Out of the Dark

By: David Weber

Narrated by: Charles Keating

Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2010 David Weber (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Weber pulls off this conceit in audacious style with a focus on military-powered action that will thrill fans of his Honor Harrington series, and he keeps the pedal to the metal right up to the almost unbelievable conclusion." ( Publishers Weekly)

A strong start, a WTF ending.

The book is fairly strong throughout the majority, with plenty of interesting tactics on both parts. However within the last hour of the book it goes steadily down hill. I've never said WTF out loud at an audio book, but this definitely caused it. I'd say if you go into it with full knowledge of the ending being screwy, it's not a bad purchase.

This was a fun story that kept me engaged

I saw some of the negative reviews about the ending of the story but it did not detract from the story at all for me. I actually quite enjoyed it. The performance was well done and the story was more than interesting enough to keep my attention.

great read with a fun twist

Would you listen to Out of the Dark again? Why?

Hells yeah i would! Other than it's a great story of us being the underdog and overcoming the odds blah blah, the twist at the end makes you want to re-read it just to see what clues you missed to the total blindside hit you recieved at the end!

What did you like best about this story?

the twist at the end

Have you listened to any of Charles Keating’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No i haven't, but he puts heart into it and would gladly listen to another of his. I had a trouble with the audio on my ipod and am not sure if it's the book or if it was my ipod. I did totally wipe my ipod afterwards but haven't reloaded this book to test it. My ipod froze up during this book but i've had the thing for years without reformatting it.

Any additional comments?

even if this is not your type of book, read it anyways because the end entails a whole nuther genre!

Not his best, but a decent escape

Anyone who knows the Weber family will recognize the author's self-portrayal in the Dvorak family. I will admit I did not see the ending co.ing, and the aliens were a nicely-developed set of characters.

Not one of Weber's best, but decent nonetheless

Would you consider the audio edition of Out of the Dark to be better than the print version?

I always get more from the print version than I do from the audio. I mainly listen to the audio versions while I am commuting to and from work or while traveling. Because of that I am not able to give the story 100% of my attention.

What did you like about the performance? What did you dislike?

Because of the wide range of characters the voice actor chosen did a great job with the various accents. My only real complaint, and this applies to all military Sci Fi is that the actors don't know the proper way of enumerating the military nomenclature. for example, they say 'emm one six aey four' instead of 'emm sixteen aey four' while this may seem to be a small thing as a former infantryman, this sometimes has the tendency to be annoying in the middle of the story.

You'll love the ending, or you'll hate it.

As you can no doubt guess from the other reviews that you will either love or hate the ending, and it does come about 95% out of left field.

I personally loved it, there's an inherent craziness of world-ending invasion that lends itself to an equally crazy ending. I actually had a funny thought very similar to the ending about a funny comedic story to write.

Love or hate it, I personally loved it.

Best way to summarize this book

The shongairi takes a swing at humanity, humanity cracks its neck and tells its buddy to hold its beer.

Out of the Dark

i liked this book some much that i have all ready pre-order book 2 of the series .

With my powers combined

The combined powers are various flavors of attention to detail/autism. Honestly not sure what the more appropriate label would be. The author will go into extreme details about many many things. Also the narrator doesnt change his voice. Like ever. This would be a negative if the rough smokey timbre of his voice wasnt to perfectly evocitive of North American made in the USA rugged individualism. The narrators voice alone will make you want to sing America's national Anthem. All in all this is a pretty interesting twist on an alien invade earth narrative. Curious to see where book 2 goes.

Cop-out ending.

Don't worry, they're aren't any spoilers here. I thought the story was great up until the last couple of chapters. This is a solid story and a really enjoyable read. However, I feel that the ending could have been written in a different way to provide a stronger story conclusion. Give it a Reed It's a good story, when you get to the last couple of chapters I'm sure you'll agree