Out of the Dark

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.

First, let me tell you how this book ended up in my collection. My wife and I were doing some retail therapy at Books-A-Million (BAM!) and I found the second book in this series and it had a description of the setting that said this:

But the invading aliens “didn’t expect he survivors’ tenacity. And, crucially, they didn’t know that Earth harbored TWO species of intelligent, tool-using bipeds. One of them was us. The other, long-lived and lethal, was hiding in the mountains of Eastern Europe, the subject of fantasy and legend. When they emerged and made alliance with humankind, the invading aliens didn’t stand a chance.”

Military science fiction crossed with supernatural fantasy? I was intrigued enough to buy the second book since it was on sale for $4, then the third book for full price of $30, then find the first book online for just $7 shipped. I devoured this first book the moment it came in, reading the entire 300+ page book in just a day and a half. When the reveal of that second race happened, I howled in laughter, scaring all four cats that had gotten comfortable around me, and prompting me to stop reading and tell my wife about the entire story up to that point. It’s a ridiculous turn in the book, a complete deus ex machina, and honestly the only way that humanity as it existed in 2004 (when the book was written) would survive against a hyper space capable interstellar hegemony that would sooner wipe a competitor from the map than try to be diplomatic.

I absolutely loved it.

I’m actually not a fan of a few other things that happen in the story, nor the inclusion of hyper masculine men’s men who are NRA shooting instructors certified in being overly burdened with glorious purpose, but the story flows well enough and the action described in a satisfying enough way that I’m going to read the read of the books in the series. The next one is co-written, so I’m assuming some of the things I’m not happy with will either be mediated or joined by other, more annoying things.

Buy On Amazon!

You may also like...

Leave a Reply