The Conquest

Saucer #2

by Stephen Coonts

Bestselling author Stephen Coonts took fans by surprise with the phenomenal and heart-pounding tale of Saucer. Now Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine are back for seconds with with Saucer: The Conquest.

Someone is using top-secret information about saucer technology, information that comes from the mysterious top-secret region in Nevada known as Area 51. Meanwhile, Charley takes up flying space planes to the moon for the French lunar base project. There she discovers a madman and a world-threatening antigravity beam…

When Charley sees how high the stakes are, she needs the kind of help that only Rip can bring her—by prying his saucer out of the hands of the U.S. Government and hurtling it toward the moon...

A furious duel is in the offing between a megalomaniac bent on the conquest of Earth and a handful of runaway heroes. As a plot that reaches back 50 years explodes, a horrific weapon is trained on the Earth's cities; humankind is dragged to the brink and offered a fearsome choice: surrender or death...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Thriller, Adventure, Action, Audiobook, Science Fiction Fantasy

400 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 2, 2004

About the author

Stephen Coonts (born July 19, 1946) is an American thriller and suspense novelist.

Coonts grew up in Buckhannon, West Virginia, a small coal-mining town and earned an B.A. degree in political science at West Virginia University in 1968. He entered the Navy the following year and flew an A-6 Intruder medium attack plane during the Vietnam War, where he served on two combat cruises aboard the USS Enterprise (CVN-65). He accumulated 1600 hours in the A-6 Intruder and earned a number of Navy commendations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he served as a flight instructor on A-6 aircraft for two years, then did a tour as an assistant catapult and arresting gear officer aboard USS Nimitz (CVN-68). His navigator-bombardier was LTjg Stanley W. Bryant who later became a Rear Admiral and deputy commander-in-chief of the US naval forces in Europe.

After being honorably discharged from duty as a lieutenant in 1977, Coonts pursued a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree at the University of Colorado, graduating in 1979. He then worked as an oil and gas lawyer for several companies, entertaining his writing interests in his free time.

He published short stories in a number of publications before writing Flight of the Intruder in 1986 (made into a movie in 1991). Intruder, based in part on his experiences as a bomber pilot, spent 28 weeks on the New York Times bestseller lists in hardcover and launched his career as a novelist. From there he continued writing adventure-mysteries using the character from his first book, Jake Grafton. He has written several other series and stand-alone novels since then, but is most notable for the Grafton books.

Today Coonts continues to write, having had seventeen New York Times bestsellers (out of 20 books), and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his wife and son.

Taken from Wikipedia

Learn more about Stephen Coonts on the Macmillan website.

Reviews

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has an impossible plot: a saucer, U.F.O. if I may, was found in the Sahara and with the help of the US Air Force, the finder steals it right under the noses of other organizations around the world.

But I am not rating this with 1-star. Reason: Impossible things do happen.

Two months ago, I celebrated my birthday with 47 selected friends. They all sang and merrily wished me a happy birthday. Some of them even embraced me, kissed me, hugged me. I felt loved and respected. Just the other day, I had no one. Well, except one who was not even close to me two months ago. Some of my friends who were identified with me all felt the same way I did. We were being ignored. We felt ostracized. So as not to create further division, I had to bow out. I loved the group so much I have to sacrifice for it to remain intact.

Another similarity to this book's plot is that there seems to me also that stealing (or treachery) involved. However, I will not bore you with my personal turmoils. Excuse me if I am letting off steam in this review. If you are reading my daily reviews, you know that I capture how I felt while and after reading a book in what I write here. I always want my review to capture that specific part of my life when I was devouring a certain book. So when I become really old and gray and my hands become arthritic and can no longer type, I can mouse through my reviews and read them once again like a photo album. Thanks, Goodreads.

Back to the book.

That stealing of the saucer from the desert is actually covered in detail in the prequel of this book, Saucer but, like most suspense-thriller book, you can read any of them without feeling lost. The story in this sequel "The Conquest" revolves around a manufacturer of saucer-like weapon for mass destruction beneath the surface of the moon! The factory is financed by a rich French guy and he is poised to rule the world. Mind-boggling, right?

Well, towards the end, after all the fighting between that rich French guy and our heroes, Rip Cantrell and Charley Pine, there is the discovery of a mother saucer in the coral reef. Obviously, there will be more impossible things to come.

