Book picks similar to
The Valiant by J.J. Green


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The Fringe Worlds


T.R. Harris - 2011
    Would you start kicking some ass? Of course you would!This is the story of Human superiority in the galaxy, a gritty, realistic profile of a young Navy SEAL who doesn't like aliens very much -- and he makes them pay for disrupting his happy life back on Earth!

We Dare


Eric Thomson - 2019
    The Marines of Ghost Squadron are humanity’s foremost black ops specialists who strike without warning and vanish without a trace.  They will do whatever is necessary to protect humanity anywhere in the known galaxy.  With the Commonwealth increasingly unstable thanks to venal politicians, greedy financiers, and power-hungry revolutionaries, they don’t lack for missions.When an undercover Constabulary officer vanishes after uncovering a massive cartel-run human trafficking operation, the Commonwealth’s interstellar police force calls for help from Naval Intelligence.  Because the cartel’s operations could upend the delicate political balance between the older core worlds and the more recently colonized outer star systems, Ghost Squadron gets the job.  Its mission: find the missing Constabulary officer and choke off the growing slave trade bedeviling humanity’s perilous galactic frontier.Ghost Squadron’s commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Thomas Decker, spent the last ten years as a Naval Intelligence agent.  His job was thwarting plots and terminating the Commonwealth’s internal enemies alongside his partner, a trained assassin.  Now, with several hundred of the deadliest Marines ever fielded at his back, Zack Decker will change the course of history and usher in a new era. Humanity's interstellar empire ended in "Ashes of Empire."  Witness its birth a thousand years earlier in Eric Thomson's new series "Ghost Squadron."

Relics of Andromeda


Jonathan Michael Erickson - 2019
    Ancient pieces of technology that seem to have minds of their own, the relics interface with human psychology, granting the power to bend space and time—and often inducing psychosis. When the colonists of Andromeda first discovered the relics, long before Anka was born, humanity was plunged into chaos. Now Anka is carrying a relic in her pack, tasked with securing the object before it can do any harm. She and her companions set out across the desert by foot, marching towards the distant city— even as the relic begins to whisper in her mind...

Alliance


Jonathan P. Brazee - 2017
    Humanity is involved in a limited war with the alien Klethos, where gladitorial combat decides the fate of worlds, but that doesn’t affect the common Marine or sailor. His career has been training hard but never seeing actual combat. All of that changes when a new enemy invades the galaxy, one that threatens both humanity and Klethos. Mankind hasn’t fought an all-out war in centuries, but they’re about to. McKeever is assigned to a special task force with the mission to find out what makes this new enemy tick, and, if possible, stop them in their tracks before humanity is eliminated like so much insignificant vermin.

Helix


Nathan M. Farrugia - 2016
    A rogue operative.A secret war that could destroy them both.Olesya hunts the augmented operatives she was trained to become. But when a clandestine mission takes her from the illegal bio-clinics of Brazil to the icy borderlands of Kaliningrad, she encounters a rogue assassin with a dangerous secret. As operatives and hunters start vanishing, one thing becomes clear…They aren’t the only players in this deadly game.This is the first episode in the new USA Today bestselling series of cyberpunk thrillers by Australian ex-recon soldier Nathan M. Farrugia. Do you like conspiracies and genetically-enhanced operatives? You’ll love this action-packed cross between Jason Bourne and Altered Carbon. Find out why readers are calling it “the most addictive action series” they’ve read.

It Ain't Over...


Robert M. Kerns - 2019
    Buy a planet and disappear...That's all Cole wanted.He spent thirteen years hiding on the fringes of society, piloting freighters for criminals and building a stash to do just that.But life happens when you're busy making plans.When Cole chooses to save an ejected castaway and stumbles into a crew of his own, he starts down a path that will force him to choose.Will Cole protect those who have become his people? Or will he slip away quietly in the night?

