No comments about Victory - Volume 4 (Victory).

No comments about Liars & Thieves (Tommy Carmellini).

5 comments about The Minotaur.

1. I very much enjoyed this high-tech (which is not quite up to Clancey), detective, spy thriller. Coonts does a great job of personalizing his characters (and here, I think, better than Clancey). This was the first book I've read by Coonts, and it was great even out of order for the series. I'm very happy to see that readers think there are better books by Coonts out there. They must be very good indeed.



2. The book is really good, exept for the fact that it is a bit to complicated. Also, the way Coonts explains things is very vague, and confusing in the way he explains who each character is.



3. All things considered, The Minotaur was an enjoyable book. Jake Grafton, just back from his harrowing, near-death experience in the Middle East, is struggling with his position in the Navy and with life in general. He accepts a staff position at the Pentagon. Fearing a bland, paper-pushing position, he finds himself as the head of a team charged with investigating and recommending a next-generation Navy fighter. At the same time, the US is at the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union and espionage efforts are in full swing. Coonts brings together a number of range of characters, while blending a number of sub-stories within the main story. The book moves quickly, with frequent plot twists and uncertainty until the end about the position and motivation of a number of the book's characters. If you are a fan of Coonts, it is worth going back for the Minotaur.



4. This is the sixth Stephen Coonts book I've read, and the first one that I liked so much that I'm giving it five stars.

   "The Minotaur" combines two main stories that are cleverly interwoven with each other.

   Story 1: There's a traitor, code named Minotaur, somewhere high up in the Pentagon who is channeling America's top military secrets to Moscow. Amazingly, the Russians don't know the identity of this mole, so not just the FBI but also the KGB are feverishly doing everything they can to find out who this traitor is.

   Story 2: The U.S. Navy is in the midst of a procurement project to obtain a new attack aircraft to replace the aging A-6 Intruder. The new airplane will be based on stealth technology, including a top-secret device to actively suppress radar reflections.

   I found the procurement story to be especially interesting. There's a lot of presumably authentic inside information on how the U.S. military handles the procurement of a major weapons system. The political skullduggery involved was fascinating, with a high-ranking U.S. Senator manipulating the process in an attempt to get the contract awarded to a company in his state. This Senator was more interested in his own re-election than in whether the Navy got an optimal, or even usable, aircraft!

   Mixed up with the two main stories are a fair number of sub-plots, most of them concerning the lives and personalities of various people in the book. These sub-plots display Stephen Coonts' talent for creating characters who are real people, not the cardboard clichés that populate most techno-thrillers.

   Overall, the most enjoyable aspect of this book is the way it draws you into the story and makes you want to learn what's happening behind the scenes and why. Who is the Minotaur? Why is he (or she) passing secrets to the Russians? Will he/she be stopped?

   Unless you have a very good memory, I would recommend that you create and maintain a list of the main characters in the book. Otherwise, things can become rather confusing, and your chances of guessing who the Minotaur is will be minimal.

   There are some very exciting descriptions of the test flights involved in the procurement project, first with a modified A-6 Intruder and then with two different prototypes of the new stealth attack airplane. These narratives, and some general descriptions of the joys of flying, are an added attraction in "The Minotaur." Stephen Coonts' background as a pilot and flying enthusiast is obvious here.

   If you like techno-thrillers populated with real people, and if you are interested in flying and especially in military aircraft, then I'm sure you'll like "The Minotaur."

   Rennie Petersen




5. A fine spy novel, and one of Coonts' best. The Grafton series in its beginning were military procedurals, about Grafton's early adventures as a carrier pilot in the Vietnam era. Later installments are more about espionage. I started with the latter, and worked my way back to the former. The latter are good but not exceptional, enjoyable for their low-key and realistic tone. Grafton's character comes through more in the earlier ones, where Coonts' love and knowledge of flying add another dimension to the books, and where you get a better sense of what a stand-up guy Grafton is, and why - more so than in the later books, when he is a high-ranking officer bureaucrat sleuth getting called in to deal with sensitive matters, and where younger characters get most of the action.
   
   This book combines both elements. Grafton at its outset is literally on the beach - recovering from crash injuries that have ended his flying days, and in bad odor with the Navy despite having won the Medal of Honor, his career seemingly shot for his problems obeying orders.
   
   He snaps out of a long-term funk when he gets the call to manage development of the next-generation stealth attack bomber, as the Soviet Union begins to cave at the end of the Cold War. The project has not only the usual procurement and political problems - Congressmen with axes to grind, manufacturers with inside tracks, Pentagon employees susceptible to bribes - but a possible penetration by a disturbingly high-level spy.
   
   FBI agent Luis Camacho, charged with tracking the spy, enters the mirrors-upon-mirrors world of counterespionage, playing his cards so close to his chest his own deputy doesn't know what he's up to, or why.
   
   Sidekick Toad Tarkington is put to work navigating the experimental models, working next to the skilled but inexperienced (and beautiful) test pilot Rita Moravia. Toad has to work through this particular working-with-a-woman thing as the two must test the plane with politicians breathing down their necks.
   
