History Literature / OutOftheDark

* ArtisticLicenseGeography: In the second book, people keep referring to Mexico as a South American country. Except one look at a map will place it firmly in North America. Why they simply didn't call it Latin American is anybody's guess.

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: When the alien invaders are about to make the human race extinct, someone on Earth finally decides to come out of his self-imposed exile and show them what ''real'' monsters can do.

* BigDamnHero: Ukrainian soldier Pieter Ushaklov saves a young girl and her infant brother, who almost got caught in Shongairi motor fire.

* BizarreAlienSexes: Sarthians have three sexes: male female, and neutro. Male and female impregnate the neutro with their gametes, which merge to form a zygote in the neutro's body. Unlike the largely male-dominated human societies, the child-bearing neutros tend to be higher on the social and political hierarchy of Sarth, probably since they tend to act as peacekeepers between the more aggressive and emotional males and females. Many national leaders are neutros. There is almost no sexual dimorphism between males and females, except for their plumage coloring and patterns, while neutros tend to be a little smaller and also have a unique plumage pattern. Sarthian families also consist of three partners.

* BreakTheHaughty: The Shongairi slowly start to lose morale as they realize that the backwater spear swinging primitives are anything but.

* CombatPragmatist: Eventually, the Shongairi, realizing that the humans have far too many personal firearms and experience in warfare than they do, start to use their control of Earth's orbitals to their advantage. Any time a Shongairi patrol is wiped out in a partisan ambush, the area is bombarded using a kinetic strike in DisproportionateRetribution to eliminate any survivors. Even with this tactic, the expedition's command staff later authorize kinetic bombardment fire missions to be called in by any of their field commanders.

* CripplingOverspecialization: The Shongairi are prepared for two kinds of combat -- kicking the crap out of primitives & space warfare. They are shocked to realize that humanity is far, far more advanced at warfare inside a gravity well; their tech could have done everything we did better, but they just never needed to.

* HopeSpot: Senior Squad Commander Laifayr has when when Dave's .50 Cal Barret rifle stops firing since it is out of ammo.

* MeaningfulRename: [[spoiler:After capturing the Shongairi ships, Vlad renames the flagship ''Star of Empire'' to ''Târgoviște'', his former capital city.]]

* NicknamingTheEnemy: English-speakers tend to call the Shongairi "puppies" due to their canine-like appearance.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: [[spoiler:Instant intangibility/gaseous form, invulnerability to conventional weapons, undetectable to thermal or night vision, no need to breathe, and no vulnerability to holy items. Although the second book reveals that they're actually robotic beings composed of nanobots. Presumably, when a person is exposed to nanobots by drinking a vampire's "blood", they start to quickly replace their organs and cells with more of themselves until there's nothing of the original biology left. Furthermore, the supposed weakness to the sun is due to their systems being overloaded by light on the ultraviolet spectrum, which they appear to be able to process like photosynthesize in plants, but Dracula found out that he could develop a gradual resistance over years to this weakness, and spends the first book walking in broad daylight like a normal human.]]

* CanadaEh: In the second book, Canada is revealed to be one of the nations to suffer least in the Western Hemisphere, alongside the US and Brazil. With Saskatchewan surviving relatively unscathed, it becomes the new seat of government. Canada is the first to accept President Howell's offer of forming the Continental Union.

* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: The Shongairi's trump card is their orbital firepower, which they use in lieu of effective ground forces. Whenever someone resists on the ground, the Shongairi orbital forces bomb them, or the nearest town within three or four miles. They don't seem to get that this is just making things worse. This is reinforced by Shongairi pack-based psychology, which tells them that the best way to force compliance is by bombing targets to demonstrate superiority, but [[HumanityIsInsane those insane humans]] just keep on fighting. [[spoiler:Actually invoked in the third novel while explaining what happened on Earth during the first book to the Shongairi emperor. He is told the expression itself and finds it quite useful, filing it away for later].]

* WhenAllYouHaveIsAHammer: The Shongairi's trump card is their orbital firepower, which they use in lieu of effective ground forces. Whenever someone resists on the ground, the Shongairi orbital forces bomb them, or the nearest town within three or four miles. They don't seem to get that this is just making things worse. This is reinforced by Shongairi pack-based psychology, which tells them that the best way to force compliance is by bombing targets to demonstrate superiority, but [[HumanityIsInsane those insane humans]] just keep on fighting. In the third novel, [[spoiler:the Shongairi emperor is told the expression itself and finds it quite useful, filing it away for later]].

** [[spoiler:The third book further expands upon the Shongairi's attitudes, revealing that they possess a CodeofHonour called Jukaris based on their pack mentality. A conflict with this honor code actually caused the botched invasion of Earth, due to Thikair realizing that, if he openly challenged Earth as the precepts of Jukaris required, humanity would manage to actually beat him on the planet's surface, and he might have to surrender to THEM. As a result, he initiated the orbital bombardment of Earth in a gamble to try and force them to submit without a challenge, and hope no one would ever realize he didn't.]]

* BittersweetEnding: By the end of the book, [[spoiler:Humanity has all it needs to strike back at the Shongairi homeworlds and the Hegemony, and to rebuild Earth]] but at the cost of three billion human lives thanks to the pre-landing orbital strikes and an unknown amount lost during the fighting on Earth.

%%* DarkAndTroubledPast: Mircea has quite a dark past with some surprising secrets.
%%* DeadpanSnarker: Mircea Basarab.

%%* {{Dracula}}: It's foreshadowed a bit, but it's called a TwistEnding for a reason.
%%** HeWhoFightsMonsters: Part of his history and why he avoids crossing the line.
%%** ThenLetMeBeEvil: What happens when he's finally pushed too far.

%%* GunPorn: '''Oh, yes...''' The other thing the book is criticized for, after the TwistEnding.
%%* HiddenAgendaVillain

%%* EarthIsABattlefield

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: [[spoiler:Instant intangibility/gaseous form, invulnerability to conventional weapons, undetectable to thermal or night vision, no need to breathe, and no vulnerability to holy items. Although the second book reveals that they're actually robotic beings composed of nanobots. Presumably, when a person is exposed to nanobots by drinking a vampire's "blood", they start to quickly replace their organs and cells with more of themselves until there's nothing of the original biology left.]]

* DeusExMachina: Throughout the story, the Shongairi invaders consistently lose ground battles to humans but pulverize the entire area from orbit afterwards. Towards the end they learn enough human tactics to capture a rebel village without resorting to orbital bombardment and develop a bioweapon to destroy what's left of humanity (clearly unaware that we happen to be ''extremely'' well versed in biological warfare). But just as they're about to deploy the virus [[spoiler:the leader of the village they captured to experiment on turns out to be freakin' Dracula and he and a handful of newly-spawned vampires single-handedly wipe out the entire invasion force]]. Hints that [[spoiler:Dracula]] was present were scattered throughout the book, but were relatively subtle, and the reader is expecting a hard sci-fi war novel, and not [[spoiler:fantasy elements to creep in and sucker punch them]].

* DisproportionateRetribution: The Shongairi retaliate for a group of tanks wiping out one of their ground convoys with an orbital kinetic strike that not only destroys the human tanks but also the nearby city.