Book picks similar to
Gunpowder & Embers by John Ringo


science-fiction
sci-fi
post-apocalyptic
fantasy

Throne of Stars


David Weber - 2014
    After much travail, Roger has developed into a competent and compassionate leader of men. That competence will be tested when Roger and the Marines face an even greater challenge. The Throne of Man has been usurped. With his brother dead and the forces of an interstellar empire arrayed against him, Roger must avenge his family and fight for the just rule of a thousand stars.About The Empire of Man Series:"Will fascinate sophisticated readers (the manual of arms for a four-armed, ten-foot soldier is a thing of beauty) . . . [and] grip straightforward action lovers." Publishers Weekly"Coauthors Weber and Ringo excel in depicting the lives and times of soldiers both on and off the battlefield." Library Journal

Dark Victory: A Novel of Alien Resistance


Brendan DuBois - 2016
    From two time Shamus Award winner Brendan DuBois comes a terrifying and original tale of a world populated mostly by teens, who are fighting to save their lives . . . and the future of planet Earth.A decade ago, the alien Creepers came to Earth, dropping asteroids to drown our coastal cities, detonating nuclear weapons overhead to destroy our communications, power and computer systems, and to set up their network of killer stealth satellites to kill anything on our planet that used modern technology. In a matter of days, Earth was driven back to a nineteenth century existence. Then the war really began, as the Creepers descended and set up domed bases that were impervious to everything save a nuclear bomb.For ten years then, the battered and surviving members of humanity have fought against the Creepers and their mechanized exoskeletons, until something unexpected has happened: a chance for victory. Sixteen-year-old Randy Knox has the usual problems of a teenage boy: getting along with his father, dating his sweetheart, and trying not to fail his junior year of high school. But Randy also has other demands on his time, as a sergeant in the N.H. National Guard, attached to the U.S. Army, and fighting the invading Creepers. Randy has dim memories of a time of electric lights, laptop computers, television screens and above all, plenty of food at every meal. On his twelfth birthday, he enlisted in the Army to carry on the fight, since most of the world’s adults have been killed off and it’s up to the younger generations to serve. But now, as a veteran of the Creeper war and with his K-9 partner Thor, Randy has learned to focus on the essentials: the best way to kill a Creeper, scrounge through abandoned buildings for old canned goods, and to avoid being turned into “barbecue bait.” He has earned the Bronze Star, two Purple Hearts, and the Combat Infantryman Badge. Endless war is all he knows. But now change has drastically come to his life. The current President of the United States has announced that scattered remnants of the Air Force have destroyed the Creeper’s Orbital Base, ensuring victory over the alien invaders. Those surviving Creepers on the Earth’s surface will be hunted down and exterminated, as a weary and wary population celebrates victory. Yet Randy is assigned a new mission: to escort a secret representative from the Governor of New Hampshire to the nation’s capital, to meet with the President. And at the last moment, a fellow teen soldier—the beautiful Serena Coulson and her mute younger brother Buddy—are assigned to join Randy. This secretive mission proves to be the most dangerous assignment of his life, as Randy tries to protect his charges from rampaging Creepers and criminal humans. And as he fights to reach the capitol with a vital mission, Randy learns that all of his skills in combating aliens may not be enough to survive the dark conspiracies of his fellow humans.

