Book picks similar to
Not All Robots #5 by Mark Russel


speculative
comics-single-issues
comix
dystopian-post-apocalyptic

The Silent Earth: The Complete Trilogy


Mark R. Healy - 2016
     The Earth is in ruins. Cities and nations destroyed. Those who survive the onslaught succumb to the cold blackness of winter. A handful of machines finally emerge into the light, lost and directionless. They are the last remnants of civilisation. Brant is a synthetic - a machine who has the appearance and emotions of the humans who made him. He is hunted across the wasteland by cruel scavengers known as Marauders who are intent on cannibalising his body to prolong their own lives. Brant carries a great burden as he tries to return home: a secret that can change the world. Against the unforgiving desert, the twisted denizens of this new world and his own dark past he needs to find a way back at any cost.

Orb Station Zero


Dan Davis - 2016
    An alien space station, a threat to the Sol System and a gateway to the galactic civilization. For the last hundred years, humanity has sent a champion to fight for our future. Every one has lost. Now, monstrous aliens have designs on the Sol System itself. The winner of a single bout of deadly combat inside the Orb Station will be granted the rights to conquer Earth and all of her fledgling colonies. This is the final chance for victory before humanity is destroyed. Rama Seti is a professional gamer, a hero of the virtual world. He has not left his apartment in years, he is morbidly obese and has no real world combat experience. But, when the tactical surgeon from the United Nations Orb Project breaks into his home and cuts off his head, Rama is transplanted onto a giant, genetically engineered body designed to be the perfect weapon. Success in this mission means humanity will finally take its place as a member of the galactic network of alien empires. Failure will mean our destruction. If you enjoyed Ender's Game, Starship Troopers, The Forever War, and Old Man's War, you'll love Orb Station Zero, the first in a new military science fiction series.

Riverworld : The Great Short Fiction of Philip José Farmer


Philip José Farmer - 1987
    

No Higher Ground: (A Sam Czerny Novel - Book One)


Roman Godzich - 2017
    Then a Chinese mining facility discovers an unusual artifact on the far side of the moon. A device which could change the way humanity sees itself and its place in the galaxy. Sam finds himself on the project of his dreams only to get caught up in a sudden war between the US and China. A war that prevents the two governments from noticing an even more dangerous arrival. "Imaginative science fiction based in hard science and realistically envisioned future geopolitics, NO HIGHER GROUND is a thriller with a wildly inventive reality. Surprising alliances and betrayals are set against stakes which reveal the war games we humans play are a mere footnote in the battles fought across the universe. An exciting debut." - Nina Sadowsky, author of JUST FALL and THE BURIAL SOCIETY

Lot Beta


Tom Merritt - 2013
    It was taken over, some say stolen, from the Pioneers. Everyone's an employee and you're born into your pay grade. What happens when a young man is thrust into a position of power by an accident of birth? What secrets are hidden by the Corporation?Can one boy create a new way to live?

A Tangled Road to Justice (Paladins of Distant Suns #1)


Olan Thorensen - 2019
    When former soldier Everett Cole signed on to help colony planets prepare for joining the Federation, his employers were disconcertingly vague about their identity and his duties. Yet, the pay was good and it got him off Earth and on the way to a fresh start. More reservations arose when - 11 light-years from Earth - he met his partner, Edgar Millen, an enigmatic man with a penchant for violent solutions and a fetish for the mythology and language of the American Wild West. It wasn’t until they reached the colony world of Astrild that the mission became somewhat clearer. They were players in multi-faceted efforts to steer colony worlds in preparation for joining the Federation. Unfortunately, not all obstacles were amenable to diplomatic, political, or economic solutions. Cole and Millen were agents, troubleshooters, hired guns - or whatever you wanted to call them - tasked with removing impediments to civilized law and order - the methodology left open-ended. Millen and Cole’s first mission to test their partnership? The backwater town of Justice was under the control of a strongman and his henchmen. All they had to do was convince the cowed citizens to rise against their tormenter. Formal authority and backup? None. Millen was blasé at the assignment. Everett’s first thought was, “What the—!”

Dryker's Folly: Book 1 in Void Wraith Origins


Chris Fox - 2020
    Before the Eradication.One man had a chance to stop it all, and failed...Captain Dryker is a washed up vet mining on the fringes of the Kuiper belt. He loads rocks into the Folly’s railgun, and fires them back to his corporate overlords on Earth. Boring, just the way he likes it. Until one day it isn’t.An alien signal bursts from Pluto, which as it turns out is neither a planet, nor a planetoid body. It is an ancient defense satellite activated because it detected the return of the Vuka Spectra. The Void Wraith.Dryker is the closest ship on the scene, but not the only one vying for the prize. Hostile aliens have emerged from our sun using something called a Helios Gate. The savage Tigris have come not just for the satellite, but to conquer Earth.Dryker’s only hope is finding something, anything, within the installation to counter the alien’s superior technology and save mankind.The prequel to the Void Wraith Saga. Learn how it all began...

Shall Not Perish


Richard Tongue - 2018
    Her crew a patchwork of veterans near retirement and rookies too green for the rest of the fleet, her commanding officer passed-over twice for her first star. A place where careers go to die. Until, early one morning, she finds herself on the front lines of her third interstellar war, the only ship standing between victory and defeat. Caught in a strange, hostile universe, Old Abe and her crew must fight the battle of their lives, or see freedom and liberty extinguished throughout the galaxy forever...

