Book picks similar to
Cybership by Vaughn Heppner


sci-fi
science-fiction
space-opera
artificial-intelligence

Gun Runner


B.V. Larson - 2020
    The peaceful inhabitants of the Conclave are threatened by expanding alien powers. Invaders threaten the star cluster, attacking our fringe settlements. Captain Bill Gorman has mysteriously disappeared. His clone, set aside for a dark day like this, awakens and begins to put together the pieces. What’s gone wrong out on the frontier? Why are our colonies being attacked by aliens while the Conclave worlds dream of better days? And what happened to the original Captain Gorman?

Savage Wars


Jason Anspach - 2020
    Raiders from our distant past. Elites who left Earth to create tailor-made utopias aboard the massive lighthuggers that crawled through the darkness between the stars. But the people they left behind on a dying planet didn't perish in the dystopian nightmare the Savages had themselves created: they thrived, discovering faster-than-light technology and using it to colonize the galaxy ahead of the Savages, forming fantastic new civilizations that surpassed the wildest dreams of Old Earth. Until the Savages came in from the Darkness... When a Savage hulk lands on glittering New Vega, one of the crown jewels of the post-Earth galaxy, a coalition of planetary governments amasses their forces to respond to the post-human Savage Marines who’ve come to sack and enslave. But what the coalition forces find is something far more sinister than the typical Savage hit-and-run: this time, the Savages have come to stay. Witness the intense beginning of THE SAVAGE WARS, the epic conflict, built into the lore of GALAXY'S EDGE, that will encompass over a thousand years of brutal fighting. Only the greatest military force in the galaxy can bring this war to an end… and the galaxy will never again be the same. Experience the beginning of the Legion. Experience the Savage Wars. Also available in audio book format performed by Stephen Lang (Avatar, Gods & Generals).

No Planet for Good Men


M.R. Forbes - 2019
    After the invasion. The planet is in ruins. Humankind struggles to survive. Hayden is a Sheriff in a world without law. A good man in a world gone bad. He knows the fallout of an alien attack when he sees it. He's never seen anything like this before. Isaac is a Marine in a world without order. A good man with troubles of his own. His mission was to protect the innocent, including his son. Instead, he's the only survivor. Two good men. Two frightening discoveries. Two paths to one inescapable truth: The invasion may be over, but the real fight is just beginning.

Freedom's Fire


Bobby Adair - 2017
    Now humans fight in the armies of their masters to save themselves from annihilation. At least, that's what the propaganda insists is true. What the layers of lies keep hidden, is how badly the new war is going for the people of earth. Now it's Dylan Kane's turn to blast into the heavens and join the battle, but what his masters don't know, is that by putting a weapon in his hands, they're giving him the key to unlocking his hopes of freedom. When the railgun slugs are tearing through his ship, and the vacuum is sucking the life out of his wounded friends, will Dylan's years of repressed rage turn into enough bravery to make his dream come true? The Freedom's Fire Series book 1 - Freedom's Fire book 2 - Freedom's Fury book 3 - Freedom's Fray

Odyssey One


Evan Currie - 2011
    Assigned the task of blazing man's first trail into that great unknown, Captain Eric Weston and the crew of the NAC Odyssey launch on a mission destined to make history.Past the bounds of comfort, they encounter horrors and wonders beyond their imagining, with people and monsters beyond reckoning.Odyssey One is the first voyage of the NAC Odyssey and its crew, and the beginnings of a Military Science Fiction Epic that combines both old school space opera, and modern storytelling in one great, exhilarating adventure.Odyssey One is a 150,000 word novel.

Prador Moon


Neal Asher - 2006
    Academic and insightful, its dominion stretches from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. But when the Polity finally encounters alien life in the form of massive, hostile, crab-like carnivores known as the Prador, there can be only one outcome — total warfare! Starships clash, planets fall, and space stations are overrun, but for Jebel Krong and Moria Salem, two unlikely heroes trapped at the center of the action, this war is far more than a mere clash of cultures, far more than technology versus brute force... this war is personal.

Constitution


Nick Webb - 2015
    Without warning. Without mercy. We were not prepared. Hundreds of millions perished. Dozens of cities burned. We nearly lost everything. Then, the aliens abruptly left. We rebuilt. We armed ourselves. We swore: never again. But the aliens never came back. Until now. With overwhelming force the aliens have returned, striking deep into our territory, sending Earth into a panic. Our new technology is useless. Our new ships burn like straw. All our careful preparations are wasted. Now, only one man, one crew, and the oldest starship in the fleet stand between the Earth and certain destruction: ISS CONSTITUTION

Genesis


Rick Partlow - 2021
    He’d done everything by the book, but when the Tahni had attacked him and his crew, there was no choice but to return fire and destroy the first alien vessel humans had ever encountered. Excoriated in the press, his career in shambles, Travis is exiled to a long patrol of the outer colony worlds. Forgotten, except as a bad example…until the Tahni prove him right by declaring war on the human Commonwealth. Now, Travis Miller is the tip of the spear. Humanity’s best hope for turning back an overwhelming assault on human space. Because to the Tahni, humans are infidels and this is a holy war…

Columbus Day


Craig Alanson - 2016
    And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn't even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren't our enemy, our allies are. I'd better start at the beginning....

