Out of the Dark (Weber novel)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alas, Poor Villain: Ground Base Commander Shairez. She may be responsible for kidnapping humans to develop a plague to wipe us all out, but through most of the book she's shown as an intelligent, curious, hard working, and capable aide who is one of the more likable enemies and often serves to draw out the Admiral's softer side. In the end, she's tortured for info for several hours by Vlad the f'ing Impaler.
  • Audience-Alienating Premise: The Genre Shift Twist Ending alienates some hard SF fans.
  • Genius Bonus: Mircea Basarab. Mircea II was Vlad Tepes' brother. Basarab II was another Wallachian Prince from that time period. (The succession of the Wallachian throne is too nightmarishly complex to explain here.)
  • Ho Yay: Mircea and Stephen. Mircea calls him "my Stephen" and likes to touch his hand or shoulder as they talk. (This is portrayed as a difference in foreign values on personal space, but slash fans will probably squee anyway.) Stephen comes to admire him in return. Later, Mircea turns him into a vampire, and Stephen decides to follow him for life to show him that Mircea/Dracula can still be a good man too.
  • Only the Author Can Save Them Now: Before the Twist Ending, humanity pretty much has no chance, and it looks like the book will be about how we going down fighting to the end.
  • Shocking Swerve: Into a Genre Shift.
    • It is foreshadowed, though. Mircea Basarab's name. The Wallachia region of Romania is practically only known for Dracula. Mircea also reveals that he's seen the movie Dracula before and how they got everything wrong (though he leads you to believe he means just about Romania). He also impales his enemies' corpses on a stake to anger their comrades. The title is also a clue, albeit a misleading one.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Dark_(Weber_novel)/YMMV?oldid=1930204"