Resistance


Michael Z. Williamson - 2019
    WILLIAMSON. Featuring all-new stories by Larry Correia, Michael Z. Williamson, Brad R. Torgersen, Mike Massa, Kacey Ezell, and more! When the UN invaded the Freehold of Grainne, the intent was simple: Force a noncompliant star nation back into the collective. What the politicians hadn't accounted for was that the Freehold had spent 200 years as the haven for every independent, rebellious, self-reliant adventurer in human space. Its military are scattered remnants, its bases smoking ruins, its cities occupied. But Grainne and its space habitats have resources beyond measure. Retired intelligence agents, disabled veterans, animal handlers, petty smugglers, half-lame computer specialists, research scientists, planetary engineers, all have one goal in mind: Make the invaders suffer for their presumption. This isn't just resistance. It's vengeance. Stories by: Larry Correia Michael Z. Williamson Brad R. Torgersen Mike Massa Kacey Ezell Robert E. Hampson Aaron Haskins John F. Holmes Marisa Wolf Justin Watson Jason Cordova Jamie Ibson Jessica Schlenker Christopher Dinote Rob Reed Chris Smith Jaime DiNote Philip Wohlrab At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). Praise for Forged in Blood: “The anthology celebrates soldiers and their tools. . . . Most of all, it celebrates warriors and the stuff that makes them so—the mettle more than the metal.”—Tangent "Fans of combat science fiction will find this collection irresistible…an entertaining and engaging book."—The Daily News of Galveston County About Michael Z. Williamson: “A fast-paced, compulsive read . . . will appeal to fans of John Ringo, David Drake, Lois McMaster Bujold, and David Weber.”—Kliatt “Williamson's military expertise is impressive.”—SF Reviews Novels of Michael Z. Williamson's Freehold Universe: Freehold series Freehold The Weapon The Rogue Contact with Chaos Angeleyes Freehold: Forged in Blood Ripple Creek series Better to Beg Forgiveness . . . Do Unto Others . . . When Diplomacy Fails . . . Standalone A Long Time Until Now Michael Z. Williamson is retired military, having served twenty-five years in the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. He was deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Desert Fox. Williamson is a state-ranked competitive shooter in combat rifle and combat pistol. He has consulted on military matters, weapons and disaster preparedness for Discovery Channel and Outdoor Channel productions and is Editor-at-Large for Survivalblog, with 300,000 weekly readers. In addition, Williamson tests and reviews firearms and gear for manufacturers. Williamson’s books set in his Freehold Universe include Freehold, The Weapon, The Rogue, Better to Beg Forgiveness . . ., Do Unto Others . . ., and When Diplomacy Fails . . .. He is also the author of time travel novel A Long Time Until Now, as well as The Hero—the latter written in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author John Ringo. Williamson was born in England, raised in Liverpool and Toronto, Canada, and now resides in Indianapolis with his children.

Conqueror


David Drake - 2003
    There's only one problem -- Raj's overlord, whose paranoid suspicion of Raj has grown with every famous victory, until now he has room for only one thought: Raj Whitehall must die. . . .

Hope Rearmed


S.M. Stirling - 2014
    A young hero overcomes implacable foes to lead a planet fallen into a dark age back to the high point of its lost technological civilization. Contains The Anvil and The Steel in the General series.  Series relaunched in The Heretic and continuing in The Savior.After the collapse of the galactic Web, civilizations crumbled and chaos reigned on thousands of planets. Only on planet Bellevue was there a difference. There, a Fleet Battle Computer named Center had survived from the old civilization. When it found Raj Whitehall, the man who could execute its plan for reviving human civilization, he and Center started Bellevue back on the road leading to the stars. Now Raj Whitehall has come close to reuniting the entire planet of Bellevue. Because of his victories and because of the way he won them, Raj is loved by the people—and his army would follow him to Hell. Even those closest to him, his band of sworn companions and his wickedly subtle but utterly loyal wife, hold him in awe. And that's the problem. For though Raj battles only in the name of his emperor and has proven his loyalty again and again, still the half-mad jealousy and fear of that emperor Clerett is about to give Raj no choice but to revolt or face death and the loss of all he has gained for freedom.About prequel omnibus volume, Hope Reborn:"The various battles and intrigues–all of them very clever and some of them very unexpected–make up the core of these extremely well-written and unabashedly fun books. And really, the action never stops. I highly recommend them to you as they’ve come out in a tasty trade format that’s very easy to hold and lug around (they are, in other words, backpackable)."—Amazing Stories About the Raj Whitehall series:“[T]old with knowledge of military tactics and hardware, and vividly described action. . .devotees of military SF should enjoy themselves.”—Publishers Weekly“[A] thoroughly engrossing military sf series. . .superb battle scenes, ingenious weaponry and tactics, homages to Kipling, and many other goodies. High fun.”—Booklist

Worlds


Eric Flint - 2009
    Known for his New York Times best-selling alternate history novels, Flint is equally a master of shorter forms, and this large volume gathers the best of Flint's shorter works. This generous selection includes: several stories and short novels set in Flint's celebrated Ring of Fire alternate history series; two stories from Flint's Joe's World humorous fantasy series; a story with Dave Freer, set in their popular rats, bats and vats series; a short novel set in Flint and David Drake's Belisarius series; and several shared-universe stories set in David Drake's Foreign Legions universe, and a story set in David Weber's best-selling Honor Harrington universe.In addition to the fiction, Eric Flint has written an overall introduction, plus an introduction for each story, telling how it came to be written, which will make this an irresistible book for the thousands of Eric Flint fans.

