Book picks similar to
Eon / Eternity by Greg Bear


science-fiction
fiction
sci-fi
scifi

Death Troopers


Joe Schreiber - 2009
    But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.And death is only the beginning. The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

Time Traders II: The Defiant Agents / Key Out of Time


Andre Norton - 2001
    So when both men are stranded on far-off planets with no hope of rescue from Earth, they must rely on their wits and their training to survive. But survival is only the beginning. To better handle the rigors of the alien world of Topaz, Fox and his crewmates have been implanted with the memories of their Apache ancestors -- but the Opposition has sent its own team with the reawakened memories of their Mongol ancestors! Meanwhile, Murdock is trapped in the ancient past of the water world of Hawaika, facing terrifying wizards in a kingdom he knows will soon be utterly annihilated by an alien empire that is bent on the conquest of the entire galaxy. The fates of two worlds, and possibly the galaxy itself, will be determined by the actions of these castaways in time -- and whatever happens, the lives of Time Agents everywhere will be changed forever....

Fallen Dragon


Peter F. Hamilton - 2001
    But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination

Dauntless


Jack Campbell - 2006
    Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who's emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized, beyond belief...Captain John "Black Jack" Geary's legendary exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic "last stand" in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns from survival hibernation and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics.Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance's one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic "Black Jack" legend...

A Talent for War


Jack McDevitt - 1989
    But now, one man believes Sim was a fraud, and Alex must follow the legend into the heart of the alien galaxy to confront a truth far stranger than any fiction.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts


Douglas Adams - 1979
    and expert at seeing the cosmos on 30 Altairian dollars a day. Ford lives by the Guide's seminal bit of advice: Don't Panic. Which comes in handy when their first ride--on the very same vessel that demolished Earth to make way for a hyperspacial freeway--ends disastrously (they are booted out of an airlock). with 30 seconds of air in their lungs and the odd of being picked up by another ship 2^276,709 to 1 against, the pair are scooped up by the only ship in the universe powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive.But this (and the idea that Bogart movies and McDonald's hamburgers now exist only in his mind) is just the beginning of the weird things Arthur will have to get used to. For, on his travels, he'll encounter Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed ex-President of the Galaxy; Trillian, a sexy spacecadet he once tried to pick up at a cocktail party, now Zaphod's girlfriend; Marvin, a chronically depressed robot; and Slartibartfast, the award-winning engineer who built the Earth and travels in a spaceship disguised as a bistro.Arthur's crazed wanderings will take him from the restaurant at the end of the Universe (where the main dish of the day introduces itself and the floor show is doomsday), to the planet Krikkit (locked in Slo-Time to punish its inhabitants for trying to end the Universe), to Earth (huh? wait! wasn't it destroyed?!) to the very offices of The Hitchhiker's Guide itself as he and his friends quest for the answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything ... and search for a really good cup of tea.Ready or not, Arthur Dent is in for one hell of a ride!

The Churn


James S.A. Corey - 2014
    Corey...Before his trip to the stars, before the Rocinante, Amos Burton was confined to a Baltimore where crime paid you or killed you. Unless the authorities got to you first. Set in the hard-scrabble solar system of the Expanse, The Churn deepens James S. A. Corey's acclaimed series.The Expanse (a major SyFy Channel television series)Leviathan WakesCaliban's WarAbaddon's GateCibola BurnNemesis GamesThe Expanse Short Fiction The Butcher of Anderson StationGods of RiskThe Churn

Coyote


Allen M. Steele - 2002
    Lee and his crew travel to a distant planetary system with a habitable moon (named Coyote) with the dream of starting a colony free from governmental and social oppression.The trip lasts 226 years, but while everyone is in biostasis, one of the crew members is accidentally awakened. With his cell permanently deactivated by the ship's AI, communications officer Leslie Gillis is doomed to a solitary life (and death) aboard the starship. When the rest of the crew is eventually reawakened as the ship reaches its destination, what they find is extraordinary. Once the small colony is established on Coyote, they realize just how different their new world is from Earth. Exploration begins, and although a few colonists are killed by predators, the colony survives and even begins to thrive that is, until a strange comet appears in the sky.

Helix


Eric Brown - 2007
    Daylight brings the discovery that the planet is one of thousands arranged in a vast spiral wound about a central sun. They set off to discover a more habitable, Earth-like world and come across strange races of aliens, and life-threatening perils, on their way.

Federation


Judith Reeves-Stevens - 1994
    Captain Kirk and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 are faced with their most challenging mission yet—rescuing renowned scientist Zefram Cochrane from captors who want to use his skills to conquer the galaxy. Meanwhile, ninety-nine years in the future on the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, Picard must rescue an important and mysterious person whose safety is vital to the survival of the Federation. As the two crews struggle to fulfill their missions, destiny draws them closer together until past and future merge—and the fate of each of the two legendary starships rests in the hands of the other vessel...

Altered Carbon


Richard K. Morgan - 2002
    The colonies are linked together by the occasional sublight colony ship voyages and hyperspatial data-casting. Human consciousness is digitally freighted between the stars and downloaded into bodies as a matter of course.But some things never change. So when ex-envoy, now-convict Takeshi Kovacs has his consciousness and skills downloaded into the body of a nicotine-addicted ex-thug and presented with a catch-22 offer, he really shouldn't be surprised. Contracted by a billionaire to discover who murdered his last body, Kovacs is drawn into a terrifying conspiracy that stretches across known space and to the very top of society.

Bearers of the Black Staff


Terry Brooks - 2010
    Those who escaped the carnage were led to sanctuary by the boy saviour known as Hawk: the gypsy morph. But now, the unimaginable has come to pass: the cocoon of protective magic surrounding the valley has vanished. When Sider Ament, last surviving Knight of the Word, detects unknown predators stalking the valley, and Trackers from the human village of Glensk Wood, find two of their own gruesomely killed, there can be no doubt: the once safe haven of generations has been laid bare. Together, the young Trackers, the aging Knight, and a daring Elf princess race to spread word of the encroaching danger. But suspicion and hostility among their countrymen threaten to doom their efforts from within, while beyond the breached borders, a ruthless Troll army masses for invasion. Standing firm between the two, the last wielder of the black staff and its awesome magic must find a successor to carry on the fight against the cresting new wave of evil.

Three to Dorsai! (Necromancer, Tactics of Mistake, Dorsai!)


Gordon R. Dickson - 1959
    

Nightflyers


George R.R. Martin - 1985
    Nine misfit academics on an expedition to find the volcryn, a mythic race of intersteller nomads, and the only ship available for this strange quest is the Nightflyer, a cybernetic wonder with a never-seen captain...Nine innocents are about to find themselves in deep space, trapped with an insane murderer who can go anywhere, do anything, and intends to kill them all.

Northworld Trilogy


David Drake - 1999
    Neither a soul nor a message returned. The fourth time, the Rulers sent a single man: Nils Hansen.Commissioner Hansen had a mind that saw the shortest path to each task's completion and a ruthless determination to do what the task required. The cost - to himself and whoever happened to be in the way - didn't matter. Hanson's Special Units had kept his planet safe from the most sophisticated and violent criminals in the galaxy. Now Hansen was being sent to penetrate a spacetime enigma which had made gods or demons of the first humans to discover it. He would succeed or die.Northworld: a place of slashing violence and mystic transformationNorthworld: a place of treachery and dazzling beautyNorthworld: a place of honor, of faith, and of love.Hansen's iron will and strong arm confront godlike power and godlike cunning while a galaxy trembles for the outcome. And if Hansen dies - he will not die alone!