Book Review – Stephen Coonts’ “Saucer”
When I was younger, one of the first authors I started reading and following was Stephen Coonts. I started with Flight of the Intruder followed by The Intruders. After that followed almost all of the books (at that point in time) in the Jake Grafton series.
This time around, instead of writing high flying thrillers or battles against terrorists, Coonts dips into science-fiction and flying saucers. This isn’t one of those tales about people being abducted or an evil alien armada set on destroying the planet.
Saucer is a modern day story that begins in the Sahara desert in northern Africa. While assisting on a seismic survey, young 22-year-old assistant, Rip Cantrell, helps make an astonishing discovery. He spotted a piece of metal sticking out of some rock. After digging and breaking away the rock over the period of a few days, it turned out that Rip’s suspicion was true.
The piece of metal was an ancient flying saucer. It had crashed into an ancient ocean, sank and buried itself in the sediment, and remained undisturbed under layers of rock for about 140,000 years.
And it still works.
Naturally, everybody wants the flying saucer. The team of scientists who can crack the marvel of science will control technology that could dominate the world. It’s at this point that the Air Force sends in former test pilot Charlotte “Charley” Pine to investigate the saucer.
Together, Charley and Rip learn how to operate the saucer and open its secrets. The test flights with the flying saucer are the highlights in this novel. As it’s evident in the Jake Grafton series, Stephen Coonts has a fantastic ability to describe the feeling of flight and the dynamics of it all.
Saucer attempts to be a thrilling novel when dealing with both terrorists and the auction of the flying saucer to government leaders. I like the concept of governments bidding for control of the technology, but the way it plays out here in Saucer is really basic, almost like it was just thrown in there to make the story longer.
The attempted romance between Rip and Charley is laughable. The combination of a young, dorky nerd who needs his ass kicked and a tough-as-nails woman who can kick some ass just doesn’t have the right chemistry. It doesn’t work here and just downgrades the story.
So is Saucer a failure?
No. Despite a few issues here and there, Saucer is still a pretty good science-fiction story.
I like the concept of an ancient flying saucer that’s been buried for over a hundred thousand years. I also enjoyed the flying scenes along with the idea of countries bidding for exclusive access to the technology. This book had quite a bit of good material. This book is also probably best for those people just graduating high school.
Those people looking for the usual action-packed and thrilling Stephen Coonts novels may be disappointed in Saucer. It’s not a bad story, but it’s certainly not one of his better ones.