   I couldn't put it down. Coonts does a great job particularly with the counterespionage, keeping you guessing until the end. Both Grafton's nostalgia for flight, and Tarkington's and Moravia's revelling in it, are well portrayed, helping expand and deepen the prose.

5 comments about Hong Kong CD Low Price.

1. With Hong Kong, Coonts presents a story of anti-communist revolution that is initiated in Hong Kong. While the premise itself stretches one's imagination, Coonts nonetheless presents a compelling story that features Jake Grafton, the no-nonsense US Naval Officer, who in this case has a very personal reason to bring his skills and determination to bear. Coonts brings together a range of characters, while effectively blending a number of sub-stories within the main story. I recommend Hong Kong. You will want to go through it quickly.



2. No complaints. It just never really takes off. A good addition to my Coonts collection.



3. I had high hopes for an interesting novel when I first checked out this book. It begins promisingly enough with attention grabbers like murder, espionage, and political intrigue. There are some solid characters too, especially Rip and Wu. However, about two thirds of the way through the novel the story simply falls apart. As if the author has given up on all attempts at a plot or character depth, it begins to read like a summer Hollywood action movie. Seriously now... robots? Come on!
   
   As the story begins to drag it becomes apparent how one dimensional most of the characters are. The lead Jake Grafton in particular. He behaves like a sort of meathead jock, but is portrayed as a real hero, and always knows just what to do- even when that involves killing bystanders. His remorse for doing this seems both passing and insincere. The story lacks a single genuinely strong female character. One runs a fortune cookie factory- not to tread over any Chinese clichés or anything...
   
   On a largely irrelevant side note, it bothered me how little Coonts writes romance between Grafton and his wife. Grafton apparently loves this woman fiercely, enough that he would kill for her- yet when the two are reunited and make love; it covers the breadth of maybe a single sentence. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking for a [...] romance novel, but it speaks to the one dimensionality of the novel as a whole. Battles, planes, and guns are all described in excruciatingly long- and boring- detail (the caliber of practically every single weapon in the book is cited) yet the writer won't even touch on the subject of love or passion. Suffice it to say, I bet Mrs. Coonts finds him a lot of fun in the bedroom.
   
   The book does have a couple of exciting passages that kept the pages turning, though they barely suffice to make it through the dregs that occur between the exciting segments. I finished reading the book out of closure rather than a genuine desire to see what happens to the players. If you payed to see the movie 'Stealth' this summer, support the war in Iraq, vote republican, or were the starting quarterback on your high school football team then you may enjoy this book. Otherwise, I recommend those considering this novel look for something written by an author with literary style greater than that of a freshman ROTC cadet.



4. This book drew my attention because it combined my interest in Asia (including China) with the excitement that I knew from other Stephen Coonts novels featuring Jake Crafton. The book is exciting but it lacks depth. Many have noticed the factual errors but it should certainly not be read as a realistic account of China. There are some truths in the book but over all it misses the actual situation. A revolution as presented in this book is no longer realistic, if it ever was. But taken as a fictional novel, it attempts to cross the border between the realistic and the fantastic. However, this is not Coonts type of novel and thus he is unable to leave his realistic style. Thus the book remains uneven and is not worth the money. Buy another book from Stephen Coonts instead! He knows how to make a story exciting without making you feel uneasy as in this book.



5. Fresh from his mission in CUBA, U.S. Rear Admiral Jake Grafton finds himself on what he expects to be a relatively uneventful mission in Chinese controlled Hong Kong. His assignment there, to investigate possible ties between former comrade, software billionaire and US Consul General "Tiger" Cole and a group of political insurgents, seems so straightforward that he even brings his outspoken wife Callie with him to see the sights.
   
   Jake's expectations are dashed when his associate, burglar extraordinaire Tommy Carmellini, retrieves a tape planted by the CIA from a Hong Kong businessman's office, even as said businessman's fresh corpse, discovered upon entry, enters
   the initial stages of rigor mortis. It turns out that the corpse, China Bob Chan, had ties to both a Hong Kong crime cartel and the anti communist movement, as Callie discovers when Jake, unable to have the work done elsewhere, asks her
   to translate the tape. Although Callie is unable to understand the nuances of the recorded conversations, someone is afraid she might, and thus kidnaps her. Her kidnapping makes things personal, as Grafton tears Hong Kong apart searching for his bride. His search also uncovers intriguing information about the scope of the revolutionary movement, whose roots reach far deeper than anyone suspects.
   
   If you haven't yet read Coonts, you'll be pleasantly surprised by his sure footed story telling, larger than life characters, and his ability to juggle myriad elements in a complex plot. HONG KONG is a classic page turner, the kind of book that keeps you up way past your bedtime. The action never wanes; neither will your enjoyment.

5 comments about Under Siege.