The Ship Who Saved the Worlds


Anne McCaffrey - 2003
    Two Top-Selling Sequels to Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang in One VolumeOn a mission to search the galaxy for intelligent beings, Carialle and Keff encounter a bizarre alien race ruled by powerful sorcerers in The Ship Who Won, while in The Ship Errant, targeted by an Inspector General who believes she has been damaged by a past trauma, Carialle finds support from her human partner Keff and the globe-frog race they discovered.

Terminal Alliance


Jim C. Hines - 2017
    This would have worked out better for all involved if they hadn’t arrived after a mutated plague wiped out half the planet, turned the rest into shambling, near-unstoppable animals, and basically destroyed human civilization. You know—your standard apocalypse. The Krakau’s first impulse was to turn their ships around and go home. After all, it’s hard to establish diplomatic relations with mindless savages who eat your diplomats. Their second impulse was to try to fix us. A century later, human beings might not be what they once were, but at least they’re no longer trying to eat everyone. Mostly.Marion “Mops” Adamopoulos is surprisingly bright (for a human). As a Lieutenant on the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish, she’s in charge of the Shipboard Hygiene and Sanitation team. When a bioweapon attack by an alien race wipes out the Krakau command crew and reverts the rest of the humans to their feral state, only Mops and her team are left with their minds intact.Escaping the attacking aliens—not to mention her shambling crewmates—is only the beginning. Sure, Mops and her assortment of space janitors and plumbers can clean the ship, but flying the damn thing is another matter. As they struggle to keep the Pufferfish functioning and find a cure for their crew, they stumble onto a conspiracy that could threaten the entire alliance.A conspiracy born from the truth of what happened on Earth all those years ago…

Junkyard Cats


Faith Hunter - 2020
    But Shining is now something more than human. And the scrapyard is no longer just a scrapyard, but a place full of secrets that she has guarded for years.This life she has built, while empty, is predictable and safe. Until the only friend left from her previous life shows up, dead, in the back of a scrapped Tesla warplane, a note to her clutched in his fingers - a note warning her of a coming attack.Someone knows who she is. Someone knows what she is guarding. Will she be able to protect the scrapyard? Will she even survive? Or will she have to destroy everything she loves to keep her secrets out of the wrong hands?

Pyramid Scheme


Dave Freer - 2001
    It is growing, destroying the city as it does — and nothing seems able to stop it, not even the might of the US military. Somehow, the alien device is snatching people and — for unknown reasons — transporting them into worlds of mythology. Dr Lukacs is one of the victims. Granted, he's an expert on mythology. But myths are not something he'd thought to encounter personally. Or wanted to! Sure, he has a couple of tough paratroopers along with him, as well as a blonde Amazon biologist and a very capable maintenance mechanic. Unfortunately, modern weapons don't work, and the Greek gods are out to kill the heroes.Well, yes, they've got Medea and Arachne and the Sphinx on their side (both Sphinxes, actually — the Greek version as well as the Egyptian). And at least some of the Egyptian gods seem friendly.But that can be a very mixed blessing, to say the least. Oh, and whatever you do—don't mention dwarf-tossing.

