Book picks similar to
Shadow Corps by Justin Sloan


sci-fi
litrpg
science-fiction
fantasy

Advent


Xander Boyce - 2018
    when the Advent began. As all electronics in the world simply ceased to work, blue screens filled with information appeared before him. Drew was given access to a mana interface and a limited number of reality-altering crystals called Xatherite. Following the instructions on his vision-impairing screens, he ‘slotted’ his Xatherite and changed his fate: he gained the ability to cast spells. Now alone in the dark, he must battle through the government bunker-turned-dungeon in a desperate bid for survival. Escape is only the beginning, the first of his many problems in the changed world. Drew will be tasked to not only survive… but to guide the rest of humanity safely through the anarchy.

Orbs


Nicholas Sansbury Smith - 2013
    Cataclysmic solar storms have forced leaders from around the world to finally put aside their differences and agree on one thing—to jump ship. The human race is headed to Mars. Dr. Sophie Winston is hired by New Tech Corporation to test a biosphere deep within the heart of Cheyenne Mountain; a mission she believes will help prepare NTC for the three-year flight to the red planet. But, just days into the assignment, things start to go wrong. When the blast doors hiss open, Winton's team finds a changed world outside. Humans are gone, vanished without a trace, and they aren't the only thing missing. The planet's water is gone, too. As the team explores their surroundings, they find thousands of luminous blue orbs lining the streets. It isn't until they uncover what's inside that they realize the nightmare that lies ahead.

Goblin King


R.R. Virdi - 2018
    Let's just hope one death is all it will take, because he can't afford another. When Devrim Bains reaches his twenty–first birthday, he's finally punished for a crime that was never his fault–being born. In a world of strict population control, his life's been decided for him, and it's about to end. But a stroke of luck gives him opportunity to have his consciousness uploaded into a simulated-reality game world with the promise of paradise. Except paradise always comes with a cost. Monsters of legend and myths of old come to life in Lorian, needing to be slain or tamed for Devrim to have a shot at enjoying freedom. It'd be easy enough if one of the fiends hadn't raised an army hellbent on conquering everything. The Goblin King has his sights set taking the lands of Lorian in his iron grasp, and Devrim Bains' only chance is to quickly learn what it means to be a slayer. To make sure his new lease on life isn't cut painfully short, he's going to have to embody the greatest rule in Monster Slayer Online: Hunt or be hunted! Goblin King is the first novel of the Monster Slayer Online LitRPG/Gamelit series. If you loved The 100, the Monster Hunter game franchise, and Dragon's Dogma, you'll enjoy this fast paced, hard-action monster-slaying novel. Scroll up and click BUY now or click to read for FREE on Kindle Unlimited to subscribers. Author's note: Goblin King is a LitRPG/GameLit novel featuring game-like progression/skills, and appropriate text/pop-ups in narration. Please keep this in mind whilst reading.

Black Sheep


Rachel Aukes - 2020
    Stolen colonists. All Throttle wanted was a vacation...Fifteen years into a twenty-year voyage, war veteran Captain Throttle Reyne is looking forward to taking a break from dealing with malfunctions, glitches, and the hassles of monitoring a thousand colonists in cryo-sleep. But when her colony ship breaks down in the middle of nowhere, Throttle and her crew must leave the colonists behind to search for help. They find a ship that's not only missing a crew… it's clearly not from their star system. It's the discovery of a lifetime. All they need to do is tow the mysterious vessel back to their colony ship for further study and Throttle won't ever have to work again. One problem. While they're away, the colony ship is stolen—with the colonists still on board. Throttle gives chase to a lawless star system on the outer rim. To get their colonists back, they must take on the pirates and ganglords who will do anything—and sell anyone—to make a buck. They play dirty. But Throttle and her crew play dirtier.Strap on your restraints and experience the start of this new space opera thrill ride. It's perfect for fans of Jay Allan, Jennifer Foehner Wells, and Star Wars.

