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    Out of the Dark
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    Out of the Dark
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    Out of the Dark
    Audiobook16 hours

    Out of the Dark

    Written by David Weber

    Narrated by Charles Keating

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The launch of a new science fiction adventure series--by the New York Times-best selling author of the Safehold series and the Honor Harrington series

    The Galactic Hegemony has been around a long time, and it likes stability--the kind of stability that member species like the aggressive, carnivorous Shongairi tend to disturb. So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients"--"humans," they called themselves--were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better.

    Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity's cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died.

    Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance--putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do?

    On the face of it, Buchevsky's and Dvorak's chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth... in David Weber's Out of the Dark.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateSep 28, 2010
    ISBN9781427210623
    Unavailable
    Out of the Dark
    Author

    David Weber

    David Weber is a science fiction phenomenon. He is the author of the popular Honor Harrington and Honorverse novels and the Safehold series. Since selling his first novel in 1989, he has perpetrated 67 solo and collaborative novels (with 2 more delivered) and an unconscionable number of anthologies upon an innocent and unsuspecting public. Thirty-five of his books have been New York Times bestsellers. Weber has a bachelor’s degree from Warren Wilson College, and attended graduate school in history at Appalachian State University. He lives in South Carolina.

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    Reviews for Out of the Dark

    3/5

    166 ratings25 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I liked it, but the ending really came out of nowhere.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I really didn't want it to end. Aliens attack earth and seriously misjudge our ability to fight back. The ending comes a little fast and I would have like a better identification of locations and timelines but those are quibbles. Weber could have added another 300 pages to this book and I still would have been happy.
    • 4/5
      If you've ever been annoyed by those alien invasion stories where the earth's weapons are totally ineffective against the alien's super technology you'll enjoy most of this novel. I was a bit dissappointed by the gimicky ending, while being simultaneously relieved that it was not a cliff hanger with a second novel in the wings. I would have preferred a longer novel where the pulcky terrans work out a way to achieve the ultimate ending by themselves, which I think could have been done with a little more effort. As it was, it was a little like War of the Worlds where the germs emerge as humanity's ultimate defense at the very end. Not bad, but done since H. G. way too many times.
    • 2/5
      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 implausible. Suspension of disbelief completely suspended. And thus I was sad.

      Woe.
    • 5/5
      History lessons,survivor's dream, all you want to know about military equipment and a very good story as well. Weber is a good enough writer that even things I know nothing about caught my interest. Aliens attack Earth because we are too violent to be allowed to survive. THEY HAVE NO I DEA!!! Well developed characters and no complaints. You wanted us to win, didn't you?
    • 3/5
      Three quarters of the book was an excellent classical military science fiction story. I loved that part of the book. Then David Weber added a twist. What worse is that there was no hint that it was coming. It spoiled the book. This is a book you should not buy. At best you should get it from your library. Otherwise read the other reviews and then decide for yourself if its worth your time. There is a sequel to this story. If you like train wrecks then have your library get the book and read it. Who knows maybe it will get better. But don't buy the book for yourself.
    • 4/5
      This book is a true dichotomy. Vastly different ending than ANY of Weber's other books yet full of military jargon and battle strategy like ALL of his other books.

      I truly enjoyed it...ESPECIALLY the ending! :)
    • 3/5
      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 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.
    • 2/5
      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!
    • 2/5
      Plot: 1 1/2stars
      Characters: 1 1/2 stars
      Style: 4 stars
      Pace: 3 stars

      I liked this well enough.. Until the last handful of chapters, when if it hadn't been an ebook, it would have met the wall. Deus ex machina much? I REALLY hate when fantasy intrudes on what has, until then, read as a hard scifi. For the most part, the viewpoint characters were all almost interchangeable, even the aliens. All straight, white (in the case of humans, the aliens are a monoculture, and thus white in effect, if not physical appearance) men. All similar mindsets, with the only difference being the arrogance of the aliens vs the brutality and determination of humans to survive. It just served to move the action around the planet, nothing else.

