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From: Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: "To Challenge Heaven (Out of the Dark, 3)" by David Weber and Chris
 Kennedy
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 16:36:04 -0500
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"To Challenge Heaven (Out of the Dark, 3)" by David Weber and Chris Kennedy
    https://www.amazon.com/Challenge-Heaven-Out-Dark/dp/1250907411/

Book number three of a three book series of an alien invasion science 
fiction series.  I read the well printed and well bound MMPB published 
by Tor in 2023 that I bought new on Amazon.  I suspect and look forward 
to that there will be more books in the series as the third book ends on 
a mild cliffhanger.

I've got vampires in my alien invasion science fiction book !  Prince 
Vlad Draculya, aka Vald the Impaler, lives !  Or some variant of living 
as he has been composed of nanobots since the middle 1400s.  He does not 
drink blood but he did kill thousands of Turkish muslim invaders into 
his beloved eastern Europe in the 1400s.  And his nanobots are solar 
powered so he does not eat and is virtually immortal.

The first book in the series detailed an invasion by the Shongairi in 
which they used multiple kinetic weapons from orbit on every city on 
Earth of 100,000+ people and all military bases.  Half of the human 
population of Earth died in a matter of minutes.  Due to the fact that 
the Shongairi space ships could only attain six times the speed of 
light, their understanding of Earth technology was very outdated and 
they did not know that we had progressed from an agrarian society into a 
very industrialized society.

As the first Shongairi troop ships were landing on the Earth, they were 
destroyed by F-22 stealth fighter jets.  As soon as the F-22 jets landed 
at their hidden airfields, those were also destroyed using kinetic 
weapons.  After the Shongairi troops rampaged through the Earth 
population remnants and killed half of the survivors from the initial 
attack, the vampires appeared out of Eastern Europe.  The vampires were 
virtually indestructible and rode back up on the outside of their 
landers to the Shongairi space ships in Earth orbit.  They then boarded 
the space ships and proceed to kill all the Shongairi invaders in orbit.

The second book in the series details how the horribly damaged human 
population on Earth has to rebuild, both the population and the 
facilities / infrastructure.  But they have an advantage, the now empty 
Shongairi space ships and several Galactic Hegemony neural educators. 
Vlad Dracula has taken one of the interstellar space ships with a crew 
of several hundred and is headed 200+ light years to the Shongairi home 
planet to pay back some of the damage that they did to Earth.  And one 
of the few remaining state governors of the USA has become the USA 
President and is planning on creating a one world government to fight 
the Galactic Hegemony.

The third book in the series goes through the Terrans taking the battle 
back to the Shong System.  And to other star systems under control of 
the Galactic Hegemony.

David Weber has an excellent website at:
    http://www.davidweber.net/

Chris Kennedy has a website at:
    https://chriskennedypublishing.com

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars (1,353 reviews)

Lynn