Book picks similar to
Exploration Command by Doug Dandridge


science-fiction
space-opera
sci-fi
military-sci-fi

Pete, Popeye and Olive (Privateer Tales Shorts Book 2)


Jamie McFarlane - 2016
    When an opportunity to join the Mechanized Infantry presents itself, Pete is first in line. He knows that he's going to get shot at one way or another, but the idea of sitting in a warm and more importantly, dry mechanized suit appeals to him almost beyond reason. While still training in the jungle, Pete's squad is called out to intervene in a skirmish in a nearby village. Of course, the Marines haven't seen fit to certify his squad with ordnance. The fact that they'll be up against a platoon of squishies doesn't convince him that's it's any better of an idea and things turn quickly to crap when they discover the squishies are protected by grav-tanks. Pete, Popeye and Olive is a fast paced, short-story with plenty of action.

A Relentless Fury (The Great War Book 3)


Ralph Kern - 2020
    

The Forever, Part 2


Craig Robertson - 2018
    Hopeless odds. Then things got worse. Jon Ryan has beaten the odds so far. He saved humanity from a sinister alien threat, and he stopped the insane android president of the United States three separate times. But the president won't stay dead, and a super race threatens to end Jon's hopes for a peaceful future.Jon's mind-boggling alien technology has been enough to keep everyone alive. But, just when there's reason for hope, a new, more deadly race sets its sights on him. This threat may just be unstoppable. They made Jon fight. He plans to make them very sorry they did.Meanwhile, Jon discovers an alternate time-line version of himself, one who suffered the loss of his species. Jon finds himself on a quest to find his duplicate who's lost in time and space.Can Jon save humanity, his family, and himself when defeat looks absolutely certain? Can one good man stand against unbeatable odds one more time?

The Rise of Daan: Chronicles of Daan: Book 1


D. Ward Cornell - 2021
    You’d think that would be a good thing, but in truth, not so much. You see, a Protected World is a sentry world. One located along the edge of human space, there to sound the alarm if there’s an alien invasion. A world that is marginally habitable, so unlikely to be a target, yet well connected to the rest of humanity, so able to sound the alarm.And that’s the real problem. Marginally habitable worlds can’t support a significant population. And for the few of us that live here, it’s difficult to scrape out a living.You might ask why anyone would want to live in such a place. I ask that question all the time. The short answer is that these worlds were given away to anyone that had the means to claim and settle them. A lot of adventurers couldn’t resist the opportunity. My grandfather, six generations back, was one of those people.There are many stories about my ancestral grandfather. He was apparently quite a character, eccentric as well. Many of his sayings are built deeply into our culture, and most involve the number six. Spend a day in town and you’re likely to hear them. ‘Better to do one thing well than six things poorly.’ Or ‘better to have six good days than one good week.’Of his many sayings, there’s the one my mother quotes all the time. ‘The sixth son of the sixth generation will stand above them all.’Well, it turns out that I’m the sixth son of the sixth generation. My father, and all his forefathers, were first sons of first sons down the line from the great Jared Daan. I was my father’s sixth son. Sixth son of the sixth most direct connection to our founder. My parents gave me the name of my ancestor, Jared Daan. I’m the first to bear that name since the great man passed. My mother says I’m destined for greatness. I think that’s crazy talk. But my five brothers hate me for it.

The Prince Awakens: Book 1 in the Prince of Britannia Saga


Fred Hughes - 2021
    That was always going to be complicated since he was a Prince of the Realm. Complicated turned into almost impossible when the Empress is attacked. What is a simple lieutenant supposed to do with his mother in a coma, a seemingly invincible enemy on the offensive, a darkness from the past stirring and his paranoid older brother trying to assassinate him. The lieutenant remembers his oath and with a former spy, a handful of Marines, his uncle and most importantly, his father, decides to defend the Empire from all enemies whether foreign or domestic.