1. Under Siege is the fourth or fifth (depending on which way you put them in order) book that Stephen Coonts has written about his fictional hero Jake Grafton. It's a good read, both because it explores a scary scenario about what could happen if Columbian drug lords terrorized Washington DC in the same way they terrorize Columbia, and because it details the lives of some very believable people who are involved in the conflict.

   Unlike some of the later Jake Grafton books, Under Siege doesn't feature much in the way of high-tech weaponry. Instead, it features a large cast of characters from all walks of life and describes them in ways that make them seem real and allow us to empathize with them.

   This book is a thriller, of course, and the story is certainly suspenseful and exciting. A Columbian drug lord has been extradited from Columbia to the USA and awaits trial in Washington DC. In the hopes of forcing the Americans to release him, he institutes a war of terror against Washington DC on several levels. Soon there are assassination attempts on the President and several other key government figures, innocent people are being gunned down left, right and center, bombs are exploding in public places and the city is blacked out when the electrical system is destroyed.

   How will the politicians, the police, the military and the ordinary residents of Washington react to this? Stephen Coonts has his suggestions, some of which are rather surprising, and this keeps you reading as the level of terror increases and the story unfolds.

   Stephen Coonts is good at describing people and their relationships. Here's a passage I found especially appealing:

   "You love a woman for many reasons. A goddess she seems when you are young. But finally you see she is of common clay, the same as you, with faults and fears and vain, foolish dreams and petty vices. So you cherish her, love her even more. As she ages you cling closer and closer, holding tighter and tighter. She becomes the female half of you. The toughening of her skin, the engraved lines on her face, the thickening waistline and the sagging breasts, none of it matters a damn. You love her for what she is not as much as for what she is." (Page 87 in the paperback edition I read.)

   Not what one expects in a thriller, and that makes this quote even more appealing.

   I do have some criticisms though, and that's why I'm giving Under Siege four stars instead of five.

   Most importantly, I dislike thrillers that create a fictitious modern history populated with real people. An assassination attempt on the President of the USA is exciting, but placing George Bush Sr. in the role of the target makes the whole thing a bit too weird.

   Another problem I had with Under Siege is that the description of the mutilation and killing of a drug dealer gets quite a bit too graphic for my taste.

   Finally, there's a scene where an assassin shoots a man 500 yards away, firing through a glass window right in front of his gun. This is simply not possible as far as I know because the glass window will deflect the trajectory of the bullet by a tiny amount, and after 500 yards this tiny deflection will have become a very large displacement from the desired trajectory.

   Still, I did like Under Siege a lot, and I think it's a refreshing change from similar high-profile thrillers that are typically populated by cardboard clichés instead of real people.

   Rennie Petersen




2. In this brilliant story a man is murdered, and there are no suspects. Then a druglord leader of a major Colombian cartel is captured and brought to the U.S. Then the first strike is struck as a chopper carrying major U.S. officials, including President Bush, is shot down, killing some and putting Bush in critical condition. Dan Quayle is forced to become temporary president. Then terrorists enter the capital and cause much destruction. Quayle declares martial law and people are put in prison camps as the havoc is wrought. Talk of invading Colombia goes around. Then an FBI agent investigating a suspected cocaine dealer finds himself in a tight spot as the dealer and his men close the noose on him, figuring out who he is. Bloodbath ensues. Then an assassin begins sniping important U.S. officials in the time of crisis. Anyway, Jake Grafton and several other military people are put in charge of finding and killing the assassin, the same man who shot down Bush's plane. A final confrontation ensues between Grafton and the assassin in a stadium. The rest is yours.



3. This book was great in it's time, but only gets 4 stars as some characters are outdated. I don't like to make a habit of giving any plot away, but what I will say is Stephen has a great way of getting the reader to visualize a situation. There are situations in this book that as the reader you feel could happen today, whereas any other author you may find it to be too obsured to be real.
   Great read, especially for the reader who does not trust the government to get the job done right.



4. First, the President's helicopter is shot down by two missiles on the way back from Camp David, killing four including the Secretary of State and putting President George H.W. Bush into a coma. Next eight or ten heavily armed terrorists break into the Capitol Building killing or wounding everything in sight in one bold suicide attempt, until they are finally suppressed. Then, acting President Dan Quayle, after viewing the damage at the Capitol Building, while giving a short press conference on the Capitol steps is apparently shot at. He isn't hit but the Attorney General is. But this was just a prelude. Things get so bad that the National Guard and Army is called in and then the riots start.
   
   
   It seemed to start when, in an effort to show that we were winning the War on Drugs, the United States extradited Columbian drug kingpin, Chano Aldana, for trial. Aldana, probably insane but a truly scary and evil individual man gave an interview to two Washington Post reporters saying in essence that he was Satan incarnate and that the streets of Washington were going to be awash in blood if he wasn't released.
   
   So begins a story of violence and terror in the streets of Washington that was written fifteen years ago but seems right at home in this age of terrorism and terrorist threats.
   