But the book is entertaining and good one to while away sadness. It made me happy quite a bit considering that there are characters facing almost bleak but still hopeful future. In one of the scenes, when Rip Cantrell is flying to the moon riding the saucer, he looks back at the earth and sees how beautiful it is. Then he realizes that life is really an adventure and says to Charley Pine: "Life is not how much you got but how much enjoyment you got out of it."

It's not really that profound compared to say what a poet like Sylvia Plath would have delivered if she were still alive and given a chance to look at the earth from the moon, but it is enough to ease up the pain of my grieving heart.

Zzz zzz zzz.

[Ron Wroblewski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better written than the first book of the series. Now there are 2 saucers on the earth. An attempt is made to dominate the earth from a base on the moon. Charley and Rip have to stop it. Other things are discovered from the computers of the saucers which could radically change live on earth.

[Ahmad Sardar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saucer 2 is a light read. Casual entertaining book that is slightly sci-fi. It's quite run of the mil book that I wouldn't probably remember having read it a year from now. But it was worth the money spent on it (Rs. 100).

[John Mamakos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff!!!

Great details making an awesome read. looking forward to third one. Only issue is i didn't want to put theses nove!s down!!

Jm

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saucer: The Conquest (Saucer #2) by Stephen Coonts (St. Martin's Press 2004) (Fiction – Science Fiction). Charley Pine and Rip Cantrell are back for a second installment in Stephen Coonts' Saucer series. The series opened with the discovery of a 140,000 year old flying saucer in Africa which still could fly. Now it is learned that a second saucer exists, having been discovered in 1947 and then secreted ever since at Area 51 in Nevada. Meanwhile, operating from a base on the moon, a French megalomaniac using alien technology stolen from the 1947 saucer threatens earth with utter destruction unless he is recognized and acknowledged as the Emperor of Earth. After several demonstrations of his power, no one on earth doubts his ability to wreak havoc. It soon becomes evident that only Charley Pine and Rip Cantrell (with their lovable sidekick Uncle Egg) have any chance to save the earth. My rating: 7/10, finished 5/6/16.

[Clinton Galloway · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was so bad that I could not get past halfway. I stopped after I had read about a third of the book but tried it again a week later. I was very disappointed. The leaps of basic logic and common sense were almost insulting. Issues that were made to be big issues were never followed up in the story. The issue of flying a vehicle from the moon to earth, unnoticed was just too much especially since it had to be refueled in space.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the lamest books I've ever read.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

After a bit of a slow and somewhat confusing start, this story gets better and more interesting all the way through the end. This now ten year old series is due for an update. 7 of 10 stars

[Keith Beggs · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I've ever read. A complete waste of time.

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have a running joke with my girlfriend and my sister about how bad Coonts' *Saucer* is. It's a bit unwarranted because there are totally worse book out there and Coonts was totally writing for thriller readers instead of a hardcore science fiction addict like myself, but it's still been a good running joke, one that led to me picking up the sequel to *Saucer* at a library book sale of all place, And I'm pleased to say that *The Conquest* - while still kind of a trashy book - did not bore me or upset me as our jokes had predicted.

*The Conquest* is a follow-up to Rip and Charley's UFO-driven adventures, quickly revealing that after the first book Charley left Rip to go fly a lunar plane up towards the French moonbase (when did the French become the beacons of interplanetary travel?), leaving a depressed Rip to bum around with his Uncle Egg, who's been researching the tech which has come out of the savannah saucer for a year. Charley's stay on the lunar plane gets more interesting when she finds a nuclear reactor in its cargo hold, which she later discovers is intended to fuel a big anti-gravity weapon that the French leader Pierre intends to use to bend governments to his will. He has help from a scientist who investigated the Roswell saucer back in '47 (which was apparently made by the same aliens as the first book's) who gleaned not only the antigravity weakness but also an anti-aging serum from the saucer, the latter he's used to prolong his own life ever since its discovery. The scientist kidnaps Egg and brings him up to the moon in the Roswell saucer, but Charley is able to steal France's lunar plane and take it down to Earth, where she and Rip steal the first saucer from the museum they donated to and fly it back to the moon to rescue Egg and stop Pierre (and, more accurately, his wife) from destroying the world in his quest for tyranny. They do so and end up in a saucer-dogfight with a French pilot (whom Charley flied the space-plane with). The back two-thirds of this book happens adjacently to the United States president and his laughable antics in the face of a French- and then global- crisis.