      I like Weber's scifi writing style, but that's about all I ended up liking about this one.
    • 3/5
      Dec12:Characters: None deep, but all fun.Plot: Ending was a WTF, the rest was sort of breezy.Style: Forgotten "high" sci-fi.
    • 3/5
      It actually would have gotten 5, at least 4, stars if not for the ending; I respect sci-fi too much to appreciate it. The story is a well-paced military sci-fi until we come to the author's resolution to the problem of a highly advanced and ruthless extraterrestrial civilization that, because they are being bested somewhat by the ingenuity and better if technologically inferior human weaponry, is about to annihilate mankind. I just wished the author would have dreamt of a better way to save humanity.
    • 4/5
      Another good book by Weber, although the ending, while an unexpected twist, is too short and should have been explored more. Also too reminiscent of Turtledove Colonization series premise.
    • 2/5
      I've been enjoying David Weber's Safehold series and have also started on the Honor Harrington series, so I was interested to try this stand-alone novel. All the way through I was plagued by the sense that I'd read it, and yet I was sure I hadn't picked it up before. The deja vu was explained when I saw an interview with David Weber on Amazon where he indicated that the book was an expansion of a novella that appeared in the Warriors anthology, which I have read!I should have loved this book. It's got an interesting plot (nasty aliens invade earth, life-as-we-know-it ends, humans fight back and rebuild from the wreckage), and a number of believable, interesting characters. But the author spends way too much time on loving descriptions of various and assorted weapons, and I thought the ending was way out of left field.
    • 4/5
      Very enjoyable. Nice twist at the end. Wonder if we could have done it by ourselves? But they would be pulled to protect their "children", wouldn't they?
    • 2/5
      It's been over a hundred years since H.G. Wells first wrote The War of the Worlds and yet, for some reason, writers are still employing the device of using a virus to defeat alien overlords. It crops in novels, movies and should the series survive to finish it's story I wouldn't be shocked to see it used as the conclusion of V. For some reason, we just can't come up with a new or different want to fend off an alien invasion. David Weber's latest novel Out of the Dark is just another example of it. It's been a few days since I finished the book and I still can't help thinking about it. In most cases, this would be a good thing. But in the case of this book, it's not so much. I'm not quite as irritated as I was upon reaching the later sections of Weber's latest novel. Instead, I'm more disappointed in Weber for the ending of the book and myself for actually hoping he might come up with something interesting, new or even different to end the story.Out of the Dark starts off well. While observing the Battle of Agincourt, a group of aliens who are vegetarians are disturbed and horrified by the brutality of human beings. They decide that they'll leave the colonization of Earth to a group of fellow carnivores from their galactic alliance. Fast forward a couple of hundred years and the alien fleet is on its way. Only problem is humanity has grown up a bit technologically and socially. We're no longer quite the group we were when England was battling France. Not that this bothers said alien fleet since we're advancing more rapidly than expected or any other alien world has, so we must be put down. And so the invasion begins with the aliens invading our computer systems via a virus and hurtling large asteroids at the planet. Instead of cowering in fear, humanity fights back. With a large cast of characters, Out of the Dark works fairly well for the first half of the book. Weber does err a bit on the side of going into Tom Clancy like detail about the weaponry being used to battle said aliens, but this can easily be forgiven.What can't be is the ending of the novel.I'll give Weber some credit--at least he introduced the plot thread that will lead to the overthrow of our alien overlords early in the book. It doesn't come entirely out of left field, but to quote characters from Star Wars the minute I saw it, I said," I've got a bad feeling about this."Turns out that Vlad Drakula is still around and vampires are real. And they're what help us defeat our alien overlords.No, I'm not making that up. I wish I was.It all comes down a virus defeating the aliens. In this case, it's the source of vampire lifeforms taking out the aliens and leaving their ships behind for humanity to maybe journey out to the stars and begin our own empire. Basically the aliens' fears from early in the book become a reality, which I assume will continue in future installments.Not that I'm eager to see more of this, mind you. I've been so burned by this one that I have little desire to see how things come out in future installments. Weber could pull the greatest turnaround of a series in history, but based on the opening installment, I don't think I'm going to be putting it on the reserve list any time soon.
