To Challenge Heaven

Out of the Dark #3

by David Weber, Chris Kennedy

In a universe teeming with predators, humanity needs friends. And fast.

We've come a long way in the forty years since the Shongairi attacked Earth, killed half its people, and then were driven away by an alliance of humans with the other sentient bipeds who inhabit our planet.

We took the technology they left behind, and rapidly built ourselves into a starfaring civilization. Because we haven't got a moment to lose. Because it's clear that there are even more powerful, more hostile aliens out there, and Earth needs allies.

But it also transpires that the Shongairi expedition that nearly destroyed our home planet ... wasn't an official one. That, indeed, its commander may have been acting as an unwitting cats-paw for the Founders, the ancient alliance of very old, very evil aliens who run the Hegemony that dominates our galaxy, and who hold the Shongairi, as they hold most non-Founder species, in not-so-benign contempt.

Indeed, it may turn out to be possible to turn the Shongairi into our allies against the Hegemony. There's just the small matter of the Shongairi honor code, which makes bushido look like a child's game. We might be able to make them our friends -- if we can crush their planetary defenses in the greatest battle we, or they, have ever seen...

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Military Fiction, Military Science Fiction, Fantasy, Aliens, Audiobook

276 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 16, 2024

About the author

David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1952.

Many of his stories have military, particularly naval, themes, and fit into the military science fiction genre. He frequently places female leading characters in what have been traditionally male roles.

One of his most popular and enduring characters is Honor Harrington whose alliterated name is an homage to C.S. Forester's character Horatio Hornblower and her last name from a fleet doctor in Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander . Her story, together with the "Honorverse" she inhabits, has been developed through 16 novels and six shared-universe anthologies, as of spring 2013 (other works are in production). In 2008, he donated his archive to the department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Northern Illinois University.

Many of his books are available online, either in their entirety as part of the Baen Free Library or, in the case of more recent books, in the form of sample chapters (typically the first 25-33% of the work).

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidw...

Reviews

[Rachel (TheShadesofOrange) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/9q64BSnOQBg

I loved this military science fiction novel. It's not always a genre that works well for me, but this story immediately pulled me in.

When I initially requested this one, I wasn't entirely sure how it connected to the authors’ previous work. It turns out this is more of a chronological series than a companion one.

Despite jumping into this one blind, I found myself absolutely engrossed. There was a horror element to this story that surprised and deleted me. The military elements were also incredibly interesting. After finishing this one, I wanted to go back to the beginning and experience the full story.

I would definitely recommend this science fiction story to those that love high stakes and gripping narratives.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Challenge Heaven by David Weber and Chris Kennedy is the third book in the "Out of the Dark" series.
In this one, the human race has decided to take it to the Shongairi and the Hegemony. The Shongairi first because of the unprovoked attack on Earth and the Hegemony next because of their treatment of what they think of as lesser intelligences. Both the Shongairi and the Hegemony think themselves safe from the lesser humans but they did not count on human inventiveness and stubbornness!
This is a great series and I look forward to future installments.

[James DePolo · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but it's pretty standard military sci-fi fare. The characters are good, and build off of the first two books. It just isn't quite long enough to handle the depth of content it wants to talk about, and spends longer on the battle scenes than necessary.

Weber's writing remains consistently good, but this is far from his strongest work.

[Jim Gutzwiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Challenge Heaven ( Out of the Dark Book 3 )

I read book 1 as a paperback oh so many years ago. I thought then that attacking aliens and finding Vlad Drakul real and still alive, well, that was brilliant!
I know, I am sure there were people that poopooed the whole thought as just too far fetched. But it worked! And still works.
This has been very entertaining and a joy to read.
Thank you for something different!

[Eric Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

ehh read

If you’re expecting this to be like the first book it’s not, it’s kinda boring and predictable. Wouldn’t waste my time or dollars on it.

[Per Gunnar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series started a bit hesitantly with Out of the Dark which was not great but not bad either. Out of the Dark was followed up with Into the Light which was really good and now we arrived at this one which is a five star one for me.

Although this series is mostly science fiction it has a doze of fantasy in it even though the authors adds a half plausible scientific explanation for… vampires.

