Book picks similar to
Take the Star Road by Peter Grant
science-fiction
sci-fi
space-opera
scifi
The Silver Ships
S.H. Jucha - 2015
Recognizing a once in a lifetime opportunity to make first contact, Alex pulls off a daring maneuver to latch on to the derelict.Alex discovers the ship was attacked by an unknown craft, the first of its kind ever encountered. The mysterious silver ship's attack was both instant and deadly.What enfolds is a story of the descendants of two Earth colony ships, with very different histories, meeting 700 years after their founding and uniting to defend humanity from the silver ships.
Earth Alone
Daniel Arenson - 2016
They came to destroy us. Fifty years ago, bloodthirsty aliens devastated the Earth. Most of humanity perished. We fell into darkness. But now we rise from the ashes. Now we fight back. Marco Emery was born into the war. After his mother is killed, he joins the Human Defense Force, Earth's ragtag army. Emery must survive basic training, become a soldier, and finally face the aliens in battle. Against the alien onslaught, Earth stands alone. But we will fight. We will rise. We will win.
Admiral
Sean Danker - 2016
I tried to look on the bright side.” He is the last to wake. The label on his sleeper pad identifies him as an admiral of the Evagardian Empire—a surprise as much to him as to the three recent recruits now under his command. He wears no uniform, and he is ignorant of military protocol, but the ship’s records confirm he is their superior officer. Whether he is an Evagardian admiral or a spy will be of little consequence if the crew members all end up dead. They are marooned on a strange world, their ship’s systems are failing one by one—and they are not alone.
The Battle at the Moons of Hell
Graham Sharp Paul - 2007
For Junior Lieutenant Michael Helfort and the crew aboard deep space scout vessel 387, the mission is clear: infiltrate enemy territory, locate the Mumtaz, and rescue the prisoners.The odds are appalling, and the damage will probably be fatal, but victory is nonnegotiable–especially for Helfort, whose mother and sister were on the Mumtaz. And Michael Helfort will be damned if he’ll let his family rot on the moons of Hell.
Starship Scorpion
Tripp Ellis - 2016
But with no sign of the enemy for 25 years, the Joint Planetary Operations Command decides to decommission the old destroyers. But when Slade senses an impending attack, she defies orders to return to base, and JPOC sends a lone assassin to terminate her wayward command.But the Verge have returned, more powerful than ever. Their technology is more advanced. Their armor is indestructible. And they are determined to exterminate all human life.A rogue captain, a misfit crew, and a decrepit destroyer are mankind’s only hope of survival. If JPOC’s assassin succeeds, humanity will perish.
Legionnaire
Jason Anspach - 2017
And most days I don’t know if the legionnaires are putting out the flames, or fanning them into an inferno. A hostile force ambushes Victory Company during a reconnaissance-in-force deep inside enemy territory. Stranded behind enemy lines, a sergeant must lead a band of survivors against merciless insurgents on a deadly alien world somewhere along the galaxy’s edge. With no room for error, the Republic’s elite fighting force must struggle to survive under siege while waiting on a rescue that might never come. When you think you’ve surrounded the Legion... you’ve just made your last mistake.
The Synchronicity War Part 1
Dietmar Arthur Wehr - 2013
As the outgunned Space Force is driven back in battle after battle in what appears to be a war of extermination, one officer experiences precognitive visions that help him blunt the enemy onslaught but he can't control or predict when they occur.With the Senior Brass convinced that he's a tactical genius, he's given more and more responsibility and is terrified by the belief that Humanity's Fate rests on his shoulders. Can he solve the mystery of his precognitive visions before the Human Race plunges into the abyss of total extermination? This is Volume 1 of a military SF series about desperate space battles and the men, women and Artificial Intelligences, who fight and die in them.