   I never read a book by Stephen Coonts where Navy Captain (in this book) Jake Grafton wasn't in and this is no exception. He, along with his sidekick Toad Tarkington is currently attached to a terrorism unit of the Pentagon, working directly for the Joint Chief of Staff. He and FBI agent Tom Hooper wind up trying to track down Henry Charon, a rancher/hunter/poacher/hunting guide/hit man from New Mexico. The main plot is interesting enough but Coonts adds some subplots involving Post reporter Jack Yocke, Aldana's lawyer Thanis Liarakos, attorney/fixer/lobbyist T. Jefferson Body, smarmy senator Cherry and last but not least, my favorite, undercover agent Harrison Ronald Ford, who was trying to get the goods on Washington's number one drug dealer Freeman McNally.
   
   If the main story was engrossing, Coonts' method of weaving these sub-plots made a good book great. Each sub-plot was separate but they all had a thread that tied them together. The story involving Ford was most compelling and almost took away from the main story.
   
   The Author
   
   I don't read many of Coonts' books even though he's an excellent writer because his subject matter is usually militarily oriented a genre I do not gravitate to but this book was the exception. Although the military is involved, it deals more with law enforcement and government..
   
   Coonts is really a talented writer. His writing is fluid and compelling. It's easy to follow and in the case of this book kept me turning them pages. His character development is just right, making you feel things with the characters but not going overboard. Of course repeat character Jake Grafton is Mr goody two shoes, almost too perfect with no vices and the perfect family but that's the way Coonts chooses to portray him. You could compare him to Clancy's Jack Ryan.
   
   Other characters in this book however are another matter. We have unethical to sociopath to truly evil behavior. Our assassin looks at his work as a game - the only thing worth living for. The drug dealers as you might expect are brutal. And of course there are frailties such as the irony of Aldana's attorney, Liarakos' position comes out, defending the number one drug dealer in the world while his wife is a crack addict.
   
   Conclusion
   
   When I first read this book, some ten years before September 11th I found it to be a well written, very interesting story containing three or four interesting subplots but there was no way I thought something this horrible could be perpetrated on the American people. Well things have changed and as I read this for the second time, I kept feeling similarities to the atrocities that were being committed in the book and what's going on in Baghdad and throughout Iraq. It's eerie.
   
   It seems to me that if we ever capture the likes of Osama bin Laden or Abu Musab al Zarqawi we certainly don't want to bring them to the United States. Better a bullet hole to their head and an unmarked grave.



5. I have just begun to read Coonts and I enjoy his books. This one was a lot less technical.

5 comments about Red Horseman.

1. This is a good book to read, the plot is ok, the thing that i dont like is that Jake Grafton in this book is almost like a superman, he can fly planes, well ok, but jumping with seals without like he was one for years is not very much real, and handle a squad of SU 27 Flankers with a single Su-25 frogfoot is almost impossible to happen .. i think this is the major faults in the book, the rest is ok .. one of the most improved chracters in this book is Jack Yocke, overall this book is very good to read and the history is well written



2. I can't believe I made it through the book, this is the first book in a long time that I have been tempted to drop in the middle. The plot is very interesting and at times kept my attention. It also got more and more improbable as the plot grinded its gears through the book. Jake Grafton is apparently some kind of god and can do anything and go anywhere apparently without authority from anyone else but himself. The book would have been alright if these were its only flaws, after all it is a novel and I expected to put my disbelief on hold while I read (not everyone can write like Clancy).
   
   The major problem with the book is the writing. All the characters are extremely one dimensional except maybe Jack Yocke. The dialogue is awfully written and can't Coonts think of any other word for helicopter besides "machine"!? There were numerous plot holes, but I will concede that Coonts made an effort to fix them though somewhat lamely.

   This book may be OK for people who have read the other books in the series and have already gotten used to the characters, but if this is going to be the only Coonts book you read, steer clear because it could be your last.




3. The high point of "The Red Horseman" is the aerial dogfight between Jake Grafton (flying a Russian Su-25 "Frogfoot") and four Russian Su-27 "Flankers", with most of the action taking place below 200 ft. altitude! Stephen Coonts is very good at writing about this kind of combat, and you really feel that you're right there in the cockpit with Jake.
   
   This book is the fifth or sixth (depending on how you number them) book in the Jake Grafton series. By now Stephen Coonts had established himself as a worthy competitor to Tom Clancy, and in my opinion his books are better than Clancy's. In particular, the characters in a Stephen Coonts book are real people, and people you enjoy learning more and more about.
   
   In the first two-thirds of "The Red Horseman" the story unfolds slowly, but satisfactorily, as an international political thriller. Jake, now a Rear Admiral in the American Defense Intelligence Agency, is sent to Moscow to help monitor the Russian dismantling of their nuclear warheads. The CIA is also involved, but not in the way we would expect, and of course some warheads go missing.
   
   The last third of the book becomes a techno-thriller. The hunt is on to retrieve the missing warheads and to ensure that no more will be stolen. In addition to the great dogfight mentioned above there is a very detailed description of how a major military operation to secure an enemy airfield would be done nowadays.
   
