Out of the Dark is a tough book to write a review for, especially if your not trying to give out spoilers…

I seriously think that Alien invasion books were perfected by John Ringo, but it seems like David Weber wanted to touch this genre.  Out of the Dark is a good book, definitely a well crafted, and written book.  It offers some new twists, mainly with the the Interstellar Hegemony, but I was disappointed with the revelation about 30 or so pages from the end.

It would not have been so annoying, except for the fact that it really wasn’t foreshadowed.  If you haven’t already heard, this serious military-sf book takes a major twist at the end and moves to horror fantasy.  While this shift isn’t necessarily a bad thing, there is almost no foreshadowing of this, nor any serious examination of it in the book.

[Spoiler Warning]

For 90% of the book, we have a relatively Hard Science Fiction / Invasion book, with no hints of the supernatural, and then all of a sudden we have Vampires helping defend the Earth.  Please note, these Vlad Drakula style vampires, pure supernatural vampires.

[Not so Spoilerish]

While I would love to see a sequel, since the Supernatural elements are now out in the open, and we can see their interaction with the Hegemony, and the Shongari…  And then See how Earth rebuilds itself, etc…  It almost feels like Mr. Weber just didn’t have a Hard Science Fiction way to prevent the Shongari from destroying the Earth, and then decided what could defeat them?  I know Vampires!

As I mentioned this doesn’t make the book bad, I just found this to be a jarring change to the book.  Overall, it’s a decent read, but I’d prefer a more consistent (eg. Honor Harrington) universe…