    • 2/5
      I was enjoying this story of aliens trying to take over earth/humanity until I got close to the end and then I yelled at something I read and almost tossed it aside. Deciding I needed a second opinion I had my adult son read it as well; he loves this genre so dove into it. He had the same reaction I did at the same point. I hate giving spoilers so I won't tell you what drove us nuts. Perhaps it's something the author has in his other novels? I don't know because I haven't read any of them. Because of this one it's unlikely I ever will. It's also likely a more astute reader would have picked up on the clues and anticipated what happened, would they feel less cheated? Not sure. Without it the rating would have been higher.
    • 3/5
      Really enjoyed the first part of this book, but was truly disappointed by the ending.
    • 3/5
      The opening 2/3 of the book is typical aliens investigae the earth...return hundred of years later to invade and are unprepared for the progress we've made. I have to say Turtledove did it better. The ending comes suddenly out of left field. The book is well written with good character developement....it just seems the plots not well thought out.
    • 4/5
      If you've ever been annoyed by those alien invasion stories where the earth's weapons are totally ineffective against the alien's super technology you'll enjoy most of this novel. I was a bit dissappointed by the gimicky ending, while being simultaneously relieved that it was not a cliff hanger with a second novel in the wings. I would have preferred a longer novel where the pulcky terrans work out a way to achieve the ultimate ending by themselves, which I think could have been done with a little more effort. As it was, it was a little like War of the Worlds where the germs emerge as humanity's ultimate defense at the very end. Not bad, but done since H. G. way too many times.
    • 3/5
      Starts off great but slows down in the middle and near the end has a big twist that may make or brake your opinion of the book. If you were a big fan of the movie "Independence Day" then I think you'll like this book. It also goes into a lot of detail about military weapons, rifle's in particular. If you are a member of the NRA or its equivalent you might enjoy the idea of picking off some aliens who come to mess with you.
    • 4/5
      Exciting alien invasion book which reminded me very much of Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series. The story of a group of aliens invading and trying to colonize earth and finding a surprisingly resistant planet able to put aside their petty differences in the face of a common enemy. The book moves among several different groups of characters in different parts of the world, as well as the alien fleet. The characters are well, if not deeply, developed and easy to care about. The action comes fast and furious throughout the novel. It is a page turner in the best sense of the word. I found myself up late reading the book and thinking about it long after I put it down. Two very minor quibbles with the book. Some of the descriptions of the guns and ammunition and their stopping power read almost like an NRA recruitment brochure. Also, after moving steadily along for most of the book, the ending came very suddenly and perhaps resolved a little too easily. That being said, the ending left open the possibility of sequels and didn't detract from a very exciting book. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      A fun read with a very, very surprising ending. But the many long passages about the merits, capabilities and specs of various guns and other weaponry was so overdone in places that it seriously detracted from the story, and got to be, well, laughable. in fact, I read a few choice passages aloud to the kids for their entertainment value.
    • 2/5
      I already read all the books by David Weber for my greatest pleasure. But this one is disappointing. It offers a classic story of alien invaders and heroic resistance. Not the best but a solid one nonetheless. But the end is too abrupt and not credible.
    • 4/5
      An alien survey team is appalled by their first sight of humanity, at the battle of Agincourt. When the militaristic members of the Hegemony return to Earth 600 years later bent on conquest, they are shocked at humans' rapid rate of technological development. They forge ahead anyway, killing half the planetary population with kinetic strikes. But the survivors prove to be stubborn and inventive, and the invasion does not go well. Then an unexpected third party steps in....I had read spoilers about the third party; it almost made me not pick up the book. But I'm glad I did.