Into the Light

Out of the Dark, Book 2

By: David Weber, Chris Kennedy

Narrated by: Ralph Lister

Length: 25 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's Summary

In New York Times best-selling science fiction epic Out of the Dark, Earth beat back an alien invasion. Now we've got to make sure they don't come back, in Into the Light.

The Shongairi conquered Earth. In mere minutes, half the human race died, and our cities lay in shattered ruins. 

But the Shongairi didn't expect the 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. 

Now Earth is once again ours. Aided by the advanced tech the aliens left behind, we're rebuilding as fast as we can. 

Meanwhile, a select few of our blood-drinking immortals are on their way to the Shongairi home world, having commandeered one of the alien starships...the planet-busting kind. 

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2010 David Weber and Chris Kennedy (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Narrator ruins the story

Charles Keating was the narrator of the first of this series and he did a wonderful job.! Mr. Lister would be better served, as we all would, if he stayed with his own voice throughout instead of the attempt of personalization of each character with crude voice changes. The story is so totally disrupted and difficult to listen to that it is not enjoyable.

Atrocious narration

“Into the Light” is a worthwhile continuation of “Out of the Dark” but one has to conclude that it is a failure from a presentation and production perspective.

Narrator Ralph Lister is simply no good here. His voice in doing accents other than his own is hoarse and hard to understand. He should have just read every line in his natural speaking voice. It’s unfortunate Charles Keating could not return.

From a narrative perspective, the book is standard Weber fare, although the third “exploration” segment leaves the Terran Empire facing an utterly outmatched foe that makes for a disappointingly predictable conclusion. Weber has gotten into the habit of giving protagonist factions and characters too many advantages. Drama isn’t there and killing off side characters doesn’t change this.

The usage of neutral gender pronouns is suitably progressive and innovative, but confusing. Who is speaking at any given moment is seldom clear and Lister doesn’t help this with his grating read of dialogue.

Check out the book if you’re a Weber fan, but avoid the audiobook.

Do Not expect Out of the Dark

David Weber’s Out of the Dark, this novel’s prequel, was focused, gritty, with a satisfying if quirky conclusion. Into the Light is long, tedious, and has more to do with alien cybernetic design than the original story line. Also, David Weber has a tendency to change narrators frequently and mostly not for the better. If you have many hours to burn working through the text, have at it. Caveat Emptor.

terrible narration

I love David Weber as an author. I'm sure this story is fantastic. But I'm only two chapters in and I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish it because the narration is so awful. Ralph Lister emphasizes every syllable of every word as if it was at the top end of an argument. There is no such thing as mundane conversation. It's exhausting to listen to. I really don't think I want to be able to get through this book. *****UPDATED****** I've completed about another hour or so of this book. Since the narrator continues to insist on imitating an angry Col Sanders I'm calling it quits. It's just not worth it. Don't waste your credits on this book.

enjoyed the book, narrator horrible

my ability to listen to this was severely damaged due to a horrible narration that couldn't pronounce words correctly, used horrible accents for a society that uses a nural education to teach everyone the language like a native speaker. everyone in the book apparently speaks like a characterization of a hillbilly.

will purchase the book for myself and read as I can't make it through this narration. save your money and buy the book,

Narrator Ruins Story

I love David Weber's books. I have all of Honor Harrington and all of the Prince Roger series. Both have excellent narrators who enhance the story. The first book in this series (Into the Dark) had a very good narrator. Unfortunately, they switched to Ralph Lister for the sequel and he's horrible. He actually ruined the book for me. He affects a loud, gravelly, monotone pseudo-American (sometimes Southern) accent, but then he pronounces words like "schedule" the way the English do ("shed-ule") which is so off-putting. He randomly shouts different character's lines, even when they're clearly not angry, upset, or far away. He has even less ability with women characters - their dialogue is delivered in the same scratchy, deep, monotone that ranges from loud to shouting. I would never purchase another book narrated by Ralph Lister.

voice actor is not good

the voice actoes attempt of accsent makes you want to stop listening. and sabotage the story recommend you buy the paperbok

