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Narrated by Dick Hill
Stephen CoontsUnabridged — 9 hours, 17 minutes
Narrated by Dick Hill
Stephen CoontsUnabridged — 9 hours, 17 minutes
A relic from the past. A bridge to the future. Stephen Coonts's Saucer is a dazzling flying story and an action-filled look at what might have been...and what might be.
After 140,000 Years...
Seismic Surveyor Rip Cantrell has made an exhilarating discovery-a flying saucer embedded in the Sahara sandstone. Buried for eons, it's not the invention of modern man. Computer-equipped, it can't belong to ancient man. Rip's betting his life on the only alternative. If the ship's memory bank holds the proof he needs, it's going to rock civilization, and make Rip a very famous man.
Its Time Has Come.
Once the secret's out, Rip's outwitted by an enterprising billionaire set to steal the saucer's profitable technology-and outnumbered by the Libyan army looking to lay claim to history. But it's in a skeptical UFO investigation team that Rip finds an unlikely ally: test-pilot Charlotte Pine. Together, they come up with a plan to protect the saucer's secrets.
But Where In The World Is It Going?
Under a hail of bullets, in an exhaust of white fire, Rip and Charlotte are off. Accelerating on a fantastic journey across continents and oceans, they're about to experience the mystery of what once was, and explore the possibilities of what could be, on an adventure 140,000 years in the making.
It isn’t a Sahara mirage. The glint that Rip Cantrell sees in the distance in the sand is metallic, but the seismic survey worker has never seen a metal quite like it. What Cantrell has uncovered is a bona fide flying saucer. Before the sand has settled, a cast of characters including a greedy billionaire, a horde of territorial Libyans, and our hero on high alert, Jake Grafton. A five-star military thriller.
A flight of fancy and a departure from Coonts's bestselling techno-thrillers (Flight of the Intruder, etc.) pits an eager young grad student against seasoned military, government and corporate raider types for control of an ancient flying saucer dug out of a sandstone outcrop in the Sahara. Rip Cantrell is acting as gofer for a seismic survey when a glint of metal in the sand catches his eye. Aided by archeologists from a nearby dig, he unearths the ship, but the U.S. Air Force UFO team shows up followed shortly by armed thugs sent by Australian mogul Roger Hedrick. When the Libyan army appears on the scene as well, Rip and test pilot Capt. Charlotte (Charley) Pine manage to hijack the controls of the saucer, evading all their pursuers and flying to the Missouri farm of Rip's Uncle Egg, "inventor, wizard, mechanic extraordinaire." Egg cues Charley and Rip to the saucer's advanced flight capabilities, and they make decoy runs to mask their real location. But Hedrick tracks them down, and Charley is forced by a Hedrick operative to fly the saucer to the mogul's Australian ranch. Rip heads Down Under with rescue in mind when the UFO team (previously in Libyan captivity) are set free and tell all on TV, forcing Hedrick to change plans. He puts the saucer up for sale to one lucky nation, but has a sinister plan that Charley vows to disrupt. The moves get more deadly as the bidding begins, and Rip comes on the scene for a predictably spectacular ending. More Cussler than Clancy, this cartoonish slice of escapism is also more hokey than suspenseful ("But saucers do exist. There one is!"); still, it's tough to put down. Major ad/promo. (Mar. 12) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
This work, which is hard to pigeonhole, will elicit various reactions. Some researchers find an ancient flying saucer in the Sahara desert, the U.S. air force becomes involved, then an Australian multibillionaire takes the craft. Anyway, there is excitement, romance, some technical details, rather flat characters, and more than a little satire thrown in. Definitely not Coonts's greatest work, it is still rather intriguing. Dick Hill, who is a well-respected narrator, does a superb job; he takes what is at best a mediocre piece of literature and makes it exciting. His voice characterizations for all the cast are consistent and quite expressive. Hill's commendable performance illustrates well the saying that it often is not what one says but how one says it. Public libraries may wish to consider.-Michael T. Fein, Central Virginia Community Coll., Lynchburg Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
The premier purveyor of flyboy thrillers (Combat, 2001, etc.) varies his formula with a comic, feel-good SF adventure that reads like a Disney made-for-TV movie. The metallic glint that Rip Cantrell spies on the desert horizon is no mirage. Camped out in the Sahara with geological survey team along the border between Libya and Chad, the resourceful Cantrell finds a chunk of metal appearing in a mass of sandstone, and, after many hours of chipping away, exposes a saucer about 70 feet in diameter with a bubble cockpit on top and a hatch designed to be opened by a human hand. Even more remarkable: the interior contains futuristic technology that isn't so far advanced that Rip and members of the team can't puzzle it out. Though it's been buried in the sands for at least 140,000 years, the ship uses water as a fuel, has computer screens, anti-gravity capability and a headset that provides telepathic links to the ship's memory. Word of the discovery leaks out to greedy Australian billionaire Roger Hedrick, who sends his thugs to steal the craft so Hedrick can profit on the technology; and the US Air Force also hears, and dispatches its UFO team to dismiss the saucer as a hoax. Among those on the team is beautiful, spunky former female test-pilot Charlotte "Charley" Pine, who lets Cantrell talk her into flying the saucer, with him navigating, just as the Libyan army shows up. The two fly back to America, scare and bedazzle some homespun types, and then, with Cantrell's uncles-Arthur "Egg" and lawyer Ollie Cantrell-helping out, avert a series of increasingly comic and violent crises at home and in Australia, while delivering optimistic messages about humanity's ability to meet future challenges.. . . Funny, featherweight frolic reminiscent of the we-found-a-spaceship-in-our-backyard SF juveniles of the 1930s.
| BN ID: | 2940169558043 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
| Publication date: | 05/16/2017 |
| Series: | Saucer , #1 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