   I found this last section of the book to be the most interesting and exciting part. The whole thing is rather unrealistic, but the reader is willing to ignore that because it's so exciting. Unfortunately, I thought that the ending was a bit too far out, and this is part of the reason for the lack of the fifth star.
   
   Also on the negative side, I found Stephen Coonts opinion of post-glasnost Russia overly derogatory. He has his characters saying "nothing works here" and "Russia is on its way to the stone age" so many times it becomes silly. This is especially true with the hindsight we have now that Russia did survive the Yeltsin era and is slowly but surely becoming a developed country by western standards.
   
   A very interesting sub-plot in "The Red Horseman" involves the death of a British newspaper mogul named Nigel Keren. Stephen Coonts has very clearly modeled Nigel Keren on the real-life Robert Maxwell. Even their dates of death are identical!
   
   In conclusion, a very good techno-thriller, up to the usual Stephen Coonts standards. If you like military techno-thrillers with lots of political skullduggery, then this is for you.
   
   Rennie Petersen



4. I love reading, but this book actually made me dislike it enough that I started looking for reasons not to read. Hopefully it is just this book.



5. The Red Horseman (Book Review)
   
   Nuclear warheads turn up missing. A British journalist is dead and it all is tied together somehow. The Cold War is in progress and someone in the Soviet Union and the C.I.A. are working together to transport warheads to the Middle East. Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington are sent on a mission to find the warheads. C.I.A. agents visited both their houses and tell them not to go to Russia. Jake is now a target for terrorists everywhere. Apparently someone in the Middle East wants to have nuclear weapons. Jake thinks if the missiles are obtained by unfriendly Middle Eastern countries they would launch them towards America. Toad and Jake went to Russia on a mission to find the missing Warheads. They hire a hacker to assist them in locating the warheads. Meanwhile an American journalist named Jack Yocke is already in Russia and saw some Russians with machine guns gunned down a whole bunch of people. The weird thing was no police or any other agency responded after the shooting was over. Jack told Jake about the incident as soon as he arrived in Russia. Jake then told a Russian officer and he said he didn't know why the police didn't take action. Jake and Toad already thought Herb Tenney was behind the massacre and suggested to the police to arrest him. They went with the police to search Tenney's place. The search revealed strange tablets that may have made Jake sick at the party the other day. After Tenney is released he dusted his house for fingerprints and finds matches for Toad and Jake. Jake then learns Herb is up to something and it is related to the warheads. Jake finally learns the tactics of how to be a navy seal. He also learns how to skydive and most importantly fly a jet aircraft. His skills would later be put to the test when he gets in a dogfight with four Russian jets. He surprisingly makes it through without being killed. Jake finally finds the nuclear warheads. He figures out Saddam Hussein was behind all of it. I recommend this book to people who like techno-thrillers and mysteries. I also recommend it to people who are interested in the armed forces. This is a really great book and I enjoyed it a lot.
   The best reason I liked this book was because of the non-stop action. In the beginning some C.I.A. agents went into Jake's and Toad's house. Jake fought back but the two C.I.A. agents overpowered him and threatened him. Toad was threatened but then Jake got his gun and scared them away. There was when the journalist saw the terrorist shooting and lived to tell the tale. The journalist even inspected the dead bodies without anybody noticing. Finally the best part in the whole book was the dogfight. I don't know how a person who just learned how to fly a jet can shoot down four planes all by himself but Jake managed to pull it off. It was unrealistic but it was very exciting to read in specific detail how Jake shot them down.
   The second would have to be a lot of the events were explained in explicit detail. When Jake was first learning how to become a navy seal it told you how they drilled through the training and how perfectly he did it when he actually had to. The author told how unstable Jake's first flights were and how he struggled with getting it off the runway because he would either give too little power or too much. On his first flight I thought he was going to crash because in flight he couldn't stabilize the plane properly.
   Last was when Jake was solving the mystery. It made it seem like you were the character in the book trying to figure out the mystery. The start of the mystery was very confusing because it had a whole bunch of names and sometimes I forgot some of them. Later in the problem it started to get very interesting because you could sense Jake getting closer because of all the events like General Brown dying, the shooting, etc.
   Last was the book was unpredictable. When the journalist's body turned up in the ocean without any signs of drowning is one example of this. He probably wasn't drunk and records clarified that there were C.I.A. agents aboard. There was also a time when people Jake knew kept dying and you thought he was going to be next. For instance General Brown died of a heart attack because of the tablet with poison that Tenney gave him. That is how the British journalist died and even General Shmarov died all of a heart attack. For some reason Jake managed not to get poisoned which really surprised me. I would have never figured that Saddam was behind the entire problem. I thought it was going to be some random terrorist but it was a well known terrorist.
   This book is for people in the armed forces and for people who like mystery/thriller books. Jake developed in many ways as a character. The book was unpredictable, had lots of detail, and lots of action. I really liked this book and this is one of the best books I read. Jake would have never survived without Toad by his side giving him advice. Toad didn't have to come to Russia but he did anyway to keep him company. The details made it seem as if you were the main character not Jake. The fight was explained in detail, the training, almost everything was explained in a lot of detail. The book was also like there was action on every single page and I never wanted to put the book down. The dogfight was too interesting for me to go and do something other than read.
   