Aftershocks


Marko Kloos - 2019
    Amid an uneasy alliance to maintain economies, resources, and populations, Aden Robertson reemerges. After devoting twelve years of his life to the reviled losing side, with the blood of half a million casualties on his hands, Aden is looking for a way to move on. He’s not the only one.A naval officer has borne witness to inconceivable attacks on a salvaged fleet. A sergeant with the occupation forces is treading increasingly hostile ground. And a young woman, thrust into responsibility as vice president of her family’s raw materials empire, faces a threat she never anticipated.Now, on the cusp of an explosive and wide-reaching insurrection, Aden plunges once again into the brutal life he longed to forget. He’s been on the wrong side of war before. But this time, the new enemy has yet to reveal themselves…or their dangerous endgame.

Secondborn


Amy A. Bartol - 2017
    Secondborns are the property of the government. Thirdborns are not tolerated. Long live the Fates Republic.On Transition Day, the second child in every family is taken by the government and forced into servitude. Roselle St. Sismode’s eighteenth birthday arrives with harsh realizations: she’s to become a soldier for the Fate of Swords military arm of the Republic during the bloodiest rebellion in history, and her elite firstborn mother is happy to see her go.Televised since her early childhood, Roselle’s privileged upbringing has earned her the resentment of her secondborn peers. Now her decision to spare an enemy on the battlefield marks her as a traitor to the state.But Roselle finds an ally—and more—in fellow secondborn conscript Hawthorne Trugrave. As the consequences of her actions ripple throughout the Fates Republic, can Roselle create a destiny of her own? Or will her Fate override everything she fights for—even love?

The Acheron: A Military Sci-Fi Series


Rick Partlow - 2020
    He signed up to escape the grinding poverty of the Housing Blocks. And the unlikely friends envisioned boring, peacetime careers as shuttle pilots. The Tahni Imperium had other ideas... Caught in the desperate fury of the Battle for Mars, the two young pilots wind up the last defense against an alien armada, but their war is just beginning. Recruited to fly the Fleet's newest weapon in this new war, they take the fight deep into the heart of the Imperium and battle not just against the enemy but against incompetent leadership and ineffectual tactics. Can the unconventional strategies of a pair of hotshot young pilots change the course of the war? And when the time comes that a choice has to be made between duty to command and loyalty to a friend, which of the two will be willing to make one last flight alone... From the author of the bestselling Drop Trooper Military Sci-Fi Series comes another tale of war against an alien menace known as the Tahni. Perfect for fans of Jay Allan, Jasper T. Scott, and Scott Bartlett. (less)

The Last Voyage


T.S. Snow - 2016
    She's far from it.Together, they’re Earth's last hope... they just don’t know it yet.Sinbad sh'en Singh had everything. A thriving smuggling career, his hologram on wanted posters on eleven planets, and plenty of women. Then she walked into his life.Andrea Talltrees, member of a backwards cult not believing in space travel or anything else invented after the Twentieth Century.She wants him to find her husband, a fugitive accused of being an Albegensian spy, the planet currently at war with Earth.He doesn’t want anything to do with an Earther, but a massive culture clash and a heavy dose of instant attraction get in the way, sending good sense flying out the viewport.They'll brave some very unsavory characters, maybe even prevent a second interplanetary war...if they can stop arguing.

Empire of Bones


Terry Mixon - 2014
    Long live the Empire! Commander Jared Mertz, the bastard son of the Emperor, and his half-sister, Princess Kelsey, barely speak to one another. To their dismay, their father seizes an opportunity to change that and sends them on a dangerous quest to explore the fallen Empire. Separated from home by an impassable gulf and struggling to redefine their relationship, they find themselves thrust into a vicious war. Unless they work together to stop the Empire’s deadly legacy, billions face a horrific fate.

Tigra


R.J. Leahy - 2006
    Alone, she adopts a tigra cub, a tiger-like carnivore native to Ararat, and names him Samson. It’s the least she can do, given she killed his mother.Tigras have special talents. Unlike their Earth counterparts, they can stand erect, and do it comfortably. As Samson matures, he demonstrates an even more astonishing skill, one that places serious doubts on the accuracy of the planetary survey that opened Ararat for colonization. Soon Jeena finds herself caught up in the last thing she wants—a war between a group of religious fanatics and a culture that is their diametric opposite—as Samson discovers the truth about his people, one that had been kept secret from the beginning. A truth that will change the galaxy forever.

