Out of the Dark

Okay. I did not see that ending coming! I mean, whut.


The thing is, it didn't need to go that way. There was another "solution" that would have fit the parameters of the last chapters just as well, and made far more sense: they face a rebellion of their own troops, who had become fed up with the incompetence and short-sightedness of their leaders. Or even the conspiracy that the aliens came up with in order to explain what had happened, would have worked.

But, no, we get vampires. What. The. Hell.

Who better, you would think, than David Weber to write the ultimate alien invasion story? Sadly, Out of the Dark isn’t it.
The premise has promise. The galaxy has a hegemonic civilization primarily composed of herbivores. When they pay a call on Earth during the battle of Agincourt, they are shocked at human bloodthirstiness. They deal with the problem by shopping Earth to one of the few advanced races of vaguely canine carnivores. The carnivores send an attack force that arrives in the 21st century.
From the outset, Weber offers a belated response to Independence Day. When one of the few remaining American jets shoots down an alien lander, the pilot says, “Eat your heart out, Will Smith.” Weber’s aliens don’t send in giant show more saucers to make tempting targets for a human counterattack. Instead, they stand off and drop rocks from space on government centers and military installations, wiping out a substantial fraction of the human population before they send in their ground troops.
Most of the plot that follows details the human guerilla war that follows. The invaders, who are pack animals, don’t understand why outnumbered humans don’t submit. They are also dismayed by the number of weapons on the planet, especially in the United States. Weber loves his guns, which he describes in detail.
The humans don’t stand much chance because they can always be bombarded from orbit. But then, Weber pulls out a deus-ex twist that I won’t go into. It left me shaking my head. show less

If you have this book, and especially if you haven't read it yet, just burn it now and save yourself the anger and annoyance you will experience if you insist on reading it.

The first half is actually ok, or even better than that. It's a pretty typical military action novel, with aliens thrown in so you don't have to identify with all those people you're trying to kill too closely. And hey, half the human population has already been killed off, so it makes fighting back all that more heroic right? If reviewing battle plans and ammunition calibre then boldly overcoming all the odds to pull out a win against a horrible enemy sounds like a fun formula, then this delivers in spades, for quite a while.

Then it follows up with the worst, most show more horrible, stupidest possible formula crud ending you can imagine.

Seriously, read the first half and stop, then think to yourself - "How could the authour sell out and end this in such I way I would consider throwing up in a pail when I'm done?" Write that down and see how close you come to the truth.

Or just skip it altogether.

You have been warned. show less

Normally, I'm a David Weber fanboy. Buy his books, read them like I can never get enough... This one may have broken me of that habit now.

First comment out the gate: OMG where the heck did that ending come from? Deus Ex Machina is just not a great term here, but to say anything else would need a spoiler alert. The build up did back the story into a corner, I admit, but seriously, bad choices.

Also, when it comes to telling me about weapons and such, the basics is fine, thanks. I don't need every techincal detail that showed you did your research to the nth degree. This book probably would lose at least two chapters just by reducing some details.

Overall, I enjoyed the story... until the last few chapters. (Probably the last 50 or so show more pages of the hardback.) Once he crossed that line to save the book, yeah, he lost it. I fear Mr Weber is running low on ideas or beta readers to tell him the truth. WTF should have been the primary response from almost anyone when they got to the ending. Definitely not, whoa cool.

So for the general story and characters, I'd like to offer a higher rating, but the ending and general overwhelming of details places me more in the meh category. show less

This book made me sad.

Not because it was a sad book. Okay, well, rather, it is, but not in the cry-me-a-river sort of way.

It made me sad because I am a HUGE David Weber fan. I love his Honor Harrington series. Love it. Lurve it, even.

I am also a huge fan of end-of-the-world apocalyptic scenarios, even if that means an invasion by a crazy alien species.

This book was all set up to be one of my all-time favorites. Really. Seriously.

But the gaping plot holes..and the craziness...and the...vampires? Really? Vampires? We already have a crazy militaristic alien species nuking the planet and the survivors are in a losing battle to survive, and we get..vampires?

That, tacked onto everything else, just made the jump from improbable to completely show more implausible. Suspension of disbelief completely suspended. And thus I was sad.

Woe. show less

Such a great story concept: the earth is invaded by a federation of aliens bent on subjugating humans. They didn’t count on the unpredictable and indomitable human spirit to fight beyond reasonable limits.

What killed the story was the final salvation of the human race was accomplished via Deus ex machina. It completely killed my pleasure at the novelty of the plot.

Every now and then I read a military science fiction novel, not sure why, but this one is a dog in my view. First, it's way over the top on military hardware--kind of techno-weapons porn over the top; the basic set up traps Weber into using a deus ex machina to save the human race, and his little gimmick is out of keeping with the "hard science" veneer and the techno-babble and extreme realism otherwise characteristic of the novel. To save the human race, Drakulya turns hero and converts good guy human soldiers into a vampire army, who, being superhuman, triumph over the nasty aliens. Pure bullshit, imho!