I do like the type of story this series spins. Humanity learns that we are not alone, the very, very hard way. They rise from the ashes and starts to do some serious alien ass kicking. This book is very much about the latter and, in particular, taking the fight to the enemy. Or is it the enemy?

The book is very well written as one would expect from a David Weber book and I am happy that, unlike some of David Weber’s books lately, it is not suffering from word diarrhea with endless dialogues and discussions. Even if it is well written it becomes boring if there is too much bla bla.

This books has a nice mix of everything including plenty of action and alien take downs, good characters, technological advancements and a few twists.

I especially like that the humans truly kicks alien behinds in this book and the mix of space ships, big fucking guns and space vampires was a delight to read. Yes, the space vampires actually works in this book and is not as tacky as one would suspect.

At the end of the day humanity not only teaches alien bad guys the error of their ways but gains some surprising allies.

Eagerly waiting for the next book in the series.

[Philippe · Rating 5 out of 5]

And the hits keep rolling on

I have to admit I love reading a well thought out story line. Weber and Kennedy have taken the alien invasion of Earth scenario and run with it in a "darn interesting " direction to use some old American slang. It actually reminds me of a short story by Alan Dean Foster titled With Friends Like These - published in 1977 as an homage to Éric Frank Russell. To put it bluntly, Terrans kick butt. What Mr Weber and Mr Kennedy have done is added some serious thought on HOW a human polity / civilisation would organize itself after surviving a devastating attack on our mother Earth and seek out some revenge. Throw in an old Earth myth (vampires), some really wild battles and it's an amazing, fun reading experience. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I think this series is great speculative fiction. Thank you Dave and Chris for a lovely novel. Look forward to the next one.

[JanBernd Berg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast paced pageturner and excellent third book

After fitting follow up to the first two books in this series. The authors are clearly hitting their stride and this one is an even better read than the first one.
My only regret is that it took me just over a day to finish it and now I have to wait for an eternity for the next book.

[Icy-Cobwebs-Crossing-SpaceTime · Rating 5 out of 5]

TO CHALLENGE HEAVEN is exciting, dramatic, Science Fiction adventure from prolific author David Weber and Chris Kennedy, third in the OUT OF THE DARK Series [OUT OF THE DARK; INTO THE LIGHT]. Lots of Alien involvement plus Earth survivors who bring Survivalism and righteous Resistance to a new order of magnitude as they battle against the destructive invading aliens to preserve what little is left of Earth's civilization.

Appealing for fans of Military Science Fiction, Survivalism, and Extraterrestrial Species.

I also very much enjoyed the narration of this Audio version, while anticipating the upcoming digital version (January 16).

[Knits Reads Games Sings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this in the moment, in a "can't stop reading" sort of way. I thought it was much better than the second book, and on par with the first. Maybe even slightly better. It was only after it was done and I started to think about it that a touch of disappointment set in.

Number one, the lack of vampires. My guess is that the hard/military sci-fi crowd were so disgusted by the vampires when they first showed up in Out of the Dark that the authors have avoided using them much since. Which is a shame, especially after they gave them a harder sci-fi origin in book 2.

Whatever the reason, they aren't used much in book 2 or 3, and the time devoted to Vlad learning the truth is decidedly perfunctory. There should have been more. More time, more angst, more processing. In addition, since there was little about the vampires, there was also little about the apparent fifth founder. Were they themselves a machine race? Why do some vampires always go dark? Is that the human condition, or something in the nanite programming? Did it have anything to do with the downfall of the fifth founder?

Second, I don't think the Hegemony, as described and understood by humans, makes sense. It was easier to accept in the abstract, but after seeing the Liatu in action I have questions/issues. How is the Hegemony confident to the point of stupidity, which the Liatu definitely are, while also being paranoid to the point of having 14 layers of redundancy in everything they build at every possible point? How do people who are terrified of omnivores and carnivores have absolutely no empathy? How can they possibly believe that their methods are any less wrong than outright bloodshed? Especially since their methods still end in death. How can they be disgusted by bloodshed but be fine with the deliberate murder of "nuisance animals"? How do people with absolutely no empathy work together with at least three other races? At all, much less for millennia?