Eternal Frontier


Anthony J. Melchiorri - 2016
    But when an unexpected attack cripples a scientific vessel, the SRES Argo, it appears that time has come to an end.Chief Medical Officer Tag Brewer is the ship’s only survivor. He is alone in the far reaches of space. To survive he must restore and protect the downed vessel from its unknown attackers on a planet as deadly as it is mysterious. He vows to do everything in his power to seek justice for his fallen crew.When Tag uncovers a sinister secret about those who attacked the Argo, he realizes far more is at stake than just his survival. Something more powerful, more technologically advanced, and more ruthless has emerged from the darkest voids of the galaxy. It’s up to Tag to survive long enough to warn humanity and stop the dawn of a new war.

The Swarm


Orson Scott Card - 2016
    China has been devastated by the Formic's initial efforts to eradicate Earth life forms and prepare the ground for their own settlement. The Scouring of China struck fear into the other nations of the planet; that fear blossomed into drastic action when scientists determined that the single ship that wreaked such damage was merely a scout ship.There is a mothership out beyond the Solar System's Kuiper Belt, and it's heading into the system, unstoppable by any weapons that Earth can muster.Earth has been reorganized for defense. There is now a Hegemon, a planetary official responsible for keeping all the formerly warring nations in line. There's a Polemarch, responsible for organizing all the military forces of the planet into the new International Fleet. But there is an enemy within, an enemy as old as human warfare: ambition and politics. Greed and self-interest. Will Bingwen, Mazer Rackam, Victor Delgado and Lem Juke be able to divert those very human enemies in time to create a weapon that can effectively defend humanity in the inexorable Second Formic War?

Poor Man's Fight


Elliott Kay - 2013
    Congratulations! You have graduated high school. Your financial obligation is 67,879 credits. Please visit our loan officer as you exit."Tanner Malone never bought into military myths of honor and glory. He never wanted to wear a uniform or medals. Yet when family upheaval brings his otherwise stellar performance in school to a disastrous end, Tanner's plans for university lie in ruins. Facing homelessness and a mountain of debt, Tanner enlists in his home planet's tiny navy.It’s a hell of a time to sign up. Vicious pirates stalk the space lanes, claiming to fight an oppressive economic system even as they shed innocent blood. Civil war looms beyond the borders of Tanner’s home star system of Archangel. Corporate security fleets are nowhere to be found when trouble arises.In response, Archangel begins ambitious military expansion. Basic training becomes six months of daily bare knuckle brawls, demanding cross-training and constant stress. Brutal as it is, Tanner will need the preparation. The pirates grow more audacious with every attack. As if that’s not enough, Tanner is assigned to a small ship whose disgruntled crew has no patience for cerebral new recruits, and they’re on the front lines of all of Archangel’s woes.Tanner soon learns there is only one way to deal with his bullying comrades, their ruthless foes and the unforgiving void of space, and that’s to get up close and personal.

Rogue Starship


David Alastair Hayden - 2017
    Visions and dreams aren't the normal way archeologists uncover artifacts, but that's what guided him to the Ancient ship.The discovery should be the greatest triumph of his career. Instead, it ends in disaster and leads to his son, Siv, being placed in cryogenic sleep.A century later, Siv wakes to a world in decline, a world where you do what you must to survive. With the help of Silky, his father's old neural-interfacing AI companion, Siv becomes the best procurement specialist on the planet. But his services belong to the criminal Shadowslip Guild who owns him. After a job goes sideways in the worst way possible, the last thing Siv expects is to be offered his freedom. But there's a catch. His target is so hot that rival criminal guilds, foreign governments, and religious extremists will risk war to get it.The Outworld Ranger series packs all the action and sci-fi fun of the stories that inspired it: Star Wars, The Fifth Element, and Guardians of the Galaxy. It has sentient AI's, alien mysteries, starship battles, quirky robots, and a space messiah.The Benevolency UniverseFor over three thousand years a superintelligence called the Benevolence guided humanity through an age of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and technological advancement. Now, a century after its collapse, our enemies multiply as we struggle to maintain our starfaring civilization and recover technology we once took for granted. But the Benevolence kept many secrets to itself, secrets that could shape the future of humanity.  Also in the Benevolency UniverseForbidden System (Fall of the Benevolence Book 1)

