Book picks similar to
Galactic Startup by Brian Whiting
sci-fi
science-fiction
space-opera
scifi
Strange Company
Nick Cole - 2021
Best to steer clear of the freaks in Voodoo, kid.”Surrounded and outgunned, a group of private military contractors known as “Strange Company” find themselves on a remote planet at the edge of known space, and on the losing end of a bad contract. Orbital D-beam strikes, dropships bristling with auto-guns, missiles, and troops - even Monarch space marines in state-of-the-art advanced battle rattle - will try to prevent the company from reaching the exfil LZ and getting off-world.For Strange, that means it’s time to hang tough and get it on with as much hyper-kinetic violence as they can muster to get clear of the whole mess. And what the Strange can’t get done by violent assault and crazy firefights, they’ll get done by the freaks of Voodoo Platoon - operators who have been changed by the Dark Labs into powerful and unnervingly unnatural asymmetrical weapons.This is the Strange Company. Because in the Strange, it’s always really Strange. Join them - and get ready for full auto combat at the furthest limits of human exploration.
The Girls From Alcyone
Cary Caffrey - 2011
Sold into slavery to save their families from financial ruin, the girls are forced to live out their lives in service to the Kimura Corporation, a prestigious mercenary clan with a lineage stretching back long before the formation of the Federated Corporations. Known only to Kimura, the two girls share startling secret—a rare genetic structure not found in tens of millions of other girls.But when their secret becomes known, Sigrid and Suko quickly find themselves at the center of a struggle for power. Now, hunted by men who would seek to control them, Sigrid and Suko are forced to fight for their own survival, and for the freedom of the girls from Alcyone.
War Eternal: The Complete Series
M.R. Forbes - 2020
Find the Goliath or be destroyed.The chilling words are the first thing Mitchell hears after an assassin’s bullet nearly ends his life. He tries to ignore them, convinced the voice in his head is a side-effect of his injuries. It isn’t.The warning is only the beginning. A glimpse into a struggle against an enemy older than time.An enemy that’s very real and much closer than he ever imagined.An enemy that will do whatever it takes to keep him from finding the centuries-lost starship and ending not only the fight but their very existence.Narrowly escaping capture, Mitchell falls into the hands of the Riggers — a ragtag crew of black-ops commandos who patrol the outer reaches of the galaxy. Guided by a captain with a reputation for 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.
Mobius
Vincent Vale - 2013
When it’s sabotaged by a mysterious entity, he uncovers a plot against humanity that’s been underway for millennia.Theron is driven against all odds to stop the entity, only to discover he’s an integral part of the entity’s sinister plan. Together with a small group of travelers, he must journey across galaxies in search of an ancient Guardian of the universe.If he fails, humankind will face oblivion.
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?
Iron Prince
Bryce O'Connor - 2020
Reidon was born weak, sickly and small. Afflicted with a painful disease and abandoned by his parents because of it, he has had to fight tooth and nail for every minor advantage life has allowed him.His perseverance has not gone unnoticed, however, and when the most powerful artificial intelligence in human history takes an interest in him, things began to change quickly. Granted a CAD—a Combat Assistance Device—with awful specs but an infinite potential for growth, Reidon finds himself at the bottom of his class at the Galens Institute, one of the top military academies in the Collective. Along with his best friend, Viviana Arada, Reidon will have to start his long climb through the school rankings, and on to the combat tournament circuits that have become humanity's greatest source of excitement and entertainment.So begins the rise of a god. So begins the ascent of the Stormweaver.
Close Proximity
Chris J. Pike - 2017
Gedri is one of the star systems in the Silstrand Alliance…sort of. Controlled by several crime syndicates, most of what goes on in there is the opposite of legal. The Silstrand Alliance government stays out of the system as much as possible, only intervening when things really fall apart. That makes it the right sort of place to disappear in, or to make a quick buck. Kylie Roads wants both. She makes her living salvaging abandoned ships left over from pirate attacks on the edges of the system—Gedri has its fair share of pirates too. Some of the hulls are legal, most aren’t. When a salvage job goes bad, Kylie finds herself on the opposite end of a gun. Holding that gun? Silstrand Alliance military, the very people that Kylie wants to avoid. Accused of attacking the ship they are salvaging, Kylie makes a deal to go deep into the Gedri System on a rescue mission—it should be simple, in Gedri, nothing is as simple as it looks. With her ex as the military liaison, Kylie takes her crew on the most dangerous mission of their lives. Rescue the girl, defeat the crime syndicates, and pray the military holds up their end of the bargain.