Steel Breach
Casey Calouette - 2015
They have fought a war for 35 years against the insectoid Kadan that they have no intention of ending. It’s too essential to a society where the only social movement is via battle promotion. Then it all changes when the Kadan nearly annihilate the front lines. Vasilov Officer Colonel Cole Clarke has just returned home from service with the Sigg Military. Now that he has learned how the Sigg fight, he's bringing that knowledge to the Vasilov Military, plus an entire battalion of second hand Sigg Armor purchased on the scrap market. But instead of a fresh battalion of troops, he’s assigned a penal battalion filled with convicts. The Vasilov Military doesn't accept change easily, even when they need it. What would happen if an entirely new style of warfare came onto the battlefield? Could a strike force of second hand armor trump the defensive doctrines they’d used for thirty five years or would they be doomed to failure and death on the icy planet Lishun Delta? One squadron of armor. One Colonel. A thousand of the worst convicts in the Vasilov Military. Will they be up to the task?
The Praxis
Walter Jon Williams - 2002
But the Shaa will soon be no more. The dread empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order... and bloody chaos.A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid -- the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others -- to replace the masters’ despotic rule with their own. Barely escaping a swarming surprise attack, Martinez and Caroline Sula, a pilot whose beautiful face conceals a deadly secret, are now the last hope for freedom for every being who ever languished in Shaa chains -- as the interstellar battle begins against a merciless foe whose only perfect truth is annihilation.
Janissaries
Chris Kennedy - 2014
The hero of the war, he had a small ream of paperwork to fill out, a deployment with his Navy F-18 squadron to prepare for, and a new girlfriend to spend some quality time with. Life was good. Until the aliens showed up. They had a ship and needed to get to their home planet, but didn't have a crew. They had seen Calvin's unit in action, though, and knew it was the right one for the job. There was just one small problem--a second race of aliens was coming, which would end all life on Earth. Calvin's platoon might want to do something about that, too. Having won a terrestrial war with 30 troops, winning an interstellar war with nothing but a 3,000 year old cruiser should be easy, right? "Janissaries" initiates "The Theogony," a trilogy that will take Lieutenant Hobbs and his Special Forces platoon to the stars. It will also show them that there’s much more to Earth's history than is written in the history books!
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?
The Risen Empire
Scott Westerfeld - 2003
Enemy Rix are machine-augmented humans who worship AI compound minds. Separated by light years, bound by an unlikely love, Zai and pacifist senator Nara Oxham face the Rix and hold the fate of the empire.
Gray Panthers: Battle for Earth
David Guenther - 2014
America has traded security for liberty following the attack with the suspension of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is not even taught in school any more. In this environment, Dan “D2” Daniels, a retired Army NCO of the old breed sworn to protect the constitution finds a crashed space ship and learns at the same time Earth will soon be invaded. Using the technology from the space ship, Dan forms an army of fellow senior veterans with two missions. First, to revive the Republic they had sworn their allegiance to and their second mission to save that Republic, and the world with it. Their first foray includes converting the CVN 80, USS Enterprise, a rusting air craft carrier, from a rusted heap waiting to be scrapped, into the first ship of the new space fleet of the Gray Panthers.
Forging Zero
Sara King - 2013
Now they own us.The Legend of ZERO: Forging Zero is the epic journey of 14-year-old Joe Dobbs in a post-apocalyptic universe following a massive galactic empire's invasion of Earth. The oldest of the children drafted from humanity’s devastated planet, Joe is impressed into service by the alien Congressional Ground Force—and becomes the unwitting centerpiece in a millennia-long alien struggle for independence. Once his training begins, one of the elusive and prophetic Trith appears to give Joe a spine chilling prophecy that the universe has been anticipating for millions of years: Joe will be the one to finally shatter the vast alien government known as Congress. And the Trith cannot lie.…But first Joe has to make it through bootcamp.
Shards of Honour
Lois McMaster Bujold - 1986
Aral and Cordelia survive countless mishaps while their mutual admiration and even stronger feelings emerge.