# David Weber, You Cheating Bastard **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564 "2012-03-12T17:35:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/1 "2012-03-12T17:35:44Z")
I feel the need to warn my friends and collegues away from a book I just finished. David Weber’s **Out of the Dark**. Standard alien invasion, outdated survery data, they are expecting crossbows and swords and are met with tanks and fighter jets. Shit blows up real good. Plucky humans fight them until the aliens are desperate enough to start engineering a bioweapon to kill us all. Then, when all is darkest in the last sixty pages, Count Dracula and his team of vampire commandos infiltrate the alien bases, take over their starships, and save the day. Really. Vlad Drakul himself. I don’t want that to be in a spoiler box, I feel it is my duty to warn everyone about this book. There is no foreshadowing at all to imply that this is a world which includes vampires. There are no hints that we can say “Oh, that’s what [page 47] meant! Of course! How clever!” No, this is just the most blatant deau ex machina ending I have come across in years. I don’t often accuse a writer of cheating, but Weber actually pissed me off with this book. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/2 "2012-03-12T17:40:38Z")
If their outdated surveillance wasn’t even aware of our vampire army, they deserved to die. The last time aliens tried this, it never occurred to them we’d have \*germs \*they’d never encountered. Doesn’t anybody \*plan \*before attacking earth? ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/3 "2012-03-12T17:45:36Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > There is no foreshadowing at all to imply that this is a world which includes vampires. You mean besides the title? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/4 "2012-03-12T17:48:46Z")
> [@bup](#): > > If their outdated surveillance wasn’t even aware of our vampire army, they deserved to die. > > The last time aliens tried this, it never occurred to them we’d have \*germs \*they’d never encountered. Doesn’t anybody \*plan \*before attacking earth? What about the ones that didn’t know the planet was mostly water and it rained a lot? ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/5 "2012-03-12T17:49:18Z")
Holy crap, two thirds of this planet is covered in stuff that’ll kill us? WTF were we thinking? ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/6 "2012-03-12T17:55:00Z")
Or the ones who never thought it [would be \*daylight \*half the time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eye_Creatures)? Or the ones who didn’t check to see [that we had the Mac OS too](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_Day_%28film%29)? Reconnaissance. Look into it. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/7 "2012-03-12T18:28:25Z")
> [@Finagle](#): > > You mean besides the title? Give me an alien invasion story called “Out of the Dark” and I’ll assume the “dark” is the depths of space, not the bastion of the undead. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/8 "2012-03-12T18:32:41Z")
Bah. Vampires are merely the first team. Wait ‘till they get to the Ninjas. They’ll never see them comin’. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/9 "2012-03-12T18:38:04Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > Give me an alien invasion story called “Out of the Dark” and I’ll assume the “dark” is the depths of space, not the bastion of the undead. Exactly. Especially as we go through 300-some-odd pages of human resistance fighters with nary a vampire in sight. Except that the Romanian leader of the resistance movement (who shows up more than half-way through the book) turns out to be Dracula. But he doesn’t avoid sunlight, he has no aversion to garlic, and the abilities he displays in the last chapter are exactly consistent with the B-movie vampire mythos. Now, if one character ever asked “Why don’t I ever meet him during the day?” or a “How did he get into that bunker?” or “Those bullets sure look like they hit him, but it must have been an lucky near miss” I would be more accepting. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/10 "2012-03-12T18:49:19Z")
Agreed - the book was fun with the resistance style stuff. It feels like he wrote 2/3 of a good resistance book, realized that he would need to have some way to hand-wave the risk of the aliens just saying “screw it, nuke 'em from orbit.” Then he remembered his unfinished short story of Dracula fighting off an alien invasion and glued it together. ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/11 "2012-03-12T19:09:26Z")
I really like to read Mr. Weber’s stuff, and even I had a hard time swallowing that load of bull. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/12 "2012-03-12T19:11:55Z")
Reminds me of an old horror comic that had an alien ship abducting a cowboy in the 1800’s. Cowboy ends up killing shitloads of aliens, repeatedly escaping capture, and finally, tearing aliens apart with his bare hands. They hustle him off the ship, set out orbiting buoys to _stay the fuck away from this planet if you value your space-nuts_, and warp away to recover from the ass-beating. Final page of the comic book is the cowboy wandering over the plains at night and finally climbing back into his coffin before the sun rises. _DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN_ ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/13 "2012-03-12T19:13:19Z")
Is _deau ex machina_ the same as _deus ex machina_? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/14 "2012-03-12T19:30:52Z")
> [@An\_Gadai](#): > > Is _deau ex machina_ the same as _deus ex machina_? Yes, for the typing challenged. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/15 "2012-03-12T20:03:18Z")
I decided I needed a new genre term midway through that book: ordinance porn. He spent a lot more time lovingly detailing the weaponry and ammunition and so forth used–its exact size, its chemical composition, its speed, its explosive power–than he spent making me give a shit about any of the characters. Every time a new gun showed up, you could hear the bow-chicka-wow-wow. So when Dracula saved the day, I burst out laughing. The book went from merely terrible to truly campy. ---
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/16 "2012-03-12T20:16:24Z")
So, someone actually wrote an alien space bats novel? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/17 "2012-03-12T20:25:17Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > I decided I needed a new genre term midway through that book: ordinance porn. He spent a lot more time lovingly detailing the weaponry and ammunition and so forth used–its exact size, its chemical composition, its speed, its explosive power–than he spent making me give a shit about any of the characters. Every time a new gun showed up, you could hear the bow-chicka-wow-wow. And this is different than any other Weber book how? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve probably read 95% of his books, multiple times, but you can skip about 50% of the pagecount and not miss a bit of plot once you learn his cues for ‘tech/political info dump coming’. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/18 "2012-03-12T20:49:23Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Reminds me of an old horror comic that had an alien ship abducting a cowboy in the 1800’s. Cowboy ends up killing shitloads of aliens, repeatedly escaping capture, and finally, tearing aliens apart with his bare hands. They hustle him off the ship, set out orbiting buoys to _stay the fuck away from this planet if you value your space-nuts_, and warp away to recover from the ass-beating. > > Final page of the comic book is the cowboy wandering over the plains at night and finally climbing back into his coffin before the sun rises. > > _DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUN_ Unlike the Weber book under discussion, that actually sounds pretty entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/19 "2012-03-12T21:23:43Z")
> [@The\_Lurker\_Above](#): > > And this is different than any other Weber book how? Given my description, what would possibly make you think I’d put myself through that experience twice? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2012, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564/20 "2012-03-13T00:24:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Given my description, what would possibly make you think I’d put myself through that experience twice? 😃 Maybe you \*like \* [ordinance] porn? 😃 Someone has to, look at how many feet of shelf-space Weber takes up in a normal bookstore. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/david-weber-you-cheating-bastard/615564.md?page=2)