   
   By: D.Bennett

5 comments about Deep Black Dark Zone (NSA).

1. This was book was a page turner. Took me 2-1/2 days to complete it, it was the type of read that sucked you into the story. The characters were well developed, and the scenes had an almost "zen" like flow between them. Personally I felt this book was almost a cinema for the mind.
   
   It's worth the money.



2. I have never written a review before but i just had to so others would not feel the same pain. I have read almost all of Coonts other books and bought this with anticipation. What a boring bunch of junk this was. It was obviously wriiten by the co-author and then had Coonts name put on it by the publisher to give it some credibility. Save your money and look elsewhere.



3. Once again you have the stars of the NSA(National Security
   Agency,Charlie Dean,Tommy Karr,and Lia DeFrancesca back into
   action. Lia has to first escape Korea before she can join her
   teammates in France.While the head of NSA Ruebens is battling
   for the security and existance of NSA the team has incovered a
   frightening consparicy.There is a nuclear weapon missing from
   the French stockpile.After an intense investigation it is found
   to be in the possession of an Algerian terrorist.The villain in
   this story(the terrorist) intends on exploding the nuclear bomb
   and disrupting the landscape of France.This blast would alter
   the coastline and affect the landscape of France.Charlie Dean
   and the team are also having to deal with a traitor in their ranks as well.You have several exciting scenes at the Eiffel
   Tower and the Chunnel.The story has an exciting ending as well.



4. Knowing how to start a book is one thing, figuring out how to end it is another.
   
   As a techno thriller it is better than some, but occaisionally an author needs to consider reality. Without putting a spoiler into this review, the ending of this book just couldn't happen and have the good guys survive.
   
   Leave the ending aside, I thought this Deep Black installment moved away from the razzle-dazzle (which was good) and left the action to the Deep Black Agents (I wish I could feel something for the characters).
   
   This book rolls along pretty well.
   
   Will I read another Deep Black, probably. Will I expect a masterpiece - uh-uh.



5. I bought this to listen to in the car while I drive but have thus far not had a chance to listen to it yet. However, I did check it out to determine if the MP3 format would play in my car, as I thought CD formats and MP3 formats were interchangeable. However, the MP3 format will not play in my car's CD player, and I am greatly disappointed about this. Consequently, I cannot give an accurate rating to this product at this time.

No comments about The Flight Of The Intruder.

5 comments about Saucer.

1. In most science fiction stories, extraterrestrial technology is unveiled to the world when it is piloted to earth by proverbial little green men or bug eyed monsters. However, in Saucer, Stephen Coonts presents a scenario where man's initial exposure to a civilization from beyond the earth does not occur overhead but rather from beneath our feet.
   
   In Saucer, Coonts details the account of a spacecraft unearthed in the Sahara desert and the international intrigue that results as various nations conspire to acquire the vehicle from an egomaniacal Australian industrialist.
   
   Though the novel focuses primarily on the actions of the factions jockeying to acquire the saucer, Coonts brings up a number of intriguing questions that he raises even if he does not answer them directly.
   
   Scattered throughout the novel are a number of comments examining the philosophical ramifications of evidence suggesting life beyond this earth.
   
   Some seem to be more the opinions of the characters themselves. For example, in discussing the saucer with the President, an advisor says, "You have to do something about these saucers. The Bible thumpers were freaking out yesterday...Already some evangelicals say we are at the end of the world. In Revelation..." The passage continues: "'All right, all right' the President said, cutting Willard off. He hated it when people quoted the Bible (166)."
   
   Other comments are made as well regarding the epistemological ramifications of extraterrestrials. One character remarks, "The college professor says it is time to acknowledge the presence of other life-forms in the universe. The religious types are going nuts. There's a mob of a thousand or so across the street in Lafayette Park, waving signs and making speeches talking about the imminent arrival of the Antichrist (187)." An advisor to the President responds, "This is another rightwing conspiracy."
   
   Such an exchange adequately reflects the dismissive and condescending attitude secularists would enunciate concerning the reaction of religious conservatives to nonhuman intelligent life. However, it is through the more altruistic protagonists that one must consider that Coonts is elaborating his own convictions regarding this highly speculative topic.
   
   If so, the reader is led to believe Coonts is predisposed to the theory of panspermia, the idea life came to earth from outer space. According to the novel, the saucer was flown to earth by beings not all that considerably different than ourselves in terms of appearance or physiology.
   
   Rather, the craft was sent here as part of a mission the occupants knew was a one way trip because a society complex enough to produce a vehicle capable of interstellar travel would have to transport nearly its entire civilization if the occupants hoped to replicate the accomplishments of their home world not to mention being able to make a return trip (195).
   
   But even some wanting to get out from under God's direct gaze still long for an origin a bit more meaningful than slime oozing up onto some rock even though a number of them still can't seem to break free from the grip evolution has over the minds of those predisposed to a more mechanistic explanation.
   
