I have a fondness for military science fiction: David Weber, Elizabeth Moon, John Ringo are a few I tend to read regularly, although the list would be quite large if I were to go through all of my bookshelves. And I finished Out of the Dark last night and had to laugh!
I don't know how many of you might do this, although I do know others in the "industry" like me who are known to do the same. I started out listening to this book but was running out of time before I needed to move on to the next audiobook. Since I also had a print copy of the book on hand and read much faster than an audiobook does, I picked it up around chapter 17 and read the rest of it yesterday. (It helped that I was waiting at the dentist office and it was distracting me.) I did listen to the last disc in the car today, just to hear the ending again.
I don't want to give away his deus ex machina and abrupt ending, although the publishers did put it out there in their marketing so it really isn't a secret. However I will say that this title, first in a trilogy and based on a short story he wrote for a collection called Warriors, is typical fast paced and jargon heavy Weber. Some of his military characters do blur together and Charles Keating (the audio narrator) did a phenomenal job of prounouncing the aliens' names which helped me a great deal.
If you like Weber's other stuff, you'll probably enjoy this one as well. If you haven't read Weber, but like military SF, I don't know this is the one I'd suggest starting with . . . but on the other hand, I did laugh several times so it does have the humor to recommend it. There is also a great excuse for paranoia and building an equipped cabin off in the woods that had me ready to find my secret hideaway. And I will definitely be looking forward to books two and three in the trilogy (just hoping that fact is accurate).
I should also mention that I rarely buy books - those of you who know me and know I'm a librarian know that I fully support my local library by raising their circulation statistics. However, because of my job, I also receive a lot of advanced reading copies or sampler discs from publishers wanting me to read and recommend their stuff. This would be how I received Out of the Dark - but if I hadn't gotten a copy to read, I would have borrowed it from the library. What can I say? I like David Weber's work. Now if they'd only send me a copy of the new Honor Harrington to read . . . this one is written for teens and I can't wait to see how he manages YA Fiction!