Infected


Scott Sigler - 2008
    Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

Chain of Command


Frank Chadwick - 2017
    Lieutenant Sam Bitka finds himself commanding a starship against an alien enemy who always seems one step ahead of him.Lieutenant Sam Bitka, U.S. Naval Reserve, is getting used to civilian life when he is called back to active duty. Tensions between Earth and the alien Varoki are on the rise, and Sam is assiged as tactical officer aboard the deep space destroyer USS Puebla. Dispatched to the distant world of K'tok to protect human colonists, he wants nothing more than to serve out his active duty time and get back to his civilian life. But when the Varoki launch a crippling surprise attack against the Earth coalition fleet, Sam finds himself suddenly in command of the USS Puebla, a job he is far from certain he can discharge successfully. What’s more, mounting evidence points to a much larger and more sinister alien plan. Now, Sam must deal with faltering leadership in the human task force and an alien enemy who always seems one step ahead of them. Time for Sam to step up and rise to the challenge of command.Praise for Chain of Command:  “Chadwick’s heavy hitter succeeds at teeth-gritting action scenes, deep psychological portraits of diverse characters and societies, and abundant puzzles and mysteries. All . . . mixed in seamlessly with the vivid tragedies of war and balanced with dark humor.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)"...strong characterization and the briskness of the plot should please. Fans of military sf and of Chadwick, in particular, should give it a look."—Booklist"Chain of Command is very smartly put together… Chadwick gets the details right, whether he's talking about the effects of prolonged weightlessness or the intricacies of geo and interstellar politics and economics… a solid piece of Mil-SF writing that pulls from many historical sources and manages to convey a lot of what the Surface Navy is like…. it isn't the steel hulls that make the navy tough, it's the sailors that crew them."—SFRevue  About Come the Revolution: “[A]dventure, family secrets and humor. . . . The plot is as hard as the science Chadwick uses. . . . [E]ngages readers. First-rate science fiction; it moves at a fast pace throughout.”—Daily News of Galveston County "Chadwick offers an exciting military SF story set on the Varoki home planet of Hazz’Akato in his follow up to How Dark the World Becomes...Chadwick, a leading designer of military and science-fiction board- and role-playing games, knows his way around a battlefield...eccentric  cohorts are entertaining, and a few surprises guarantee that readers will be seeing more of this series."—Booklist "This sequel to How Dark the World Becomes is a fast-paced, action-packed sf adventure. Readers new to Chadwick’s series will be able to start here without too much trouble; essential background information is given, and the author leaps straight into an original story set two years after the previous entry.”—Library JournalAbout How Dark the World Becomes: “How Dark the World Becomes is a crackling debut novel that speaks of great things to come! It's whip-smart, lightning-fast and character-driven—in short it has everything required to be totally satisfying. Highly recommended." —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of Assassin’s Code “. . . [a] far off, hard scrabble intergalactic underworld . . . fast-paced intergalactic adventure full of far-flung alien intrigue.”—Astroguyz " . . . thrilling space adventure . . . I was reminded of Jack McDevitt's Alex Benedict novels and Mark L. Van Name's Jon & Lobo adventures."—SFCrowsnest

The Atlantis Gene


A.G. Riddle - 2013
    They will set off a race to unravel the deepest secrets of human existence--and an event that could change humanity forever.

Deal with the Devil


Kit Rocha - 2020
    His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he's fighting to survive.They're on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process...Or they could do the impossible: team up.This is the first book in a near-future science fiction series with elements of romance.

Cobra Slave


Timothy Zahn - 2013
    At the center of action on Cobra world Aventine: the legendary Moreau clan. In times of war, the Cobras are necessary, yet in times of peace they are often reviled by those they have saved. Now the Cobras have resisted a second invasion of the alien Troft forces, and forced the Troft to a stalemate ‑‑ and even converted some thoughtful Troft into uneasy allies against their kin.Yet all is not well in the human sector of the galaxy. A supposed sister empire, the Dominion of Man, threatens the Cobra worlds with what is, in effect, enslavement, as it moves to consolidate power over all the Cobra worlds. The plan on Aventine: to extort from the Moreau family the location of the home planet of a mysterious human ally that may be more powerful than the Dominion: the Qasaman empire. Meanwhile, Cobra Merrick Moreau is on a secret mission of his own to a world of humans enslaved by Troft masters. It is a world of barbaric cruelty where human are slave chattel to Troft gamblers. There the Troft force whole villages, even children, into life and death struggles served up for Troft entertainment.But the totalitarian Dominion of Man and the Troft game‑masters are in for a rude surprise: Cobras are not merely technological marvels. They are far more. For within each Cobra, bred by close family ties and hard testing in battle, there beats the heart of a warrior and the burning conviction that a Cobra will be slave to no one. Rebellion is at hand, and once again, Cobras lead the fight for freedom.