Book picks similar to
Steel Walls and Dirt Drops by Alan Black


sci-fi
science-fiction
military-science-fiction
space-opera

The Tenth Awakens


Michael Chatfield - 2018
     What can a broken ex-trooper really do? What are they good for if they’ve gone through the EMF and been tossed out the other side? If you were to ask Mark... Maybe, doing what the enemy couldn’t and following his brothers and sisters. Mark wakes up to a nightmare, to an unfamiliar place with unknown faces. A planet under attack, an enemy he’s never seen before, he just wants to escape, but when he sees others in danger, a trooper stands for something, they stand to protect their own. No matter the cost.

Mech


Isaac Hooke - 2019
    A trapped platoon. The one man who will stop at nothing to lead his unit to safety. Rade Galaal and his team of special operators are deployed to a colony under attack by a strange new alien race. Their mission: find the extraterrestrial base and destroy it. The operation should be easy, given that his men pilot Brigand mechs: massive, 25-foot-tall war machines armed to the teeth with electrolasers, rockets, incendiary throwers, and more. But it's not easy. Rade and his team soon find themselves in over their heads. Surrounded by an entire world of enraged aliens, they must rely on their wits, their training, and their mechs to survive. Because their only way out is each other.

To Honor You Call Us


H. Paul Honsinger - 2012
    In 2315, the wily Max Robichaux is given command of the USS Cumberland, a destroyer with state-of-the-art capabilities but a combat record so bad, she’s known as the “Cumberland Gap.”Capt. Robichaux’s first mission: to take his warship to the Free Corridor, where the Krag have secretly been buying strategic materials, and to seize or destroy any ships carrying enemy cargo. Far from the fleet and under enforced radio silence, Max relies only on his determination and guile…and the support and friendship of his chief medical officer, the brilliant Dr. Sahin.Because even as he deals with the ship’s onboard problems and the stress of carrying out her risky assignment, Max and the doctor discover that the Cumberland and her misfit crew are all that stands in the way of a deadly Krag attack that threatens to end the war—and humanity—once and for all.A far-future story in the tradition of “ships of wood, men of iron” novels, To Honor You Call Us and the Man of War series combines the adventure of exploration, the excitement of war, and the dangers of the unknown through the eyes of a ship and her crew.

Exploration Command


Doug Dandridge - 2014
    Short on every resource but the intelligence of their personnel, Exploration Command goes where no human has gone before, discovering new worlds, species and civilizations, pushing the boundaries of knowledge, and always on the lookout for new discoveries that could help the Empire in its struggle against the invader. In this volume are three novelettes about Exploration Command, the scientific part of the Fleet. In Retribution, a Command team finds a devastated alien civilization being aided by missionaries from the Empire. Or are they? In Timeless, an ancient derelict is found in a place where no ship should be. Does it hide the secrets to a technology the Empire has sought for over a thousand years? And in They Don't Care, alien species are being wiped out by a renegade race. Can a single two ship team stop them, or will more species go into the long night? For those readers of Exodus: Empires at War, these stories fill in some of the background of the Empire and add to the series. For newcomers, they are a great introduction to the series.

Swarm


B.V. Larson - 2010
    The ship is testing everyone it catches and murdering the weak. The good news is that Kyle keeps passing tests and staying alive. The bad news is the aliens who sent this ship are the nicest ones out there....SWARM is the story of Earth’s annexation by an alien empire. Long considered a primitive people on a backwater planet, humanity finds itself in the middle of a war, and faced with extinction. SWARM is an 88,000 word novel of science fiction by award-winning author B. V. Larson.This book is the first book in the STAR FORCE Series.

Starship Eternal


M.R. Forbes - 2015
    A dire warning from futures past... A desperate search for salvation… Captain Mitchell “Ares” Williams is a Space Marine and the hero of the Battle for Liberty, whose Shot Heard ‘Round the Universe saved the planet from a nearly unstoppable war machine. He’s handsome, charismatic, and the perfect poster boy to help the military drive enlistment. Pulled from the war and thrown into the spotlight, he’s as efficient at charming the media as he was at shooting down enemy starfighters. After an assassination attempt leaves Mitchell critically wounded, he begins to suffer from strange hallucinations that carry a chilling and oddly familiar warning: They are coming. Find the Goliath or humankind will be destroyed. Convinced that the visions are a side-effect of his injuries, he tries to ignore them, only to learn that he may not be as crazy as he thinks. The enemy is real and closer than he imagined, and they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent him from rediscovering the centuries lost starship. Narrowly escaping capture, out of time and out of air, Mitchell lands at the mercy of the Riggers - a ragtag crew of former commandos who patrol the lawless outer reaches of the galaxy. Guided by a captain with a reputation for cold-blooded murder, they’re dangerous, immoral, and possibly insane. They may also be humanity’s last hope for survival in a war that has raged beyond eternity.

