James P. Hogan and Arthur C. Clarke have both written excellently of alien technologies discovered by humans. They are masters of moving a plot along, discovery by discovery, so that the reader enjoys uncovering the purpose and/or use of the alien technology as the book unfolds. Unfortunately, Coonts did not do this in Saucer. The book reads like a screenplay, as if it were written for immediate filming (Crichton suffers from this tendency too.). The characters are all stereotyped Saturday Serial fare, and the plot just isn't very sophisticated. I will take this one to the used bookstore.