The plot was relatively predictable; you always knew they'd go back to the moon and who would survive and who wouldn't and all of that jazz, but it still didn't bore me. I feel like there was less action here than I expected, but I can't say what possibly replaced it - certainly not earnest and engaging character drama since the characters were as bland as you remember them from the first book, with the one partially interesting character wrinkle - Rip being depressed than Charley left him and the latter grappling about what to do about her relatively-underaged-boyfriend - being swept under the rug and forgotten about when the book's over.

I feel like a lot of the science fictional concepts were kind of glazed over and forgotten about too; there are a lot of things you can do with ancient alien tech, but everything displayed here seems formulaic and under-baked. There's nothing that will challenge your preconceptions of imaginary things, not even the saucer-control headbands. Yeehaw. And while half the battles may take place in space, they're pretty much just standard jet-fights which happen to streak across a celestial instead of atmospheric background.

The writing's quality goes in tandem with the rest of the book's elements (plot, characters, etc.). It's... there. No, scratch that; it's worse than there. The author actually uses "sooo" (yes, "so" with an exaggerated count of "o"'s) in the prose. Sure, it's in a character's head, but there's no excuse for writing text-slang into a professionally-published work of fiction. And it's just... bland, short sentences that sometime describe things without being meaningful.

The most engaging element of the book was probably the President. He seems intended to be a parody of Bush (although contemporary readers might find him a fitting parody of Trump as well), but if so it's a poorly done parody since his lack of awareness, when coupled with a few smart national-security and patriotic decisions, made him the most interesting character in the book. He was just interesting to watch, and lines like how he didn't want his infatuated granddaughter to see him order *both* saucers, which included Charley's, gunned down show how he has more depth than anyone else in this book. Is that pathetic? Perhaps. But sadness is relative.

Book scores are also relative, and they must balance critical thought with subjectivity and the measuring of enjoyment. And while I didn't really enjoy this book, it wasn't horrible. It served the purpose of the people Coonts writes for, and while it was dumb to me... that isn't everything. It is poor, so it gets 5/10, but it's a forgiving 5/10. Now if this had been written by an established author in that field, well... we'll cross that bridge when we come to it; maybe we have already come to it at my profile here @ Darnoc Leadburger. Thanks for reading, and may you find more enjoyment in these pages than I.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fast-paced story that I found to be an enjoyable read. One area I did not find enjoyable is the body count is very high. About 250 people are killed in this story.

This is one of those stories that's best read from start to finish. The pacing is fast and you will be lost and confused if you skip around as there are details that allow the following scenes to make sense.

I also found that it helps to read book 1, Saucer, immediately prior to reading this story. I had read Saucer in 11 years ago and had trouble making sense of Saucer: The Conquest. I stopped, read Saucer again (it's a fast/easy read) and then found The Conquest made more sense.

It appears Saucer: The Conquest was a rushed effort with no time for review, thinking, and cleanup prior to publication. There were a number of minor errors and a few inconsistencies. For example, the author tends to use "earth," "moon," and "president" when Earth, Moon, and President with a capitalized first letter should have been used. An editor likely would have caught that.

On page 20 Newton Chadwick fakes being affected by something in the saucer with "I feel quite feverish, sir. Vision fading, coming and going." The response is "Get a doctor! Quickly." but there's then no mention of how this is handled in the story. Instead, the other scientists enter the saucer and go about their business with no further concerns or queries about how Chadwick is feeling.

Page 42 has that Pierre Artois is the grandson of the legendary Stella Artois. Stella Artois is a brand of beer and was not named after a person. Artois was the last name of a beer brewer. For the Christmas 1926 season he released "Stella Artois" which sold well enough that he has kept it in the product lineup since then. "Stella" means "star" and hence "Stella Artois" beer for Christmas.

On page 68 Charley Pine is referred to as "Charlie" twice in one paragraph without explanation. She's "Charley" and "Charlotte" throughout the rest of the story other than an instance of "Sharlee" where it makes sense in the context.

There is a plot inconsistency in that on page 80 Charley finds a shipping container that is displaying the radiation symbol. While puzzling over why it's there she ends off thinking to herself "Isotopes? For running down drill holes in the search for water?" 30 pages later Charley notices the container has not been unloaded yet and thinks to herself "The reactor was still on the plane." The problem is that she does not know yet that it's a reactor and at no point in the story does anyone tell or hint to her that it's a reactor. She only knew that the container is marked radioactive and that Claudine Courbet has a radioactivity safety badge and a digital Geiger counter. We never find out how Charley discovered that the shipping container contained a nuclear reactor.

