2003 by David Morris
Disappointed
Having never read a book by Coonts before, I was interested in getting to know a new author. Sadly, the style of this story, the lack of closeness to the characters, the annoying... Read more
Published on 15 Feb 2003 by alexinuk
A good holiday or travel read.
Not having heard of this author before, I bought 'Saucer' from the dust jacket blurb, thinking he was a new science fiction writer. Read more
Published on 29 July 2002 by "waitty"
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
