Out of the Dark: Volume 1

David Weber

Sep 2010 · Out of the Dark Book 1 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Charles Keating

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Vampires !?? It's like the author couldn't figure out how to get the human race out of the situation he got them into, so he pulled out a CHEAT to finish his book and suddenly vampires come out of nowhere to save the day. Up to then it was pretty good science fiction. BAD WRITING!

Great read, very realistic invasion by aliens. But especially loved the twist ending.

About the author

DAVID WEBER is the author of The New York Times bestselling Honor Harrington novels and the Safehold series. Solo or in collaboration, he is one of the major writers of science fiction in America today.

Charles Keating has won multiple AudioFile Earphones awards for his audiobook narrations. His credits include works by P.D. James, Mark Haddon, Charmian Hussey, and Terry Brooks. He is British actor of stage, screen and television in addition to being an audiobook narrator. He has acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company, played Rex in ITV's celebrated Brideshead Revisited miniseries, and had roles in television shows including Sex and the City, Another World, All My Children and As the World Turns. In 2001, he played the role of Carney/Oscar Wilde in the Lincoln Center Theater Performance of A Man of No Importance, and in 2007, he played the role of Clement O'Donnell in the Guthrie Theater production of The Home Place.