Omega Rising
Joshua Dalzelle - 2013
But when he investigates the crash, what he finds will yank him out of his self-imposed exile and thrust him into a world he could have never imagined.He suddenly finds himself trapped on a damaged alien spacecraft and plunged into a universe of interstellar crime lords and government conspiracies, along the way meeting strange new friends… and enemies. As he struggles to find his way back home he is inexorably drawn deeper into a world where one misstep could mean his death. Or worse. He desperately wants to get back to Earth, but it may be the end for him. … or is it just the beginning?
Legacy
Bob Mauldin - 2019
Taking the shuttle into orbit, they discover a much larger ship left adrift with no one on board. Commandeering it, they confirm that we’re not alone in the universe and must prepare the human race for what is about to come. Recruiting from all over the world, they begin to expand their fleet and build a federation to give humans a foothold in the galaxy. Thus the Terran Alliance is formed, led by Simon, Kitty, Gayle, and their new comrades. Everything is going according to planned as they construct more ships, but the governments of the world are vying for control of these technologies. To make matters worse, their second encounter with an alien species is not one of peace. After the attack, they are left with more questions than answers as they face resistance from, not only outer space, but their home planet as well.
2nd Gen
Andrea Vaughan - 2018
Archean carries a one-way crew of courageous passengers to Uelara, an earth-like planet in the Cieri star system. Uelara is ideal, except for one minor detail-its distance from Earth. Traveling at sub-light speed, the generation ship won't reach Uelara within the original crew's lifetime.Thirty years into the journey, a new generation born on the Archean trains to fulfill the first generation's mission. Eager to reach Uelara, the 2nd Gen crew prepares, as planned, to assume their parents' responsibilities-that is, until. . . someone goes missing and a devastating secret is discovered, putting the future of the human race in jeopardy. Will the crew rally and carry out the mission-or is humanity doomed?It's all up to the 2nd Gen.The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.-Gaylord Nelson
Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie - 2013
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest.Once, she was the Justice of Toren - a colossal starship with an artificial intelligence linking thousands of soldiers in the service of the Radch, the empire that conquered the galaxy.Now, an act of treachery has ripped it all away, leaving her with one fragile human body, unanswered questions, and a burning desire for vengeance.
The Singularity Trap
Dennis E. Taylor - 2018
His one share buys him six months of searching the asteroid belt for that elusive cache of metals that could make the entire crew wealthy, and allow Ivan to pull his family out of the depths of poverty.While investigating a promising asteroid, Ivan triggers an extraterrestrial booby trap, which squirts a strange liquid substance onto his arm. The next morning, he wakes up to find his forearm turning into living metal. Soon his other limbs begin to change, and worse yet, there’s an artificial intelligence growing in his head and talking to him. As alien nanites eat his ship out from under him, the AI reveals its mission: to convert the solar system and the human race into a war machine meant to fight in an interstellar battle that has raged for millions of years.To save his family—and the human race—Ivan will need to play a deadly game of brinkmanship with the military, all the while hiding his plans from both his crewmates and the alien computer residing in his brain.
America One
T.I. Wade - 2012
Now Ryan Richmond has $3 billion to play with, he is in his forties; and still wants to go to space. His only enemy; the US Government who doesn’t have its own space program-and wants his new spaceship; AMERICA ONE.He sold his first company at 19 and employed the remnants of the Russian Space Program; a couple of the best Russian space brains in the world.Ryan founded, and sold two more companies in his twenties, and then hired most of the European Space Authority.In his thirties he invested over $100 million into Internet Start-ups and Google, netting Billions. Then he waited until NASA’s Shuttle Program came to a sad end and employed the best brains in the U.S. Space Program.Now he is in his forties, still wants to go to space- the only problem is that The U.S. government doesn't have a current spaceship of their own- and wants his!
Iron Dragoons
Richard Fox - 2017
I am Fury. I Will not Fail. Soldiers of the Terran Armor Corps wage war across the stars. Wired into mechanized battle suits, they fight the terrifying battles which must be won, no matter the cost. Their deeds are legend, their reputation feared by the enemies of Earth and her allies, but how the Corps forges young men and women into mighty warriors is shrouded by mystery. Roland Shaw lost his parents to war, he volunteers for the Armor Corps to honor their memory and discover just how far he can push himself. To succeed, he must find the iron in his heart and prove himself worthy to the Corps. For the Amor, there is no substitute for victory and to fail is to die. Iron Dragoons is an action-packed military sci-fi novel, the first of a new series by the author of The Ember War Saga.