I love Saucer and The Conquest. Amazing science fiction. Born and reared in West Virginia and spending my adult life in Texas makes authors from these states special to me - are there are so many, most great.

FROM PUBLISHER: After discovering the secrets of a 140,000-year-old spacecraft in Saucer, Rip Cantrell and beautiful test pilot Charley Pine think their days of high-flying extraterrestrial adventure are over. But when Pine takes up flying spaceplanes to the moon for the French lunar base project, she discovers that the project director has installed a world-threatening antigravity beam.
The French kidnap Rip's Uncle Egg and force him to fly a saucer, hidden in Area 51, to the moon. Rip and Charley have no choice; to rescue Egg and save the world, they must steal the first saucer from its new home, the National Air and Space Museum, and hit the not-so-friendly skies again. ( )

This was a great follow up book to the Coonts' first Saucer book...doesn't suffer from second hand syndrome. It is entertaining and thought provoking -- intrigue, world conquest and humor. Cartoonish characters with names like Senator Blohardt and Texas used car salesman turned space tourist Joe Bob Hooker add to the fun. Satirical comments like: "if we put sanctions on the French, then we must have a Wine for Food program" and "if Washington gets destroyed, we'll rebuild the capitol in Kansas - it's closer to Texas anyway" are roll on the floor kinda stuff. Readers with half a brain couldn't fail to recognize that it's all in fun. However, the Audible narrator is talent-less. He has a good voice, but personality and emotion are void. Yank and bank fighter pilot stuff with flying saucers was a fun listen. On the whole, despite stretching the laws of physics in a few places, the story is a good read. ( )

340 pages . Science fiction. Available in most public library collections. This is Stephen Coonts second venture into scifi and his best . The story is continuation of Saucer but with better dialog more action. In this world the French have established a base on the Moon and want to use it to take over the world using alien techonology. The story left me wanting more.

Shortly after the events of the first book, Rip and Charley find themselves...well, kind of bored, actually. After all the excitement with the discovery of the ancient 140,000-year-old alien spacecraft they are now wealthy from the patents they own from the saucer and are just living day-to-day with not a whole lot to do. When Charley is offered the opportunity to fly a spaceplane to a lunar base on the moon for the French government, she snaps it up in a heartbeat, leaving Rip behind to struggle with his own devices.

Unfortunately Charley's wonderment at being on the moon is quickly disillusioned when she makes an alarming discovery of her own. Before they know it Rip and Charley and dragged into another multi-nation conflict involving alien technology and world powers who want to abuse it.

One of my complaints about the last novel was that it was more firmly rooted in the thriller genre than in science fiction. That's still pretty much true about this one, although the heavy emphasis on space travel gives it a very science fiction backdrop. So, unfortunately, I am still left wanting for more information on the mysterious alien race that presumably left the saucers behind. I also think the last page could have been entirely removed, as it is an incredibly awkward way to end a book. I get wanting to drum up some hype for the next entry, but in this case it just doesn't feel natural at all.

Ultimately, I enjoyed the 2nd book in the Saucer series well enough, and the 3rd book sounds very promising, so I'll be starting it immediately. ( )

About the Book:
Charley and Rip are back once again in a high flying UFO thriller. In this sequel to Stephen Coonts's Saucer, Rip and Charley have gone their separate ways. Charley leaves to join a expedition to the moon and Rip is left at home to work on refining the technology they recovered from the Saucer's computer banks. What they don't know is that Charley's new boss, Artois has a master plan for taking over the world using the Moon base as a weapon. Along the way it is up to Charley and Rip to save their family and the world from the malevolent couple.

My thoughts on the Book:
This story smacked of a "James Bond" movie genre. I absolutely loved this book as much as I did the first, though I did find the first half to drag out too long. It felt like they were trying to fill up page space with details on the space trip. But once the action started the book took off in a flying leap in which I did not want to put it down. Coonts is a master at writing great action stories with a lot of humor splashed through out to keep you smiling. ( )