At this point, it's looking like the fifth race will eventually be outed as the smart one behind so much of their technology, and the one possessed of empathy, and that's at least part of why they were wiped out. But if so, it still doesn't explain how they got suckered into partnering with 4 races of sociopaths. Or how those races survived their own people long enough to even reach the stars.

Third, everything seems far too easy for humanity. Yeah, humanity suffered a massive loss in the first book. But now they can outthink and outgun and outfly everyone in the known universe. I give the authors credit, as they managed to make things tense through pacing, but the payoff is kind of anticlimactic. If it's going to be that easy for humanity, there needs to be something to counterbalance it. Show us the aliens trying to cope--by which I don't mean an alien sitting there confidently screaming that this can't be happening. Give them some actual thought. This is another problem with making the Hegemony sociopaths. On one hand, their losses come so easily that there's no real emotional payoff when humanity wins. On the other hand, the "bad guys" are so despicable that we don't care about their struggles at all.

Lastly, there are still paragraphs and paragraphs of unnecessary exposition. Stuff that leaves me no more knowledgeable by the end than I was at the beginning. Telling me that each missile salvo is comprised of four types of missiles, each with a specific purpose? Sure. Telling me the details of each of those four and how they're better than other types of missiles, and exactly how they work? Wasted text.

On the positive side, I like that humanity is depicted as good in a way that individual humans definitely can be. Humanity as a whole is good because there are good, moral people leading them. That's believable, where all of humanity suddenly having a working moral compass would not be. And I do enjoy reading about humans having a working moral compass.

[Raymond Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

After an unprovoked attack kills half the population, humanity strikes back against the Hegemony, an uneasy alliance of aliens who are intolerant of ‘inferior’ peoples. Taking advantage of their superior technology, they overwhelm, first the Shongairi (canids?) who launched the attack, then the Liatu (cold-blooded amphibians).
This is military science fiction in the style of Robert Heinlein’s Spaceship Troopers and developed into a fine art by Weber. Resourcefulness, adaptability, and devotion to duty equip humanity to overcome any alien challenge, and the initial atrocity provides a justification for the violent retaliation, especially since it is tempered by mercy when resistance crumbles. The deployment of immortal vampires adds an interesting variation in the familiar pattern.
The process of filling in the backstory slows the start of the novel and the enthusiasm for rugged individualism becomes a bit intrusive, but once the action heats up, the pace is relentless. Extended appendices provide plenty of detail about the culture of the aliens.
Highly recommended to fans of military science fiction.
(Wouldn’t it be nice if humanity were as dedicated to fighting climate change as to fighting aliens?)

[Catalin Calenic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoo Boy! What can i say? Despite liking a lot of Weber's work and planning on listening to other series he wrote/cowrote, it is really starting to grate me. His faux diversity, David has literally on 3 characters in this series : the moral good guy/girl that is stoic and efficinent and is a mouthpiece for the author expuasing his "history knowledge", the poor victims that the americans.. ah am i mean good guys come and rescue and the evil doers. That is it. There are literally only 3 characters, and if you think there are other people, no , they are not, they are different incarnations for these 3 characters and it is starting to grate me badly. And again, i dont mean character archetype, i literally mean the same f-ing person. All the good guys/girls / whatever the third sex the bird aliens have are just the same f-ing character. The bad people are all the same f-ing character. Sad. Very sad.

[Rosemary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a review of the audio book version of "To Challenge Heaven."
I am always interested in Weber's books, although I do feel he is paid by the word.
This story falls into the "sort of wordy" category.
I have been eagerly awaiting this "next in series" story.
I consider this a place holder, it ties the first two books up and sets up the story for the next few books; that said it is not really necessary to the story arc. I think the action could have been covered in another longer book instead of this one.
The narrator uses multiple accent ques that I feel distract from the story. Vlad has a Slavic accent and there are a couple of deep Irish voices, plus an England English or two. The three appendixes are tedious beyond words.
I always hate to give a negative review but for me, this was a waste of time. I hope the next book is better.

[Mike Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

To Challenge Heaven by David Weber and Chris Kennedy is the third book in Weber’s Out of the Dark series. This book starts exactly where Into the Light, the last book left off as the task force led by Dave Dvorak rendezvous with Vlad Drakulya aboard the dreadnought Targoviste, captured from the Shongairi. Dvorak’s task force had just forced the Sarth to join Earth in an alliance against the Shongairi. They were now set to target the Shongairi, the race that had actually attacked Earth resulting in the loss of over half Earth’s human population.