   When asked if humanity's arrival from among the stars discounted the perceived legitimacy of the fossil record, Professor Soldi (the character brought forward to make the grandiose pronouncements pertaining to man's place in the cosmos) responds that even though mankind might have replaced the earth's original hominid occupants there is no need to worry that the entire Darwinian enterprise being one colossal scam since, to invoke the tautologies for which this theory of origins is noted "..evolution follows similar courses when similar conditions exist (270)." Basically, even though man might have moved in from elsewhere and never arose from the apes found here, we should still accept the scant fossil evidence that is claimed to exist anyway.
   
   Yet this plot element raises more questions than it solves. For example, if mankind did not originate on earth but rather on another planet, who's to say humanity originated from this proverbial planet X either but rather having migrated from planet Y or Z as the human race plays interstellar flip this house skipping from planet to planet across the cosmos. Apparently, Coonts doesn't have that high of an opinion of the cosmological argument. For not only does the origin of man stem back through a potentially unending regression of planets, Coonts tosses in a bit of Eastern mysticism as well.
   
   Apart from the saucer's hardware, especially valuable is the spacecraft's computer which contains more than directions on how to operate a flying saucer. Believed to unlock nearly infinite knowledge, one character asks another character that accessed the database through the telepathic interface how the universe ends, Coonts writes, " `It will be reborn,' Egg Cantrell told her, `again and again and again....' (311)."
   
   Overall, Saucer by Stephen Coonts is a very engaging book. The action will titillate the reader's sense of adventure while speculation about man's place in the universe will intrigue the imagination even if one does not accept the worldview underlying it.
   
   by Frederick Meekins



2. Stuck in a mound of sand the only real proof that we are not alone. My one problem is having to fill up on water so often... You travel across the galaxy and you need to fuel your vessel on water?



3. Forbidden Archeology: The Full Unabridged Edition and
   Chariots of the Gods and Sphere
   all make this a main stream sci fi book.
   There are two problems with the idea of 140 thousand year old space ships being the same as one in 1947:
   1) evolution of species
   2) culture death/ racial death of species.
   But when reading E.E. Doc. Smith or other old space operas,
   that kind of confusion with science
   doesn't enter in?! Rat Bradbury or Edgar Rice Burroughs
   never let science get in the way of the fiction.



4. I once wrote a story entitled "Saucer." Perhaps that's why I read this novel. Coonts' adventure/sci-fi tale was fun and entertaining and the scientific verisimilitude convincing, as far as I could tell anyway. Finding the saucer embedded in a sandstone cliff certainly enlivened the story possibilities, but having the cocky 22-year-old kid who found it fall in love with it seemed a Walt Disney conceit. Were the builders of this marvelous craft from the cosmos or good old Mother Earth? Much of the dialogue was sappy and hackneyed and there may have been one too many "escapes in the nick of time," but what do you expect from this kind of novel? This is basically Clive Cussler material (He hit him hard as hell, that kind of thing). You either buy into it or you don't. I think it's worth a read. Now where's that old manuscript?...



5. I have never read a novel with thinner, more stereotypical characters. The pace is absurd, the romance utterly contrived, and many of the plot devices are painfully stupid. Imagine Flight of the Navigator without the charm, and with a smug, artificially perfect jerk swapped for the naive kid.
   
   Avoid this author at all costs. I'm just lucky I borrowed this book from the library instead of paying good money for it.

5 comments about America (Jake Grafton).

1. I enjoy a Coonts novel as much as anyone but I finished reading America with mixed feelings. The story line is a bit far fetched but none the less exciting and action packed. Evil triumphs over good through most of the book however, it was dissapointing that over 95% of the book was dedicated building this story line. Grafton's success in foiling the bad guys didn't happen till the final pages. It leaves the reader with the feeling that the author brought the novel to a quick close when he reached the requisite 500 pages for his publication.



2. I really agree with everything the previous review wrote (Jon Davidson, August 8). It is rare that someone already wrote most of what I thought. The only difference is that I think the book is more in the range of 3 stars than 4.
   When I started reading this book, I had to check the copywrite date. I know I had seen and/or read the opening scene somewhere before, and more than once. A submarine is hi-jacked. That has been done a number of times before. Most recently in a movie about a German sub (U-571?) and earlier in a Steven Segal movie. And the action is always the same, shooting people coming up/down the ladder, trapping people in the hallway and capturing the crew in the bunks and mess.
   
   But, the book starts out strong as our hero (Jake Grafton from earlier Coonts books) plays detective and follows clues. The detective story is fairly strong. And there is a subplot with a burglar who turns into a spy that is very engaging.
   
   However, the detective story finally loses out when the sub starts launching missiles and causing catastrophic events. Ever since Tom Clancy nuked the Superbowl and blew up the Whitehouse, everyone has to go one better. Threat of disaster is no longer good enough. You have to have destroy something to show menace.
   
