Book picks similar to
Nexus Uprising by Jason M. Hough


sci-fi
science-fiction
mass-effect
fiction

Children of Time


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2015
    Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

Terms of Enlistment


Marko Kloos - 2013
    For welfare rats like Andrew Grayson, there are only two ways out of the crime-ridden and filthy welfare tenements, where you're restricted to two thousand calories of badly flavored soy every day:You can hope to win the lottery and draw a ticket on a colony ship settling off-world, or you can join the service.With the colony lottery a pipe dream, Andrew chooses to enlist in the armed forces for a shot at real food, a retirement bonus, and maybe a ticket off Earth. But as he starts a career of supposed privilege, he soon learns that the good food and decent health care come at a steep price…and that the settled galaxy holds far greater dangers than military bureaucrats or the gangs that rule the slums.

The Last Best Hope


Una McCormack - 2020
    An original novel based on the new Star Trek TV series! A thrilling novel leading into the new CBS series, Una McCormack’s The Last Best Hope introduces you to brand new characters featured in the life of beloved Star Trek captain Jean-Luc Picard—widely considered to be one of the most popular and recognizable characters in all of science fiction.

Sleeping Giants


Sylvain Neuvel - 2016
    She wakes up at the bottom of a square-shaped hole, its walls glowing with intricate carvings. But the firemen who come to save her peer down upon something even stranger: a little girl in the palm of a giant metal hand.Seventeen years later, the mystery of the bizarre artifact remains unsolved - the object's origins, architects, and purpose unknown.But some can never stop searching for answers.Rose Franklin is now a highly trained physicist leading a top-secret team to crack the hand's code. And along with her colleagues, she is being interviewed by a nameless interrogator whose power and purview are as enigmatic as the relic they seek. What's clear is that Rose and her compatriots are on the edge of unravelling history's most perplexing discovery-and finally figuring out what it portends for humanity. But once the pieces of the puzzle are in place, will the result be an instrument of lasting peace or a weapon of mass destruction?

Dark Eden


Chris Beckett - 2012
    Beyond the Forest lie the mountains of the Snowy Dark and a cold so bitter and a night so profound that no man has ever crossed it. The Oldest among the Family recount legends of a world where light came from the sky, where men and women made boats that could cross the stars. These ships brought us here, the Oldest say—and the Family must only wait for the travelers to return. But young John Redlantern will break the laws of Eden, shatter the Family and change history. He will abandon the old ways, venture into the Dark…and discover the truth about their world.Already remarkably acclaimed in the UK, Dark Eden is science fiction as literature; part parable, part powerful coming-of-age story, set in a truly original alien world of dark, sinister beauty--rendered in prose that is at once strikingly simple and stunningly inventive.

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.

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.

Half Way Home


Hugh Howey - 2010
    The colony ship they arrived on is aflame. The rest of their contingent is dead. They've only received half their training, and they are being asked to conquer an entire planet. Before they can, however, they must first survive each other. In this gritty tale of youths struggling to survive, Hugh Howey fuses the best of young adult fantasy with the piercing social commentary of speculative fiction. The result is a book that begs to be read in a single sitting. An adventurous romp that will leave readers exhausted and begging for more.

A New Dawn


John Jackson Miller - 2014
    Wandering the galaxy alone, from one anonymous job to another, he avoids trouble--especially with the Empire--at all costs. So when he discovers a deadly conflict brewing between ruthless Imperial forces and desperate revolutionaries, he's not about to get caught in the crossfire. Then the brutal death of a friend at the Empire's hands forces the ex-Jedi to make a choice: bow down to fear, or stand up and fight.But Jarrus won't be fighting alone. Unlikely allies, including a bomb-throwing radical, a former Imperial surveillance agent, a vengeful security officer, and the mysterious Hera Syndulla--an agent provocateur with motives of her own--team up with Jarrus to challenge the Empire. As a crisis of apocalyptic proportions unfolds on the planet Gorse, they must stand together against one of the Emperor's most fearsome enforcers--for the sake of a world and its people.

Horus Rising


Dan Abnett - 2006
    His dream for humanity nearly accomplished, the emperor hands over the reins of power to his warmaster, Horus, and heads back to Terra. But is Horus strong enough to control his fellow commanders and continue the emperor's grand design?

Provenance


Ann Leckie - 2017
    She hatches an audacious plan--free a thief from a prison planet from which no one has ever returned, and use them to help steal back a priceless artifact.But Ingray and her charge return to her home to find their planet in political turmoil, at the heart of an escalating interstellar conflict. Together, they must make a new plan to salvage Ingray's future and her world, before they are lost to her for good.

Foreigner


C.J. Cherryh - 1994
    Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race.From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true science fiction odyssey, following a civilization from the age of steam through early space flight to confrontations with other alien species in distant sectors of space. It is the masterwork of a truly remarkable author.

Dead Space: Martyr


B.K. Evenson - 2010
    With his girlfriend Ada, he joins a team excavating the underwater crater, determined to find the source of the baffling message. The artifact, named "The Black Marker," possesses a mysterious power. Close proximity to the stone causes strange occurrences: visions of the dead, vivid dreams, and violent murders. When Michael secretly obtains a small piece of the marker, he too begins to dream.The Black Marker has chosen him to hear his message: You need to prove yourself worthy of eternal life, or the slate will be wiped clean on Earth.This is the story of the origin of "The Black Marker," the foundation of the Church of Unitology, and a discovery that will change the world.

Cold Welcome


Elizabeth Moon - 2017
    But instead she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate with the outside world, commanding a motley group of unfamiliar troops, and struggling day by day to survive in a deadly environment with sabotaged gear. Only her undeniable talent for command can give her ragtag band a fighting chance.Yet even as Ky leads her team from one crisis to another, her family and friends refuse to give up hope, endeavoring to mount a rescue from halfway around the planet—a task that is complicated as Ky and her supporters find secrets others will kill to protect: a conspiracy infecting both government and military that threatens not only her own group’s survival but her entire home planet.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars


Christopher Paolini - 2020
    Now she's awakened a nightmare. During a routine survey mission on an uncolonized planet, Kira finds an alien relic. At first she's delighted, but elation turns to terror when the ancient dust around her begins to move.As war erupts among the stars, Kira is launched into a galaxy-spanning odyssey of discovery and transformation. First contact isn't at all what she imagined, and events push her to the very limits of what it means to be human. While Kira faces her own horrors, Earth and its colonies stand upon the brink of annihilation. Now, Kira might be humanity's greatest and final hope...