Dvorak, however, brings a change in plans; rather than destroying Shongairi in a brutal act of revenge, Earth now wants to bring them into their budding alliance and take the war to the Founders.

This is accomplished by Jukaris, the Shongairi code of honor. Rather than having to conquer the entire system, the task force is only required to prove to the Shongairi that they have honorably resisted their attackers and yield.

The task force is able to accomplish this and Shongairi is added to the alliance.

Meanwhile, another Earth task force led by former Earth president Judson Howell, has set their sights on the planet Tairys and the entire Tairyon system, one of the Founder races of the Hegemony, the ruling group of a vast interstellar empire. It was the Hegemony that allowed the Shongairi to initially attack Earth.

Using the advanced technology in spacecraft, weapons and strategic intelligence. Not surprisingly, but seemingly way too easily, Howell’s task force overwhelms the Tairyonians and banishes them from the planet.

This story caries on the general theme from the last book – getting back at those that attacked and caused overwhelming devastation on Earth. The victories by the Earth forces, however, do seem to be coming a bit too easily against established civilizations that have conducted space travel and inter planetary wars for thousands of years. I also wish that this book hadn’t taken 3 years to publish from the last book.

[Lucy Takeda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore the Harrington series because of the interactions between characters. I’m not terribly interested in war scenes. I also jumped into this series with this novel without reading the first two books in the series, which creates issues. I found it fairly entertaining, and have requested the starting novel from the library.
The idea of an SF novel with vampires is interesting. Evidently some psycho alien attacked Earth and all humans centuries ago. However, humans somehow managed to eliminate the attacking force, and is now going out to face one of the entities that attacked them. Being human ( which tends to offer numerous bonuses in Weber’s universes), the humans have researched the psychology of the alien that tried to decimate the human race.
Oh! The glossary was a great idea! However, three times when I went to check the definition of words, they weren’t on the list. 😕

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book carries the series forward. While the previous book, "Into the Light", left the reader with a bit of a cliffhanger, this one ends in a much better place. There is a big opening for a sequel, but one could end the series here if one wished and imaginge what might happen to the rest of the galaxy thereafter... somewhat like how the "Troy Rising" series by John Ringo ended... several years ago. I still want a sequel, but I am happy with where the series ended.

I can't imagine reading this book without reading the first two in the series so be warned.

I'll probably read this book again.

[John K. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weber provided a pleasant degree of realistic space naval combat. Then Chris Kennedy came in. His work was obvious. Mediocre alien interactions. Really bogus, clumsy alien words that mostly made me sigh with disgust at the silliness. I almost gave the book a B- rating, but Weber came through in the end. I may buy the next one in the series, but i still have to admit that the plot was pretty predictable. Arrogant aliens think they can trounce humans. But we are so surprisingly smart, we kick their butts. That is an OLD meme in scifi. I am glad i am starting to see less of that in scifi lately.

[Andy Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Weber continues his 'Out of the Dark' series with this fine entry. Humanity finally goes to Shongar, the planetary system that sent out Thirkirk, the admiral who attacked Earth and killed more than half the world's population in the first book.

Humanity, with the help of another intelligent species, had been able to defeat the Shongari invaders and take over their ships and technology. They freed another race who had been subjugated by the Shongari.

Studying Shongari history, humanity realized they too were manipulated by the galaxy-spanning Hegemony. They classified all races by vegetarian, carnivorous, or omnivore.

Humanity intended to break the mold.

[Craig Beyers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arrgh…it always helps to read the early books in a series, which I wasn’t able to do before reading this book. That meant I had a bit to learn before understanding the plot issues; I persevered. Having strong ethics seems to be a common theme running through the books I’ve read lately and that’s one of the major themes in this book. This book might have been better—for me—if I’d had the context of this series first, as the ethics theme with the Liatu and Tairyonians might have made more sense and made the book more compelling. If you like diplomatic stalemates with aliens and space wars, you’ll like this book and probably the series.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished this third book in the Out of the Dark series. I have read all of the Honor Harrington books and, this series is an excellent follow-up. Although not set in the same universe as Manticore, this is an excellent series of books. It explores in some detail 3 alien and very different species as well as a look from afar at the static and bloated Galactic Hegemony. The development of the various characters and the socio-political explanations of the societies are excellent. The action sequences are very well done both planetary and in space. More evidence of why David Weber is such a highly regarded writer. It is difficult to find space opera on a level with his books.