Virginian (Matt Miller in the Colonies, #3)


Mark J. Rose - 2019
    He’s become a wealthy businessman and politician, with a beautiful wife and family, but the American Revolution looms on the horizon. When a prominent British leader mysteriously disappears, Ben Franklin summons Matt to London to help investigate the involvement of Patrick Ferguson, a man whose ambitions are to change the future. Unknown to them all, another time traveler, with separate motivations, will join them in a struggle across two continents to change the destiny of Western Civilization.

Battle of the New Orleans


Dale C. Musser - 2013
    Recently discharged from his service in the United Stated Navy and working as an engineer for the city of New Orleans, maintaining the pumps that kept the city dry. Tibby decides to spend some time at fishing hole in the swamp shown to him by his grandfather when he was a small boy, his trip turns out to be more than he expects when he discovers an ancient alien spaceship buried in the mud of the swamp. After entering the craft, Tibby accidentally engages an autopilot causing the ship to take off with him aboard navigating through space to its preset destination. What follows are adventures beyond Tibby’s wildest dreams as, the ship contains a cargo of the rarest and most valuable substance in the universe, Solbidyum. Tibby arrives in the Federation space and is greeted by a large Star Ship with thousands of people aboard. He soon discovers he is about to become the richest man in the universe, but not without considerable enemies trying to capture both him and the Solbidyum cargo. Tibby finds himself thrust into a role of hero and falls in love with a beautiful woman, but soon finds that some of his decisions result in the loss of thousands of lives. Thus begins the Solbidyum Wars Saga with Book 1 –Battle of the New Orleans.

Buried Hope


X.J. Selman - 2013
    and for a thousand years, they've hidden.The citizens claim they love Spes, the underground city where they evade the deadly toxins of the surface world, but the walls never end and the guards never cease to watch. There is a longing to escape, and a hope that someday the world might live again.But how do the people know what they are told is truth? How far will they go to trust the unknown, and how much will they fight for that they cannot have?

Blue Collar Space


Martin L. Shoemaker - 2018
     Martin L. Shoemaker, author of “Today I Am Paul”, presents stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary work. Planning, exploring, constructing… living and growing and dying… across the Solar System. Includes these award-winning stories: Scramble (second place, Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award, 2012) Unrefined (third place, Writers of the Future, 2014) Racing to Mars (first place, Analog Analytical Laboratory award, 2016) Plus seven more stories!

Elite Dangerous: Premonition


Drew Wagar - 2017
    Disturbing encounters with unknown ships. Three great superpowers manoeuvre against each other. But are their destinies their own, or are they merely the puppets of some greater power? Since the loss of the Prism system in 3300, Lady Kahina Tijani Loren has operated on the fringes of Imperial society. Led by clues from a woman once thought dead, she is drawn into a conspiracy at the heart of humanity. To uncover the truth she must contend with dangerous enemies, navigate murky political waters, and – with the help of her friends – uncover the secret of the Formidine Rift. Premonition is the new story set in the Elite: Dangerous galaxy, shaped by player actions in the game.

Escape


Jasper T. Scott - 2012
    The station is in a security lockdown and the sole apparent occupant, a Union captain, offers Kieran an entire ship if he can disable the lockdown. Kieran realizes that he’s probably dealing with a criminal, rather than an actual captain, but he’s just desperate enough to accept. He flies out to the nearest station and returns with a slicer and some dangerous-looking backup. As he’s making his approach to the station, Kieran hears a garbled cry for help over the comm. He hopes it’s just his imagination.But it’s not. Half the station’s crew is being held hostage, while the other half appear to be masquerading as Union officers. Kieran and his team disable the lockdown, and to Kieran’s amazement, they are given a ship as promised. As they are leaving the station, they see an entire fleet of Union cruisers pouring out of the newly-reactivated space gate. Kieran is confused. What are so many warships doing on the frontier? The Union isn’t at war.Kieran sets out to investigate, but along the way strange things start happening to him and his crew. At first there seem to be logical explanations, but before long the answers are not so clear. As time goes by, Kieran realizes the horrible truth:He wasn’t the only one trying to escape. . . .

Expanse series #1-6


James S.A. Corey
    a. corey includes titles:- Leviathan Wakes, Caliban's War, Abaddon's Gate, Cibola Burn, Nemesis Games, Babylon's Ashes. Description:- Leviathan Wakes Humanity has colonised the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond - but the stars are still out of our reach.Jim Holden is an officer on an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. Caliban's War While Earth and Mars have stopped shooting each other, the core alliance is shattered. The outer planets and the Belt are uncertain in their new - possibly temporary - autonomy. Abaddon's Gate For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark. Cibola Burn: Book 4 of the Expanse The gates have opened the way to a thousand new worlds and the rush to colonise has begun. Settlers looking for a new life stream out from humanity's home planets. Illus, the first human colony on this vast new frontier, is being born in blood and fire. Nemesis Games: Book 5 of the Expanse A thousand worlds have opened, and the greatest land-rush in human history has begun. As wave after wave of colonists leave, the power structures of the old solar system begin to buckle.Ships are disappearing without a trace. Babylon's Ashes: Book Six of the Expanse The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.