Out of the Dark

I have been a long-time fan of David Webber's writing. He is a very good, no, an excellent writer of science fiction. I am in the middle of reading his Safehold series with I believe the sixth book bought but not read yet because I don't want it to be over?? Yeah, his writing in that series of books is just outstanding. I seriously don't understand why anyone wouldn't like this book. The ending has a twist but so what, it's science fiction. If a writer can imagine an entire planet being conquered, then we can surely put up with a unique ending.Now as for this book. It is, in every sense a science fiction book. I tend to read a lot of military science fiction. I was getting a little disenchanted with the genere because all the stories seem to be following the same theme. Humans and our capabilities are always inferior to aliens. After all, they have interstellar flight capabilities which should mean their military capabilities should be far more advanced than ours. This book takes on that kind of theme but, oh, does it twist it to pieces!In this book we find an alien race called the Shongair looking down on Earth from their huge Empire-built starships. They have come for the express purpose of subjagating Earth and all humans. They believe that humans, when properly trained, can become useful to the Empire as a slave labor force or even as a proxy army if necessary. Of course Earth and it's human inhabitants are considered to be a primitive race or so we were when the Hegemony surveyors first visited our planet some time around the middle ages. They do not believe that we could have developed much over the intervening two hundred years or so. The Shongair have shown up just around our year of 2012 or so.After some careful study of the current Earth civilization, they are astounded that we have actually reached a level of civilization they classify as level-two. Even then, we're still considered as backwards and not much of a threat to the mighty Shongair, who just happened to be the meanest, baddest dudes in the known galaxy! They also know that they are forbidden to actually attack a level-two civilization by the rules of the Hegemony Constitution. But they also know that the Hegemony ruling council does not have a very high opinion of Earth and humans and believe they would not object too strenuously if Earth and its humans were "managed".So, from space, the Shongair begin a massive bombardment of all the major Earth cities and military installations. In one day, they wipe out almost a third of the human population. I'm not talking about a third of Europe or Russia or the United States, but a third of the entire world; that's in the neighborhood of over 2 BILLION people. The rest are left to starve and put up whatever resistance they can when the mighty Shongair ground forces begin their orbital descent to conquer the planet. Never in the history of the Shongair have they been defeated. In fact, they have seldom had to do much real fighting since most of the worlds they have conquered customarily gave up immediately after the devastating orbital bombardment. I mean, who wouldn't know that they have been conquered by a superior race after that kind of sudden introduction?But Earth and humans are different. The Shongair haven't quite figured that out yet. You have to read this book to find out just how very, very different we humans are. Our final solution to the Shongair invasion caught me completely by surprise. It will do the same to you, guaranteed!

I am reviewing this book 9 years after I bought it. Reading it for the secondtime, because the second novel in the series came out today. My OCD insisted that I read this one first, so I would be able to truly savor volume 2. I somewhat remember reading The opening scenes of this novel, which contains perhaps the best non-scholarly portrayal of the 1415 Battle of Agincourt. Seen through the eyes of a horrified group of pacifistic, scholarly, alien, xenosociologists, who were observing the fracas from near earth orbit. And the action takes off from there. As per standard disaster movie scripting, numerous characters are introduced. The author also includes the alien invaders, and their rationale for choosing to attack Earth. The plot moves quickly through an initial cyber attack on the nations of the world, followed by massive kinetic energy weapon strikes March across the surface of the world, destroying cities and military targets alike. The governments of the world are decapitated. But there’s more, the alien landing craft begin to arrive. It is the Game of survival, and victory is afoot. The human characters in this opus are well developed, and sympathetic. It serves to draw the reader into the tale, when we care about what happens to them. We meet two American families, who prepared for this day to come; a platoon of M1A2 tankers who survived in the Afghan desert; humble American National Guardsmen ready to fight, and a pick up crew of American Marines, Airmen, and Soldiers who served the forced landing of their transport aircraft in the Balkans. The. Plot is simple. If you enjoyed Independence Day, or are a satisfied reader of John Ringo’s “Legacy of the Aldonata”. (Featuring the menacing Posleen centaurs), this novel is right down your alley. Interestingly the species of alien invading earth is not described in detail. This is a great technique for building horror. The reader’s imagination fills in the blanks and helps the reader own the story. If you are a fan of Chris Kennedy’s Four Horseman Universe, the invaders are furry canine predators, who seem a lot like the “Besquith”, or perhaps the “Zuul” in that SF universe. I don’t like to do spoilers, even with a book this old, so just let me say that the author demonstrates several valid ideas. First, sometimes a military gets so wrapped up in planning to fight the campaign they desire to fight, and end up unprepared to fight the campaign they have. Second. The venerable principle that no plan lasts past first contact with the enemy. They enemy has a say in what happens, that’s why they are called the enemy. If you are a fan of the “Invaders from Space” genre don’t miss this one. If you like “surprise” endings, don’t miss this one. David Weber did it again.