[Kathryn Baron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that was disappointing. I really enjoyed the 1st book in the series. It had humor and a capacity to pleasantly surprise me. But this? It's taken David Wener's propensity to recount _at very, very, very great length_ imaginary weapons capabilities to a new extreme. Really, if it must be included - that’s what appendices are for. The contest - isn't. The little bit of character interaction adds no new insights. It's a quick read. But boring, boring, boring. Predetermined outcomes just are not that interesting. Add in reuse of a plot twist?Weapons porn and not much else is left.

[Willuknight Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quite challenging to write a book about the good guys vs the bad guys, when the bad guys are hopelessly outmatched with no chance of winning, and have it be interesting.

The Author duo achieve this well, and scratch that itch I've always had about what happens after the win..

If you don't like detail or history or too many named characters you won't enjoy this. It has David Weber TM massive missile paragraphs , but aside from that and the previously mentioned fait accompli, this is a solid story.

I am looking forward to more stories from this universe.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book feels like a tale of Nimue Alban (vs. the Gbaba) / Honor Harrington in a new milieu numb. The characters are thrown into an Uplift (Brin) / Starship Troopers (Heinlein says save humanity with military badassery) / Old Man's War (Scalzi's humans are inexplicably vigorous and scary) universe, and must power fantasy to save first humanity, then their allies (puppies & gorillas! dolphins & whales next?), and then the rest of the galaxy in an over-the-top power fantasy. Will they eventually restore the march of progress, and find & rescue the hiding Heechee (Pohl)?

[Dolar84 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Third part of Out of the Dark series was sadly a bit disappointing.

As long as authors were writing about politics, technology and such it was very good. Great even. But when we were presented with battles... well, they were so horribly one-sided... Ok, I know that the plot justifies it, bo it was simply boring. If the do-gooders are invincible, to the point, that their adversary can't land even a single hit it's not an interesting writing but a sad parody. And the amount of missiles fired? It was simply ridiculous. And even so I'm a Weber fan I simply can't recommend this book.

[Michael Scottfenton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointed in this book. Endless discussions and descriptions that did nothing to move the story and plot. It felt like the publisher required a specific word count and this is how they satisfied it. I found myself just scrolling through the pages until the story actually picked up again.

There will obviously be a forth book and maybe more but I am done with this series. I have enjoyed Webers books in the past but this did not feel like his book maybe the co-author wrote it.

[Kamal Syed · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scope of the series has opened wide and now seems to be starting on a whole new arc. Not a lot of plot tension given the tech superiority of the protagonists, but lots of foreshadowing of the upcoming challenges of humanity against the Galactic Hegemony.

Surprisingly short for a David Weber book, but thankfully short of the very extended political discourse and good old boy chats that run on for too many pages, though there is still some of that.

[Adena Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was emotion-writing and so hard to put down. The heart-wrenching - that was my reaction to the depictions of war and atrocities on multiple fronts. The laughs - that was my reaction to Stephen's and Vlad's reaction to Dave's recounting of the results of his prior mission as well as the last line of the novel. Howell is going to get Dave for this, I am sure .... Any chance that we can see how?!???

[MAB LongBeach · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a David Weber book, with everything that implies, both good and bad. It's the third book in a series, after Out of the Dark and Into the Light. Starting here would probably work okay, since a lot of the backstory is explained in the early book itself. But better to start with the first one.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Richard K. Hatfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

there are more books in this series?

Who is a very good book. Enjoy these I read. It’s only three books. I hope there are more books. Coming from David Weber, and this other author. It’s a very good series. Hope we never see anything like this but enjoy it. Read it. enjoyed reading the whole series.

[William Jerkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding

I love the storys that David weber puts out. I have read a good bit of his work and have enjoyed every one that I've ever read. He brings his characters to life. You can literally see them in your mind's eye. He's one of a kind as good as Heinlein or drake or even Ringo. Long story short, great book.