The Clockwork Chimera Series


Scott Baron - 2019
    Big trouble. And she was going to clean it off if it was the last thing she'd do... which it was looking like it very well might be. Daisy had a simple rule for space travel. Don't blow up. So far she'd been managing to abide by that, but something was very much not right. With the powerful AI supercomputer guiding the craft beginning to show some disconcerting quirks of its own, and its unsettling cyborg assistant nosing into her affairs, Daisy’s unease was rapidly growing, as was her bigotry toward artificially intelligent beings. Add to the mix a crew of mechanically-enhanced humans, any one of whom she suspected might not be what they seemed, and Daisy found herself with a sense of pending dread tickling the periphery of her mind. Something was very much not right––she could feel it in her bones. The tricky part now was going to be overcoming her biases and figuring out what the threat was, before it could manifest from a mere sinking feeling in her gut into a potentially deadly reality. Only things were far different and far worse than she could ever have imagined, forcing her to repeatedly adjust and overcome a reality that turned out to be far from what it had originally seemed. The complete series set of all five of the Clockwork Chimera books: 1. Daisy's Run 2. Pushing Daisy 3. Daisy's Gambit 4. Chasing Daisy 5. Daisy's War A space opera adventure featuring damaged spaceships, rogue artificial intelligence, homicidal cyborgs, mechanically-enhanced humans, genetic engineering, nanotech, and, of course, bloodthirsty aliens.

Far From Home: The Complete Second Series


Tony Healey - 2014
    The series has proved a best-selling sensation and has captured readers imaginations the world over. So buckle up and prepare for the ride of your life!

War World: Falkenberg's Regiment


John F. Carr - 2018
    Falkenberg was created by Jerry E. Pournelle and made his first appearance in “Peace With Honor” in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1972. That and other Falkenberg stories appeared in his fix-up novel, The Mercenary. Colonel Falkenberg and his 42nd Marine Regiment served as the last line of defense of the CoDominium and its many colonial words. This book continues the Falkenberg story, detailing his adventures and those of the 42nd CoDominium Marines on Haven (War World) and on Churchill, as Falkenberg and Admiral Lermontov struggle to keep the CoDominium from fracturing. On Haven the Colonel finds himself set between the Mahdi and his fanatical forces, on one hand, and Dover Minerals and the Bronson family, on the other hand. While on Churchill, Falkenberg is called upon to rectify the problems caused by the CoDominium Bureau of Relocations wholesale dumping of antagonistic populations on the hardscrabble world of Churchill, previously settled by British subjects in favor of the monarchy. Nor, does it help when the Brotherhood, a conspiracy of colonial CD military officers, gets involved providing weapons and money to the rebels.

Nullifier (Fire and Rust #6)


Anthony James - 2019
     The wreck of a Sekar battleship and the intel contained within a subsurface alien facility could affect the outcome of a war which has so far claimed billions of lives. However, while the Raggers are defeated, they are not destroyed, and they are unwilling to give up the prize. What starts as a hard fight to claim invaluable alien tech turns into something with far higher stakes. The crashed battleship is called Nullifier and its control entity promises many things. Captains Jake Griffin and Tanner Conway will soon find that this mysterious craft has a mission of its own. A mission that requires a replacement for its dead crew. From the ice storms of Glesia to a planet in the throes of cataclysmic violence, the Nullifier takes Griffin and Conway on a journey where they will learn the history of a long-dead alien race and find that ancient threats still exist. Overcoming this new challenge will bring rewards unimagined and a chance to hold back the Sekar tide for a little longer. Beating the odds has never seemed harder or more important for humanity’s survival… Nullifier is a fast-paced military sci-fi shooter filled with spaceships, guns, tech and warfare. It follows on from book 5 in the Fire and Rust Series: Refuge 9.

Admiral's Oath


Glynn Stewart - 2022
    Under a cloud of suspicion, he has been assigned to a quiet sector far from the front of the Terran Commonwealth’s war with the Castle Federation and its allies.But when the Federation’s Operation Medusa cripples his nation’s communications and plummets an interstellar empire into silence, Admiral Tecumseh finds himself thrust into command of an entire fleet—and responsible for the safety of billions of innocent souls.Enemies internal and external alike challenge the nation he is sworn to serve. Duty and honor call him to action to protect the innocent, and the Admiral and his new fleet are called to war once more.But the darkest treason lurks where no one expects it…