Tales from the Lyon's Den


Chris KennedyDoug Dandridge - 2018
    But mercs of all species know that if you head to southwest Houston, near the Starport, there’s a particular run-down strip mall that looks like it’s been abandoned for years. The glass door second from the south end of the strip is plastered over on the inside with blue paper, and the faint golden outline of a rampant lion is the only clue. The door is locked, of course, and beyond the door is nothing but a darkened hallway with a downward slope and a slight curve to it. Once you follow this curve far enough, you are greeted by two very large, very well-armed Lumar. “Welcome to the Lyon’s Den,” the larger of the two says without a translator, and without a trace of an alien accent. “You know the rules?” Welcome back to the Four Horsemen universe, where only a willingness to fight and die for money separates Humans from the majority of the other races. Edited by bestselling authors and universe creators Mark Wandrey and Chris Kennedy, “Tales from the Lyon’s Den” includes eighteen all-new stories in the Four Horsemen universe by a variety of bestselling authors—and some you may not have heard of…yet. Want to know what it’s like to do search and rescue while a battle is going on or what to do with that new manufactory you just won in a card game? Better learn the rules to the Lyon’s Den…and then step inside! Inside, you’ll find: Preface by Chris Kennedy “The Devil in the Pit” by Mark Wandrey “A Job to Do” by Quincy J. Allen “For the Honor of the Flag” by Doug Dandridge “Lucky” by James P. Chandler “Shit Day” by Marisa Wolf “The Charge of the Heavy Brigade” by Chris Kennedy “The Bottom Line” by Michael J. Allen “Midnight Diplomacy” by Tim C. Taylor “Desperta Ferro” by Eric S. Brown & N.X. Sharps “The Deadly Dutchman” by Kevin McLaughlin “The Felix” by RJ Ladon “The Heart of a Lion” by Terry Mixon “What Really Matters” by Chris Winder “Headspace and Timing” by Robert E. Hampson “Return to Sender” by Benjamin Tyler Smith “Grunwald” by David Alan Jones “The Quiet Was Fine” by Jake Bible “A Mother’s Favor” by Kacey Ezell

Rescue on Gimhae: Stories of the Orphan Corps 1


Earl T. Roske - 2018
    Comfort. Defend. There is no love lost between the Radial Marines and the Hospitaller Orphan Corps. So, when Sergeant Seavers learns a platoon of Marines will be tagging along for the drop down to the surface of Gimhae, he’s certain this will doom his chances at officer candidate training.As if that wasn’t enough for one mission, the colonists on Gimhae are acting skittish and uncharacteristically rude. Sgt Seavers isn’t used to this kind of behavior. Not from people his team of Hospitallers has come to save from the terraflu.Something’s amiss. Sgt Seavers can feel it. And it may have something to do with the smuggler ships hiding over the next hill.Rescue on Gimhae is the first book in the Stories of the Orphan Corps series. It is also a standalone story in the Hospitaller universe. There is no required sequence to the books in the Stories of the Orphan Corps series. Be the first on deck to experience the beginning of the adventures with the Orphan Corps. Buy it now!

A Faded Star


Michael Freeport - 2016
    The crew of their newest flagship, the Rampart encounters an alien scout who is being chased by a dangerous foe. The encounter shakes the beliefs held by the people of Lashmere. With the aid of the mysteries of the origin tablet, they discover the true origins of their colony. These may be the last humans in the universe. Can they survive against their ancient enemy? Their only choice is to embrace an unknown past and fight with everything they have.

In Every Clime and Place


Patrick LeClerc - 2014
    Always Faithful. The motto of the United States Marine Corps. Words to live by. On the ragged edges of civilization, Corporal Michael Collins has lived those words, taking on riots and evacuations, rebels and terrorists. Asteroid belt patrol is just another deployment. Ninety nine percent boredom, one percent terror. But soon the platoon of Marines find themselves entangled in the threads of a conspiracy of corporate greed, government corruption, piracy, and a band of war criminals. As the fire team leader struggles with tensions in the close knit unit, Collins and his fellow Marines find themselves outnumbered in a pitched battle to stop a corrupt land grab that seems right out of the Old West, but on a new, wider, more unforgiving frontier. And now he must confront the harsh demands of being “always faithful.” Semper Fi. Words to live by. Words to die by. Time to earn that combat pay, Marines. Welcome to the Suck. And remember, you volunteered for this. Patrick LeClerc has crafted a tense, military action adventure on the edge of civilization: Earth’s mining colonies in the asteroid belt. “In Every Clime and Place” combines the spirit of classic s/f of Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers” or David Drake’s “Hammer’s Slammers” with the isolated, small unit grunt’s eye view intimacy of George MacDonald Fraser’s “Quartered Safe Out Here.” "In Every Clime and Place” is a frontier land grab; a tale of government corruption and corporate piracy, and a near future Marine science fiction story, told with gritty authenticity, gallows humor and raw emotion, evoking the closeness and isolation of a small unit deployed to the distant edge of a bleak and dangerous frontier. BOOK REVIEW Set some 60 years in the future, this impressive, fast-paced novel is as much ‘Semper fi’ as it is sci-fi. The convincing story centers on the hard-hitting law and order role of the USMC in dealing with organized commercial pirates causing mayhem on planet Mars. The plot’s development is cleverly stage-managed by the author (a former US Marine) From the very first page, authenticity is the dominant hallmark of this exciting and very readable book. Don’t expect to read this novel a chapter at a time, last thing at night and then drop off to sleep. I found it impossible to put down. This book demanded and held my attention. The very believable characters live off the pages. They, their gritty Service dialogues and the battle scenes are all USMC through and through. Long before that iconic US Marine legend, Chesty Puller, was mentioned in the story, I was sold on this book’s authenticity and the author’s credibility. I thoroughly recommend it as an absorbing, exciting read. It has, too, the makings of a great film. -Mike Williams, Royal Marine, SBS, Author of The Tremayne Trilogy