Fear the Sky


Stephen Moss - 2014
    Years before they enter orbit, their approach will be announced by the flare of a thousand flames in the sky, their ships’ huge engines burning hard to slow them from the vast speeds needed to cross interstellar space. These foreboding lights will shine in our night sky like new stars, getting ever brighter until they outshine even the sun, casting ominous shadows and banishing the night until they suddenly blink out. Their technology is vastly superior to ours, and they know they cannot possibly lose the coming conflict. But they, like us, have found no answer to the destructive force of the atom, and they have no intention of facing the onslaught of our primitive nuclear arsenal, or the devastation it would wreak on the planet they crave. So they have flung out an advanced party in front of them, hidden within one of the countless asteroids randomly roaming the void. They do not want us, they want our planet. Their Agents are arriving.

Fluency


Jennifer Foehner Wells - 2014
    They kept the Target under intense surveillance for decades, letting the public believe they were exploring the solar system, while they worked feverishly to refine the technology needed to reach it. The ship itself remained silent, drifting. Dr. Jane Holloway is content documenting nearly-extinct languages and had never contemplated becoming an astronaut. But when NASA recruits her to join a team of military scientists for an expedition to the Target, it’s an adventure she can’t refuse. The ship isn’t vacant, as they presumed. A disembodied voice rumbles inside Jane’s head, "You are home." Jane fights the growing doubts of her colleagues as she attempts to decipher what the alien wants from her. As the derelict ship devolves into chaos and the crew gets cut off from their escape route, Jane must decide if she can trust the alien’s help to survive.

Winter World


A.G. Riddle - 2019
    and a shocking discovery...will change humanity forever.In the near future, a new ice age has begun.Humanity stands on the brink of extinction.Desperate for answers, scientists send probes into the solar system to take readings. Near Mars, a probe spots a mysterious object drifting toward the Sun. Is it the cause of the ice age? Or could it be our only hope of survival?With time running out, NASA launches an international mission to make contact with the object. But it isn’t what anyone thought. In the dark of space, alone, the team makes a shocking discovery that will change the course of human history—and possibly end it.

Ender's Game Alive: The Full Cast Audioplay


Orson Scott CardJohn Rubinstein - 2013
    Removed from his family at the age of six, Ender must prove his strength and his leadership, even as he fights his own doubts. The stakes are nothing less than the fate of humankind.Ender's Game Alive is performed by Kirby Heyborne, Stefan Rudnicki, Theodore Bikel, Scott Brick, Samantha Eggar, Harlan Ellison, Susan Hanfield, Roxanne Hernandez, Janis Ian, Rex Linn, Richard McGonagle, Jim Meskimen, Emily Rankin, John Rubinstein, Christian Rummel, and a full cast.

The Queen's Poisoner


Jeff Wheeler - 2016
    Attempting to depose him, the Duke of Kiskaddon gambles…and loses. Now the duke must atone by handing over his young son, Owen, as the king’s hostage. And should his loyalty falter again, the boy will pay with his life.Seeking allies and eluding Severn’s spies, Owen learns to survive in the court of Kingfountain. But when new evidence of his father’s betrayal threatens to seal his fate, Owen must win the vengeful king’s favor by proving his worth—through extraordinary means. And only one person can aid his desperate cause: a mysterious woman, dwelling in secrecy, who truly wields power over life, death, and destiny.

Dungeon Crawler Carl


Matt Dinniman - 2020
    The buildings and all the people inside, they've all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your views and your followers. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game, with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion


Neil Gaiman - 1986
    Told in the same fanciful, irreverent style as the Hitchhiker trilogy, with scraps of scripts, letters and comments from Adams, Don't Panic is the perfect companion to one of the most successful series in publishing history.