Book picks similar to
Freehold by William C. Dietz


science-fiction
sci-fi
fiction
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Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue


Hugh Howey - 2009
    A dull future seems to await, until a marvelous discovery changes everything. Her father's old starship, missing for a decade, turns up halfway across the galaxy. Its retrieval launches Molly and Cole on the adventure of a lifetime, one that will have lasting consequences for themselves and billions of others. What starts off as a simple quest to reconnect with her past, ends up forging a new future. And the forgotten family she hoped to uncover becomes one she never foresaw: a band of alien misfits and runaways-the crew of the starship Parsona.

Jupiter


Ben Bova - 2000
    Heated from below by the planet's seething core, it is the widest, deepest, most fearsome ocean in the solar system.Idealistic young American scientist Grant Archer joins a clandestine expedition to this awesome new world. But Grant does not share the ideals of the scientists he accompanies: he has been planted on their expedition by the New Morality, a religious group that wants to ferret out what the 'godless humanists' have discovered. His mission: to reassure the new religious leaders of Earth that Jupiter holds no intelligent life.But unknown to the New Morality, Grant, though the son of a minister, is both a believer and a man who sees no reason why science and faith can not co-exist. He has come to the vast, planet-girdling ocean of Jupiter with an open mind, and he is about to tell his masters something that may shatter their conviction.

Inside Job


Connie Willis - 2005
    Smart, dedicated, gorgeous, and, thanks to her last movie before she hung up on Hollywood, rich, she's a pleasure to oblige when she says Rob has to witness this channeler Ariaura's act--on her, not the Eye's, nickel--despite channelers being so last year. It's quite a show, all right, for in the midst of Ariaura's particular ancient wise guy's basso spiel, a gravelly baritone interrupts (both voices emanate from the channeler's female mouth) to berate the audience as "yaps" and the act as "claptrap." Why is Ariaura undermining herself? Or is she? After all, she angrily accuses Rob and Kildy of scheming to destroy her. Could the baritone belong to a genuine channeled spirit? Willis, one of sf's most spirited writers, rounds on the New Age; pays tribute to a great, skeptical journalist; and affectionately parodies pulp fiction at its best in this irresistible entertainment.

Soldiers


John Dalmas - 2001
    An alien migration fleet -- 14,000 starships strong -- searches the stars for a new home, its homeworld forever lost. When they finally find planets that can support them, all they have to do is eradicate the pesky human natives, a task they assume is easily within their powers. But Earth's Commonwealth of Worlds isn't about to give up so easily -- even if it has to create and train something it hasn't had for centuries: soldiers!

Pump Six and Other Stories


Paolo Bacigalupi - 2008
    Social criticism, political parable, and environmental advocacy lie at the center of Paolo's work. Each of the stories herein is at once a warning, and a celebration of the tragic comedy of the human experience.The eleven stories in Pump Six represent the best Paolo's work, including the Hugo nominee "Yellow Card Man," the nebula and Hugo nominated story "The People of Sand and Slag," and the Sturgeon Award-winning story "The Calorie Man."

The Cobweb


Neal Stephenson - 1996
    In this now-classic political thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a savagely witty, chillingly topical tale set in the tense moments of the Gulf War. When a foreign exchange student is found murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small college town--all the way to the Middle East. Shady events at the school reveal that a powerful department is using federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what it's producing is a very nasty bug.Navigating a plot that leads from his own backyard to Washington, D.C., to the Gulf, where his Army Reservist wife has been called to duty, Banks realizes he may be the only person who can stop the wholesale slaughtering of thousands of Americans. It's a lesson in foreign policy he'll never forget.

Brayan's Gold


Peter V. Brett - 2011
    Instead Arlen finds himself alone on a frozen mountainside, carrying a dangerous cargo to Count Brayan’s gold mine, one of the furthest points in the duchy. And One Arm, giant rock demon, hunts him still. Novella.

The Shore of Women


Pamela Sargent - 1986
    Reprint.

Infected


Scott Sigler - 2008
    Working under the government’s shroud of secrecy, CIA operative Dew Phillips crisscrosses the country trying in vain to capture a live victim. With only decomposing corpses for clues, CDC epidemiologist Margaret Montoya races to analyze the science behind this deadly contagion. She discovers that these killers all have one thing in common – they’ve been contaminated by a bioengineered parasite, shaped by a complexity far beyond the limits of known science.Meanwhile Perry Dawsey – a hulking former football star now resigned to life as a cubicle-bound desk jockey – awakens one morning to find several mysterious welts growing on his body. Soon Perry finds himself acting and thinking strangely, hearing voices . . . he is infected. The fate of the human race may well depend on the bloody war Perry must wage with his own body, because the parasites want something from him, something that goes beyond mere murder.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian Armor


K.W. Jeter - 1998
    He is Boba Fett, and even the most hardened criminals tremble at his name. Now he faces the deadliest challenge of his infamous career--an all-out war against his most dangerous enemies.As the Rebellion gathers force, Prince Xizor proposes a cunning plan to the Emperor and Darth Vader: smash the power of the Bounty Hunters Guild by turning its members against each other. Only the strongest and most ruthless will survive, and they can be used against the Rebellion. It's a job for the fiercely independent Boba Fett, who jumps at the chance to destroy his rivals. But Fett soon realizes the game is rigged, as he finds himself the target of murderous factions, criminal conspiracies, and the evil at the Empire's dark heart. Boba Fett has always finished first. And in this game, anything less is death.

Spin


Robert Charles Wilson - 2005
    They all flared into brilliance at once, then disappeared, replaced by a flat, empty black barrier. He and his best friends, Jason and Diane Lawton, had seen what became known as the Big Blackout. It would shape their lives.Life on Earth is about to get much, much stranger.

Ambush at Corellia


Roger MacBride Allen - 1995
    One thing is clear: the five inhabited worlds of the sector are on the brink of civil war and the once peaceful coexistence of the three leading races -- human, Selonian, and Drallan --  has come to an end.

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.

Demons of the Void


David Adams - 2011
    It is told primarily from the perspective of one Captain Melissa Liao of the People's Navy, who is given command of one of three great warships built to fight the "demons", the TFR Beijing.

Legions of Space


Keith Laumer - 2004
    In the first novel, "A Trace of Memory," a drifter named Legion is hired by a millionaire who claims to be centuries old, but has nearly complete amnesia. He can only remember that "something "is hunting for him, and Legion's job is to protect him. The job turns out to be more than Legion bargained for when he finds himself and his employer on a prehistoric starship hurtling into the unknown. In "Planet Run," Laumer joins forces with SF legend Gordon R. Dickson in a novel of two ancient heroes who are going to trade the rest of their lives for one sweet year, and the chance to solve the secret of the last unexplored planet in this sector of the galaxy. Plus four short novels of exciting interstellar action and adventure. With an introduction by Joel Rosenberg, author of the best-selling "Guardians of the Flame" series.Contents:A Trace of Memory was first published as a serialized story in Amazing magazine (July–September 1962) and then reissued as a novel by Berkley in 1963. Planet Run was first published in 1967 by Doubleday. "The Choice" was first published in Analog in July, 1969. "Three Blind Mice" was first published in The Many Worlds of Science Fiction (Ben Bova, ed.), E.P. Dutton, 1971. "Mind Out of Time" was first published as "The Mind Out of Time" in The Farthest Reaches (Joseph Elder, ed.), Trident 1968. "Message to an Alien" was first published in Analog in June, 1970.