I found the book disappointing but not for the ending.
You see, the book is an expansion of an existing short story and the ending is the effectively the short story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_...rk_(2010_novel)
Quote:
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Out of the Dark is an alien invasion science fiction novel by David Weber released by Tor Books on September 28, 2010.[1] This novel is an extended version of the short story of the same name in the 2010 anthology Warriors.
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So, from my side, the book took forever to get to the point and then wrapped up without fully exploring the concept at its core.
In other words, instead of taking 90% of the book to get to the book's core conceit, I wanted him to engage the two parties and then have a nice and detailed knock-down-drag-out fight.
Instead of expanding the short story, he effectively prequeled it.
The result is well written, with interesting characters and scenarios but it is something of a bait and switch. It's like he got drawn in by the narrative of the "prequel" and only patched it to the short story at the end because that is what the contract called for.
(sigh)
In a way, the concept screams for a sequel more than a prequel, so maybe that was the intent.
For an older but more tightly focused take on a modern invasion story, try Niven and Pournelle's FOOTFALL (if you haven't yet). It plays with a similar scenario but with a different core concept: aliens arrive to colonize, find the system's habitable planet heavily occupied, but since their tech is superior, they go conqueror and force a surrender from the governments. What they fail to appreciate is humans don't have a surrender reflex--they *will* fight to the death even when death is assured. And that is only the first of the shocks the monkey boys throw at them.
Both OUT OF THE DARK and FOOTFALL are good reads but FOOTFALL is more satisfying. Especially because of its ending...