On page 214 the author describes the Cessna 182 as having a "single piston engine." That's a unusual error for someone that's a pilot and generally well regarded for his writing about aircraft. The Cessna 182 is a single engine aircraft. The engine has six cylinders or pistons. It's possible the author intended to write "single engine piston aircraft" which is a moderately common way of wording the description of that style of aircraft.

On pages 293-294 Jack Hood, a farmer in Kent England, gets and uses a flashlight. It's minor but in England they have torches, not flashlights. Related to this is that Jack describes the saucer as "maybe 60 or 70 feet in diameter." They use the metric system in England and so it should have been a 20 metre saucer.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm gonna start this off with a digression (there is a point to it): Larry Niven wrote a science fiction novel about an artificial world called Ringworld, built by aliens far from Earth, that was 600 million miles in circumference and 1 million miles wide. Niven did a phenomenal job of making you feel just how awesomely enormous Ringworld was.

A few years later, I read Arthur C. Clarke's "Rendezvous with Rama", a tale about a huge craft that's speeding through the solar system. Yes a spaceship that's 12 miles in diameter and 34 miles long is big, but no matter how Clarke tried to impress me with its size....well, nothing compares to Ringworld. I should have

read Rama first.

What does that have to do with "The Grimoire of the Lamb" by Kevin Hearne, book #0.4 in the Iron Druid Chronicles? It's just that I've read all of the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher, and Harry (Chicago's only supernatural private investigator) is a tough act to follow. Harry fights gods, vampires, werewolves, and you name it, getting beat up and making tragic sacrifices so others might live. Butcher makes you feel Dresden's pain.

So here I am, having finished Grimoire, and already having read up to book 3 in The Iron Druid series, and while the stories are interesting and entertaining, I keep thinking of Atticus O'Sullivan (the last Druid and oldest man alive) as Harry Dresden Lite.

He never seems to be in serious danger or afraid, and thanks to his handy connection with Gaia, all Atticus has to do is stand on bare ground to heal from the worst injuries.

What evil he fights always seems lame and low rent (in Grimo

ire, O'Sullivan and his best bud Oberon, an Irish Wolfhound who Atticus communicates with telepathically, are attacked by legions of house cats—really).

So, the conversations between Atticus and Oberon are amusing, but the struggles against evildoers...disappointing.

Maybe if I'd read The Iron Druid series first, things would be different.

Still, I recommend the book.

Luke Daniels, the narrator, does a fine job as usual. You can't listen to his portrayal of Oberon without smiling.

[Randal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh dear, where to start?

It's a James Bond novel only with all-American heroes ... and if you've thought for even a minute about Bond you know that means it's improbable to the point of stupidity.

The plot is pretty straightforward: Lunatic is able to get technology from a flying saucer to mount an unstoppable weapon on the moon and threaten rampant destruction or else. Our heroes -- sensitive tinkerer Rip, fly-girl Charley and eccentric Uncle Egg -- have the only other saucer technology on Earth.

You can guess where it goes from there.

There's a deeply weird side plot about another saucer that apparently just ties up loose ends from the first book. Although I don't know why anybody would bother because it's pretty much impossible to read with a straight face, anyway, so what's an unfinished plot string or 20 between friends?

Despite the sci-fi trappings, there's no "sci" here. Nothing makes sense if you think it through. So it's sci-fi in the Buck Rodgers mold.

I would have given it three stars as a light adventure (it got better when, picturing the action, I mentally replaced a typical Bond villain in my head with Mike Myers as Dr. Evil) requiring zero thought except for the whole "Americans saving the stupid French from their own incompetence" angle. Written in the heyday of Freedom Fries, it smacks of Jingoism 101.

Perfect for Clive Cussler fans. And no, that's not a compliment.