Guard at the Gates of Hell (Gladius Book 1)


George Olney - 2016
    The Empire, the structure that held civilization together for a thousand years, is collapsing. Trying to hold things together is the Corps of Imperial Gladius, one of the pillars originally created to support and protect the Empire throughout its long life. A Gladius is a genetically bred ultimate soldier, the best soldier that ever existed. Despite that, the Emperor, a deeply paranoid sociopath, fears the Corps and is trying to destroy them, regardless of what that will do to the Empire's security.A surviving portion of a devastated Gladius legion arrives on the isolated and decadent world of Cauldwell to be confronted with the fact they must once again take up their ancestral trade, war. The appearance of the legion is probably the most newsworthy event on Cauldwell for the last century and star reporter Shana Ettranty decides to do a series of stories about them for her network. That decision radically changes her life when she decides to undergo Gladius recruit training to get a better perspective on the Corps. As she continues, Shana learns deeply buried secrets about Cauldwell... and about herself. Those secrets will change the course of human history. In the end, they destroy the Empire.This is a military science fiction book written by a retired Army officer whose viewpoint has ranged from being in the ranks to general staff, not just an action book. The story asks some very tough questions about survival and sacrifice made to let humanity survive. In it, the Corps and Shana are forced to make some hard decisions. Are their answers right or wrong? In the end, only the reader can decide.

Foothold: The Story of Mankind's First Expedition to the Stars


Dennis Ingram - 2014
    Adversity. Hope. A starship with eight people is launched into the unknown for the epic adventure of a lifetime. In the second half of the 21st century, Earth is struggling under the load of an ever-increasing population and a degrading environment. The tide of human politics ebbs and flows. Rising above the turmoil, the will is found to build one lone starship and launch it toward Tau Ceti. Hope for the future, hope for humanity. +++ An interview with the author Is this the original edition? No, it was professionally re-edited and given a new cover in May 2016. How would you describe Foothold? It’s a space colonization adventure. There’s adversity, but no violence. There’s science, but not so much that the characters and adventure are lost in technobabble. So it’s not for those that like hard science fiction? I love hard science fiction! Any book that features interstellar travel needs technological breakthroughs, and Foothold is no exception. The science is deliberately low-tech in some ways though, as our colonists need hardy technology that they can repair themselves. As the series progresses, we will see more and more high-technology appearing. Will the series remain non-violent? No, that will change in book 2. Why? Humans are humans. Wherever they go, conflict is bound to follow. It’s the first book of a series, right? Will there be a cliff-hanger? Yes, Foothold is the first in a series of eight or nine books. It definitely does leave the ending open for the next book, but not in a sudden cliff-hanger that has you reaching for your pitchfork and torch. Oh, and book 2, The Seasoning, is already out! In the book, a starship is launched in 2063. Surely that’s way, way too soon? Not if you believe in exponential progress. If we measure what we will achieve in the next 45 years by what we achieved in the last 45, it’s too soon. But I think it’s more likely the pace of change is accelerating and it’s not so far-fetched to think of subluminal star travel happening sooner rather than later. If it were a movie, how would you rate it? PG-13 for language and some mild sexual content.

Trans Galactic Insurance: Adventures of a Jump Space Accountant


Andrew Moriarty - 2017
    Jake Stewart doesn't care, he needs to earn a living.He fled his station in the outer Belt, enrolled in the merchant academy, and snagged a scholarship. The future looks bright. But a crooked boss, some paperwork shenanigans, and a freeloading best friend put him in a bind. When he's accused of a murder he didn't commit he goes on the run from the Planetary Militia. There's only his wits and a suspiciously helpful pretty girl between him and jail. Can he trust her to prove his innocence? Or does she have another agenda?