Destroyer


Chris Fox - 2016
    Without warning. Without a trace. Fleet command chalks the attacks up to pirates, but Captain Dryker of the UFC Johnston isn’t buying it. Defying command, he leads his misfit crew into hostile territory in search of answers. They encounter a technologically superior foe unlike anything humanity has ever seen, one bent on the destruction of all sentient life. After 26,000 years the mythical Void Wraith have returned to begin the next Eradication. Humanity cannot stop them. Not without help. Captain Dryker’s only hope is to forge an alliance with mankind’s greatest enemy, the savage Tigris. One maverick captain, an unlikely crew, and an aging vessel are all that stand between humanity and the Eradication. “It’s like Battlestar Galactica and Mass Effect had a baby, and that baby was raised by Starcraft. I read this book in one sitting, and immediately looked for the next.”- The author’s totally biased friend.

The Ember War


Richard Fox - 2015
    Humanity has a chance. In the near future, an alien probe arrives on Earth with a pivotal mission—help humanity survive an impending invasion by an alien armada so massive it can blot out the stars, or leave the human race to certain extinction. Despite overwhelming odds, the probe recruits a young inventor named Marc Ibarra to plan a daring gambit. To weather the coming storm, Ibarra must build a space fleet strong enough to face an implacable foe in a battle against annihilation.

Live Free or Die


John Ringo - 2010
    But the first aliens to come through, the Glatun, were peaceful traders and the world breathed a sigh of relief. Who Controls the Orbitals, Controls the World When the Horvath came through, they announced their ownership by dropping rocks on three cities and gutting them. Since then, they've held Terra as their own personal fiefdom. With their control of the orbitals, there's no way to win and earth's governments have accepted the status quo. Live Free or Die. To free the world from the grip of the Horvath is going to take an unlikely hero. A hero unwilling to back down to alien or human governments, unwilling to live in slavery and with enough hubris, if not stature, to think he can win. Fortunately, there's Tyler Vernon. And he has bigger plans than just getting rid of the Horvath.

New Frontiers


Joshua Dalzelle - 2016
     The Phage War had been a devastating conflict for the Terran Confederacy. Even with the destruction of their terrifying, implacable foe, humanity is still reeling. Political alliances are crumbling and their mighty fleet is in tatters. There is nothing to celebrate, even after such a complete victory.They soon learn that there are other stellar neighbors ... and they've been watching the conflict with great interest. One species comes with an offer of friendship and alliance, but humanity is weary and distrustful, their only interactions with aliens having resulted in the near-eradication of their kind.Before the ashes of war have been fully swept away Captain Celesta Wright is dispatched to the Frontier with a small taskforce to investigate a mysterious signal while the Confederacy struggles to hold itself together. A partnership with this new species could help accelerate the recovery effort, but is the offer too good to be true? Can humanity risk another fight with an advanced alien species right on the heels of the bloodiest war that had ever been waged?New Frontiers is the first book of the Expansion Wars Trilogy, an all new adventure in the Black Fleet universe.

Marines


Jay Allan - 2012
    The deal was simple; enlist to fight in space and he would be pardoned for all his crimes.In the 23rd Century, assault troops go into battle wearing AI-assisted, nuclear-powered armor, but it is still men and blood that win battles. From one brutal campaign to the next, Erik and his comrades fight an increasingly desperate war over the resource rich colony worlds that have become vital to the economies of Earth's exhausted and despotic Superpowers.As Erik rises through the ranks he finally finds a home, first with the marines who fight at his side and later among the colonists - men and women who have dared to leave everything behind to build a new society on the frontier, one where the freedoms and rights lost long ago on Earth are preserved.Amidst the blood and death and sacrifice, Erik begins to wonder. Is he fighting the right war? Who is the real enemy?

Out of the Dark


David Weber - 2010
    So when the Hegemony Survey Force encountered a world whose so-called "sentients" "humans," they called themselves—were almost as bad as the Shongairi themselves, it seemed reasonable to use the Shongairi to neutralize them before they could become a second threat to galactic peace. And if the Shongairi took a few knocks in the process, all the better. Now, Earth is conquered. The Shongairi have arrived in force, and humanity's cities lie in radioactive ruins. In mere minutes, more than half the human race has died. Master Sergeant Stephen Buchevsky, who thought he was being rotated home from his latest tour in Afghanistan, finds himself instead prowling the back country of the Balkans, dodging alien patrols and trying to organize scattered survivors without getting killed. And in the southeastern US, firearms instructor and former Marine Dave Dvorak finds himself at the center of a growing network of resistance putting his extended family at lethal risk, but what else can you do? On the face of it, Buchevsky's and Dvorak's chances look bleak, as do prospects for the rest of the surviving human race. But it may well be that Shongairi and the Hegemony alike have underestimated the inhabitants of that strange planet called Earth