He is a hack. A loving, silly old hack.
And ordinance porn is a great description for his ouvre (hacks love this word).
But the first couple of Honor Harrington books are great. The first three, actually
Obsessive nitpick: “ordnance”.
An “ordinance” is a law or regulation, as in “city zoning ordinance”. “Ordnance” without the “i” is weaponry.
He meant to say “(un)dead ex machina.”
Yikes–appreciate the correction!
Dracula AKA Vlad the impaler was named Vlad Tepes. Drakul was his dad.
City Councilman Melvin Fleeberman smiled suavely, the light glinting off the gold chains draped across his pectoral muscles, visible below his partly-unbuttoned Oxford shirt and loosened tie. “According to sub-paragraph (a), paragraph (iv), section 127, title 9 (water and sewerage) of the municipal code, no permit can be issued for the project in question without a complete environmental impact statement, including a detailed workup of the project’s impact on local wetlands.”
“I think you’ll find you’re overlooking sub-paragraph (d), paragraph (xiii), dealing with minority-owned businesses,” purred attorney Anita Mann, leaning forward to display her black-lace-edged bra and the pink cleavage beneath it coyly peeking from the folds of her sternly businesslike blue pantsuit.
boom-chicka-wow-wow
Is it possible the WTFness is because this was originally a short story, padded out to novel length?
That’s fantastic.
That is an explanation, not an excuse.
Oh, I wasn’t trying to excuse anything Weber did. I’m not a fan (not even the Honor Sue stuff)
Honestly, I think that Weber’s greatest gift is in constructing a framework that other authors can hang stories onto. In the Honorverse, for instance, the main books can rather drag (although, as of the last one, things are actually happening again), but the side books with co-authors are great.
I remember an old horror comic I read as a kid, in which the alien invaders won. They blasted most of the planet, but then, to their surprise, found some survivors walking around.
The aliens picked them up in order to examine them, wondering how anyone was still alive. Turns out they were vampires, and the fires had burned away the stakes in their hearts.
And they could suck alien blood. And said aliens had thoughtfully provided them with spaceships, so they could REALLY go hunting!
If those vampires had appeared in better science-fiction in the last ten pages–say, The Sparrow, or Left Hand of Darkness, or Spin, or just about any other science fiction–I probably would have been annoyed. It is to Weber’s credit that he can write a book so bad that a last-minute salvation by Dracula counts as an improvement.
I believe that’s the classic horror story And Not Quite Human.
That is some funny shit right there. I rarely laugh out loud while reading the SDMB anymore, but you got me. 
I tried to read this book too, except I didn’t even make it to the part with the vampires. Too much detail about the guns instead of the person firing them, along with characters I couldn’t have given a shit about if I tried.
One redeeming feature about Out of the Dark, and the only one: None of the summaries I read mention the vampires as being “sparkly”. Thank Og for small favors.
I had originally wanted to read this book, then I read about the vampires and passed it up. I think I picked up, “Spin” instead.
Wise choice.
So I happen to like vampires, generally speaking. (of the non-sparkling variety. Hammer and Universal Dracula movies, Buffy/Angel, Forever Knight, Dark Shadows, Ravenloft, etc.) A friend of my knew this, and told me to read this book, without spoiling anything. I just finished it last week, in fact. My friend was hoping that with all the vampire lore rattling in my brain, I might see some foreshadowing of the twist that he’d missed, guess it ahead of time, and thus redeem the book. Nope. I was as surprised and dismayed as anyone.
I understand this was a short story padded out to book length, but it seems like he forgot what the short story was about when writing the boring 200 pages leading up to it. No foreshadowing, no warning.
Now, Dracula walking in daylight, that’s straight from the original book, and it’s the Coppola film too, at least. No problem there. And the character who would be revealed as Dracula did reference a line from the movie about mid-book, and give a brief defense of the historical Dracula. But it’s a far cry from a random Romanian poking fun at the Anglicization/Americanization of his country’s legends to finding out that he IS the legend. :rolleyes:
“Vampires vs. Aliens” is a concept I’d have no problem with. It would be fun, normally. But chapter after chapter of ordnance porn (thanks for the term!), indistinguishable characters, repetitive battle scenes*, outright stupidity on the part of the aliens, jingoist humanocentric “yay, we’re more special than the rest of the universe!” undertones, technical errors (802.11 “WAP” encryption?), and just boring writing… followed by vampire ex machina to save the day? BLEAGH!
terrible book… I’ve never read anything by Weber before, and this is not a good advertisement.
- Alien Commander: At least the roads are good. Can’t believe these primitives are kicking our ass so hard.
Human Commander: keep out of sight, radio silence, hold… hold… wait until they are on the bridge.
Alien Commander: dumdedum, let’s cross the bridge. No humans here.
Human Commander: Fire!
Alien Commander: WTF?!?
Humans win. Again!
Aliens blast site from orbit.
(repeat ad nauseum)
I seem to remember from Hack Writing 101 that a beau ex machina is when an attractive person of the opposite sex emerges from a machine.
Seriously, that Weber book sounds dire.