I'm probably not going to bother with book 2.It's a well-worn trope. Aliens invade and bite off more than they can chew. Despite having the high orbitals and killing half the world's population in their initial bombardment, the plucky human resistance fights back.Spoilers ahead!This is a pretty well written genre book. We've got weapons systems lovingly described and great combat. The hapless aliens are characterized pretty well, and I was almost expecting a "Footfall" moment where they roll over and submit.Then at the end It's Vampire Ex Machina. Dracula and his thralls wipe out the aliens, ride the shuttles up to orbit and take over the fleet without any problems.Now, mil sci-fi where the humans are rescued by Dracula? Sign me up. But sadly, Mr Weber managed to make it kind of a boring afterthought of a climax. Humans win, seize the enemy fleet and wipe out the enemy. Now they'll take the fight to the stars. How do you make that not exciting?Anyway, I'd give it a miss just to avoid the disappointment at the end. This one could have used some more beta readers, and an editor or two.

I am a Honorverse fan but this book was very disappointing and I regret spending money on it.The plot is very John Ringo with aliens with limited tech or tactics invading the earth. The resistance is heroic and every gun and weapon system is named in full. I kinda need to know it is a semi automatic rifle. Do I need to know the model number, calibre and weight of the bullet and cartridge? A small part of the plot is interesting when the dog/pack like aliens start to get an insight into human mindsets in contrast to their ownThe ending degenerates into fantasy of the worst sort. With-one-bound-Jack-was-free type. Vlad the impaler rescues humanity by using vampiric powers to become smoke and kill loads of the invaders. In SF we at least deserve SOME explanation as to how that might be possible.

Neat premise, harsh realities on human nature and geo-political frailty. Quirky heroes and anti-heroes (good and bad). Some quick (and impressive) plugs for survivialism. Some intelligent aliens, though 'thin' worldbuilding there by Weber's usual standardsSo we have global partisan struggles and despite human frailty some temporary triumphs against the odds. Finally the high tech aliens are too overwhelming and just as adversity grinds humanities last hope down, finally a 'Deus ex Machina' resolution.Good, lightweight, quick read; nothing epic: Very much of the Apocalypse Troll and Dahak standard of writing. Nothing on the Treecat or Harrington level

Whilst there's a consistent central plot (invasion of contemporary Earth by nasty aliens) the story is told from view point of several different people in different places. This breaks up the story telling. There's also bit too much of character (and weapons) background, not relevant to main story, and not interesting to me. The second book in this series has better reviews so I'm going to (try and) read it. This book didn't have me look forward to continue reading the story, like so many other Weber novels.

One of my favourite themes is the challenge of dealing with an utterly different mind-set. This is definitely not the best effort I've read - that said, it's a pretty servicable stab at the matter AND a damn good action story. If you've read Weber before, the depth of his knowledge of military equipment won't come as much of a surprise and the characters are very reminiscent of those in his collaborater, Eric Flint, but that's no bad thing either. And the idea of Nosferatu emerging from the Wallachian forests to take matters up with the aliens adds a definite spice to the story. If you're in need of a well-crafted distraction, I pretty much promise you won't regret the price. Such a shame that you won't get the benefit of the tax on this and millions of other transactions swelling the public coffers - I love Amazon; a brilliant and honest service to customers - if they only applied the same ethics to their tax policies I'd happily pay more for products AND use Amazon more - at present I only use it if I'm in a rush or there's nowhere else to get what I want.Come on Amazon, show you're as good as citizens as you are as distributers