Battle Lines


Chris Hechtl - 2015
    But he returned changed, he had lost one of his AI to rampancy after fighting an Xeno AI Wraith, and his greatest AI, his confidant Commander Sprite had chosen to leave him. He didn't return to civilization alone however. He brought with him over a hundred precious sleepers, officers and enlisted personnel ready to help rebuild the Federation once more, along with petabytes of precious blueprints and data, designed by some of the greatest minds of the Federation. But before they can begin to forge a new fleet they have to stop the rampaging Horathian Empire in it's tracks. Rear Admiral Amadeus White has been assigned to push the enemy back and keep them back while Admiral Irons and Subert work on building new ships. Admiral Subert has his own problems to deal with in Pyrax. He needs time, time to adjust, time to clean up the mess. Time to build more ships. But the enemy within and without won't wait. Napoleon said it best, "You can ask me for anything but not time!" The Battle Lines have been drawn!

The Fight for Britannia


Saxon Andrew - 2018
    They found a habitable planet and erased everything in the colony ship’s data banks about Earth in the hopes that none of their descendants would ever attempt to find mankind’s home world. Now, thousands of years after Britannia was settled, a war is looming between the Union and Coalition. Captain Grady Henricks is given a secret mission to discover how a small scout ship’s hull survived destruction from powerful blaster beams that destroyed everything but the hull. However, time is running out for Grady to finish his mission; the Coalition is becoming more aggressive and the war is going to kick off before Grady can complete his assignment. During his mission, Grady discovers that the scout wasn’t attacked and destroyed by Coalition warships. An alien civilization has found Britannia and it quickly becomes clear that not only is the Union threatened by the Coalition but all of Britannia is in danger of being attacked by the aliens. War breaks out and the aliens decide to strike in the aftermath. The Fight for Britannia is on and it appears that the humans living on Britannia don’t have long to live. Grady is forced to do something that the original colonists prayed would never happen; he goes in search of an ancient planet that might be able to save the remaining humans on Britannia. Earth must be found and quickly. Excerpt from The Fight for Britannia: Taffy stood behind the Hermit and saw the computer’s screen activate. She saw the startup screen appear and then go dark, as the Hermit turned a nob on the keyboard. Each time it clicked, another dark screen appeared. After ten clicks, a view appeared on the display. She heard the Hermit mutter to himself, “They left the polar satellite alone.” He began moving the cursor and the view changed. An image began zooming in and she saw a city appear. The image grew larger and she recognized that it was the city she lived in just over the mountains; the Government Tower was in the center of the city and that building couldn’t be anywhere else. She suddenly saw three large shapes move out of the mountains toward the outskirts of the city. Suddenly, brilliant beams of light stabbed out of the three objects hitting the ground. Her heart started pounding harder; where those light beams hit, massive explosions erupted, and everything caught on fire. The three-large objects moved out over the city and the only thing left behind them was a fire bright enough to be seen from space. She watched the fires move out into the city and saw her parent’s neighborhood go up in massive flames. The Hermit moved the cursor again and she saw numerous star ships moving toward the monitor. The Hermit pressed a button on the wall turning on the lights in the giant facility as he jumped up out of his chair and ran across the huge room. She followed him and suddenly saw a small ship in the center of the large cavern. The Fight for Britannia is a thriller and is the latest novel from the international bestselling author Saxon Andrew.

Chronicles of Athena Lee Vol 2


T.S. Paul - 2016
     Now get Books 4, 5 & 6 all in one Volume! Athena Lee has had a very difficult couple of years. After surviving years alone lost in a distant galaxy she joined a new Navy and has been reassigned to her home planet. At first her family is happy to see her. Interstellar politics intrude upon her happy visit. Revolution is in the air, in more ways than one. Pirates return to threaten her planet. A hidden conspiracy emerges that threatens the galaxy. What can one lone Engineer do against all of that?

Baldwin's Legacy: The Complete Collection (Books 1-6)


Nathan Hystad - 2021
    

The Stones of Silence


Peter Grant - 2018
    Now it's about to become ground zero in a gold rush by every crooked company and asteroid thief in the galaxy. Andrew Cochrane, with his crew of the finest veterans and cunning rogues, have an even better scheme. They've conned the owner into hiring them as a mercenary security company to defend the system. With no oversight but their own, Cochrane's Company plans to seize the richest pickings for themselves. But nothing ever comes easy. If they want to keep their loot, they're going to have to outwit and outfight every smuggler, bandit and renegade after the same prize - and their boss, too!