[Marfita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I asked for trashy - and the writing style is simple enough. There is one main plot line - the French lunar base project. In this post-WWII, post-Vietnam, and post-Cold War world it's hard to find villains and why not the French? With their fancy cuisine, even on board a spaceship, and their notable libidos (at least there aren't interminable descriptions of sex) ...
Charley, gal pilot extraordinaire, is hired by Pierre Artois (heir to the beer fortune) to fly a supply mission to the lunar base. She senses something is wrong at the project and she's right. Her sometime beau, Rip, is miffed she passed up spending more time with him for this mission. She's on her way back when Rip's uncle Egg is kidnapped by the Evil French (hahaha!) and she and Rip have to rescue him somehow.
Not gut-wrenchingly funny or anything, but light action-adventure with light romance and light killing and explosions. Not really my thing, but not horrible.

[Geoff Battle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Conquest is very similar in style to the first book, which means shallow characterisation, wildly implausible storylines and a stretched out finale. The Saucer novels are quick reads and make only a vague attempt to suspend the reader's disbelief; in fact they make Cussler's wildest works read like factual documentaries. The Conquest uses the (almost standard) rule that a sequel requires twice as much as what the original delivered - so Coonts offers two saucers, an Evil Genius plot twice as diabolical and therefore is two times removed from the 'reality' the first one offered. Summing up, The Conquest *will* keep you turning the pages, and there is a base level of entertainment to be had from it. A silly romp which will soon be forgotten, which won't stop you reading morw Coonts in the future.

[Kirk · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had trouble finishing this one. It’s a fun light adventure, seriously marred by Coonts’ lack of basic science (and other) knowledge. It would have been a better story if it had been proofread by someone who knew high school physics and someone who knew a bit more about Europe. He must have referred fifty times to the “Premier” of France. Perhaps he meant the President of France? He doesn’t seem to know the difference between a proton, an antiproton, an electron, and a positron—referring to “a proton speeding around its atom’s nucleus” as if it were an electron. Then he stopped referring to protons and called them positrons, with antiprotons annihilating positrons. Less annoying, he stated that it takes 2.5 seconds for a radio signal to pass from the Moon to the Earth—the correct figure is about 1.25 seconds.
I could go on… I had much more respect for Coonts after reading previous books. It feels as if he “phoned this one in”.

[Scott S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another entertaining book. Looking forward to the series finale.

possible spoilers
Can't stop laughing about the French being the adventurous spacefaring bad guys. Who is there to surrender to in space? lol

Egg was at his farthest point from the old guy who has a gun, bad eyes and a desire to kill him. And he agreed to come closer?

Want to know how to eventually capture the saucer? Camp out near Egg's farm.

[Garry Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really wanted to like this audio tale, but that didn't happen. It was an easy easy story to listen to while I exercised - mindless. I didn't read/listen to the first installment and I do not intend to backtrack, just move on. Question: will a handgun fire on the surface of the moon? No...

[Deuard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essentially, the story continues by the characters are separated and there is now a rescue mission to get them back together. I find this type of story enjoyable, but I would recommend not reading the three volumes too close together because of the similarity.

[Arthur L. Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it again after several years, great book.

I enjoyed the whole series.....enough to read it twice. You should too. It's one of those fantasies you would love to experience yourself.

[M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book two of the Saucer trilogy. As stated in my review of Book One, the plot is over simplistic and government actions and conduct seem naively stupid and impotent. I do enjoy the author's writing style though, and one does not have to "think much" when reading his books.

[Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was just OK… Unlikely and unbelievable. Interesting characters from the previous book, and the mystery surrounding the saucer continues. I just didn’t like the whole moon base holding the earth hostage.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second installment of The Saucer series was even more exciting and fun than the original. One can tell that Coonts likes flying by the way he describes it. I ordered the third now because I have to see how this trilogy ends.

[Karen Abrams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can see this happening if we ever discovered a saucer. Greed, control and ambition are always the motivation for some...okay, many. I enjoyed this, second book of the series. I like the characters and could connect with them and their situation. I already have tge third book ready to go .

[Shaun Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing is consistently bad. Many sentences could be read multiple ways, so inflection gets missed and has to be re-read to put into correct context. Then there's the 'believability' issues. However, curiously, the storyline is captivating and interesting enough to continue to the end.

[Thm · Rating 5 out of 5]

very nice read

I love reading books that stay true to form. This adventure is exciting and the word content clean, an excellent student read. Thanks

[Burning Thoughts · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reminded me strongly of Tom Swift, Jr. which I enjoyed until I turned 13.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and fast paced story. Quite enjoyed this one. Looking forward to reading the 3rd novel in the series next. :)

[H. Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun book.