Typically Long Winded

The story is entertaining, but the narrator's voice & feeble attempts at accents is annoying. He has a gravelly voice and he chops his words. You can survive it.
David uses his typical long-winded narrative to describe how a character views something or the detailed intricacies of a device or action. He dwells on these to the point of distraction. If it were not for the interesting plot of the story this book would not survive past the first chapter.
He does get better as the story evolves though. It is like he is cut off in mid sentence. Maybe those are the parts Chris contributes.
Some readers were disappointed that the story didn't have more about the "Vampires" reaching the Shaungarry planets. Vlad and his people had a 40 year travel time. What was the shattered Earth population doing? Oh, that's the story. Wait for book 3 (in 10 or so years like this one after Out of the Dark). Hopefully Ralph will not be narrating it.

A disappointing audiobook.

I enjoyed Out of the Dark and was excited to learn there was a sequel. I should have just read this one instead.

The sequel I didn’t know I needed

Without a doubt, I was excited for this book when I pre-ordered it....but I gotta say the wait was worth it. It strikes a cord that I had wanted strung.

Without going into spoilers....if you liked the Dahak series, (which I deeply do), then you will absolutely love this.
At halfway through this.....I felt like I remembered something....and at roughly 10hrs left I was shouting in joy!

Overall, I gotta say I really like this book!
Ty! David Weber!

Performance?

This is unbearable. I’ve been reading audiobooks since I remember (1990s) - my grandfather was blind. So... this is the first time ever I just cannot bear the narrator. Every phrase has the same hyped tonation and modulation - almost as if the narrator thought it is more about him than the book. Cannot stand it. Will do my best to skip Ralph Lister narrated books (will probably actually try another to verify my opinion tbh). It feels like his narration was more about theatre scene acting than actually serving as a book story proxy.

A bad case of Nobby Stiles Vs Starsky and Hutch

This could well be the best book ever written, but I’ll never know as I couldn’t take anymore. The narrator is absolutely awful. I have no idea how he got the job, but whoever hired him needs to be fired. He’s fine when he reads with his own voice, but when he gives the characters a voice of their own he really falls. He literally sounds like a man straining on the toilet. I fully expect him to have had a dose of piles by the time he finished this book. His accents are woeful. My playground turn as Hutch from Starsky and Hutch as a seven year old in 1980 are like a performance from the Royal Shakespeare Company compared to this guy.

Destroyed by awful narration

Good story, although tended to get bogged down at times, but ruined by the worst accents ever heard on audible... Truly abominable. Really struggled to get through it and finish..

Brilliant!

Well worth the wait for the second book.
Really enjoyed the story, looking forward too the third instalment!

Fantastic Listen

After having found this outside Kindle unlimited im so happy to have downloaded the Audible version. well worth every credit. author, narrator and production are fantastic.

What a waste of time

I should start by saying I was looking forward to this and pre-ordered it, but what a waste of time and money.

It is so packed with mouthy hyperbole that I stopped listening several times. I know Weber books are usually full of hyperbole but this is not full, it's packed full.

The end really did it for me though, what a waste of time cliff hanger and did nothing for the story. unless you want to wait years for book 3. He also left Vlad etc almost totally out of the story, but hey, this seems to be a theme in these books.

Complete tosh.

Disappointing Story

After the first book I was looking forward to the quirky story line vampires vs aliens. As we left the first book Dracula was on his way to the stars to give a pointed retribution to the aliens who had attacked Earth. I expected this to be the start point. However you get about two short chapters with Dracula there could have been more but I was skipping chapters so much I may have missed them. The final chapter (epilogue) in the book is where they finally arrive in the alien home system and the book finishes before they arrive at the planet.

So what you actually get is the story of people being people on the rebuilding of Earth, then contacting a new alien civilisation who seem to have inherited humanities "interesting" politics read nasty and underhanded.

What I hoped for was something more akin to Bram Stoker's Dracula's arrival in Whitby, England. The spaceship arriving at the alien home planet apparently deserted and then the aliens taking it down to the planet for investigation and then the payback begins.

Alas this was not to be...