   The end really peters out, with the heroes and their wives on the Love Boat while America is being attacked. It is all handled like a light adventure, even after the wives are captured and about to be killed.
   
   What is even worse, is how Coonts tries to make the main Russian badguy and his partner as sympathetic, likeable characters. They have murdered tons of seamen and civilians, but you are supposed to like them because they took mercy on some other people. I am betting that they turn up in future books and eventually become good guys.
   
   In spite of the bad points, it is still interesting to read, especially in the beginning. It is certainly better than any of the latest Clancy books.



3. Stephen Coonts does less character development than Tom Clancy. His hero Jake Grafton is thoroughly two-dimensional. He's a regular guy with a nice wife, neither of them drawn with any interesting quirks or depth. He doesn't have notable hobbies or interests. He doesn't have soaring ambitions, having made some bureaucratic enemies who keep him from rising above Rear Admiral. He dreams vaguely of the stereotypical middle-class retirement with his lovely wife. Little attention is paid to what he eats or drinks. A gourmet meal for him is steaks on the barbie. Grafton's jobs always seem to be intricate bureaucratic positions where he's a liaision from someone to someone else, which puts him in place to get into a technothriller plot involving the usual CIA and foreign spy types.
   
   But that's half the book's appeal. Grafton strikes you as an Everyman who rises to the occasion through the qualities he's amassed as a good career Naval officer. His flurries of action are low-tech and plausible; he is resourceful without Coonts' pushing the limits of believability. And he wears well, like an old shoe. His low-key character recedes into the background, allowing you to enjoy the technological marvel of the state-of-the-art American sub that is hijacked, as well the complexity of the plot. Coonts' writing is never flashy or annoying, but quite even. I enjoyed the twists and turns of this one's plot, particularly the complexities created when arch-hacker Zelda Hudson masterminds the sub's hijacking while selling its services to two unrelated crooks for two different reasons at cross purposes with each other.
   
   One of the other reviewers pans Coonts for making the hijackers' captain somewhat sympathetic despite his dastardly mission. I disagree. We spend a whole lot of time with him and would tire of a stereotypical tyrant or megalomaniac. And the novel is more plausible with a captain confronted with convincing his gang - through a combination of strength, logic and violence - to follow him after the fact on a much more dangerous mission than the one they'd signed on for. As a former Soviet sub captain, and as someone originally hired by the CIA at the plot's outset to hijack a sub for him, he would not have been convincingly drawn as a psychokiller or screwball. This is a leader of men who History, in the form of the Soviet Union's fall, has cast upon the streets - his last job was cab-driving in Paris - and who is now given a chance to use his hard-earned skills in a challenging, albeit criminal, mission. We see the action on the sub through his eyes, and so naturally Coonts must make him logical and smart enough to succeed in the sub long enough to make the plot work. Other colorful supporting characters are the knife-throwing Marine commandant, the slick Russian agent Janos Ilin, and my favorite Coonts character, the CIA cat-burglar Tommy Carmellini. I found myself liking hitman Myron Matheny, an aging, meticulous ex-CIA guy who drifted into killing for hire, a guy who can't wait to get out of the business but is forced back into it for one more hit. He comes off as a fiftyish accountant type, all planning and plodding and caution - the reason for his survival so long in a dangerous game. I found myself rooting for him to succeed or at least survive long enough to escape into the crime-free, smell-the-roses life he longs for.
   
   One aspect of the book seems weirdly timely: how Washington and New York are paralyzed by missiles designed to knock out electronic systems. I read this book a week or two after Hurricane Katrina and that resonated significantly with me.



4. This story grabbed me in the beginning, but my interest dwindled towards the end. The story opens with the USA losing a SuperAegis satellite, part of a multinational missile defense system, upon launch. Enter Rear Admiral Jake Grafton, who we have met previously in several of Stephen Coont's novels. But before much more can happen, the USS America, a nuclear submarine, is hijacked on her maiden voyage. Shortly thereafter, the America fires Tomahawk missiles equipped with EMP warheads at the USA, shorting out the electronics of several areas of the east coast. The result: airplanes crashing, hospitals crippled, not to mention the Dollar! And off we go, searching for hijacked submarines and lost satellites (not to mention the bad guys themselves), with several sub-plots thrown in as well.
   While I did enjoy the submarine chases, they are all over the popular fiction at the moment, and I don't think that Coonts' effort stands out significantly from many of the others. His character development is poor. Even Grafton himself seems a little dull and underdeveloped. And we don't even get to know most of the bad guys, and then somewhere along the line, he tries to draw sympathy for some pretty bad apples? I found the direction a bit confusing from time to time. But, it was the end of this novel that really ruined it. Read: "Adventure on the Loveboat". The author had gone to some effort to make the story somewhat plausible beforehand, and now it becomes quite ridiculous. So, the novel ended with me feeling a little sour about it. Three stars from me.



5. Not bad for an abridged audio book. Since the book was abridged the flow of the story was not all it could have been. The reader did a good job with different voices and the sound effects added to the action without going overboard.