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.