Book picks similar to
An Ornament to His Profession by Charles L. Harness
science-fiction
sf-short-stories-anthologies
short-story-collections
noteworthy-cover
World Enough (And Time)
Edmund Jorgensen - 2019
Normally Jeremiah Brown would not begrudge such luckless animals their windfall, but the man was his uncle, and the fortune was supposed to be his inheritance. Furthermore, having already purchased a ticket for a luxury space-cruise "on expectation" of said inheritance, Jeremiah can no longer pay for said ticket. And furthermore still, he is already on said cruise. Having defaulted on his ticket, Jeremiah must work as a concierge for the remainder of the trip. Since he has never worked a day in his life, even an ordinary job would be sure to prove challenging. But this will be no ordinary job... World Enough (And Time) is a sci-fi comedy of manners and errors. If you enjoy the work of Douglas Adams—or have always longed to read something inspired by P.G. Wodehouse or Kingsley Amis but set on, you know, a spaceship zipping through the void at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light—you should check it out.
Tempered: A Space Opera Military Adventure
T.S. Paul - 2019
Casey Lewis led the best Special Operations unit in all of the Confederation until it betrayed her. Taking revenge, she expected to die in a blaze of glory and gunfire but that was not to be. Now she's Chef of the Navy and it's her job to teach, tutor, and investigate each and every kitchen in the fleet. On her own terms. When she accidentally uncovers a plot against not only the battleship she's on but the Confederation as a whole, all hell breaks loose. Bad Casey is back and she's not fooling around this time! ***This book contains bad language, sexual situations, violence, more violence, and a whole lot of innuendo. No actual Chefs were harmed in the making of this book.
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.
The Hunters of Vermin
H. Paul Honsinger - 2017
For reasons Max barely understands, the Vaaach decide that they have an obligation to train him to be a Vaaach warrior, or at least as close as a puny, fruit-eating human can come. Max finds himself on a strange, unknown world, under the tutelage of a nine-foot tall, carnivorous Vaaach drill instructor, learning an alien way of fighting, and stalking and making war. Not only is the training like nothing Max has ever imagined, there's the small matter of the final exam: a real mission involving real combat against real Krag with the life or death of an entire Union naval task force hanging in the balance. Max is going to have to find resources of cunning, creativity, strength, endurance, and courage far beyond his years if he's going to survive and save thousands of his comrades who--unknown to them--are depending on the slender thread of the young officer's abilities for their very survival. The Hunters of Vermin is a short novel (just over 62,500 words, slightly longer than such classic novels as Lord of the Flies and All Quiet on the Western Front), that can be read as a stand-alone adventure or as a part of the longer series of Max Robichaux space tales. Readers who have never met Max Robichaux or encountered Honsinger's fiction before will find a thrilling, self-contained adventure. Fans of Honsinger's other books will gain interesting insight into the events that helped make Max Robichaux the officer we meet in the "Man of War" series, as this novel covers events immediately after the conclusion of the novella Deadly Nightshade and twelve years before the beginning of the "Man of War" Series. This novel packs everything Honsinger's readers expect--realistically staged combat, deep character development, believable aliens, and the thrill of deep space adventure--into a compact package. The Hunters of Vermin is a military coming-of-age story in the vein of the early Horatio Hornblower books, but set centuries in the future against the backdrop of an interstellar war that threatens the survival of the human race.
Dragon's Egg / Starquake
Robert L. Forward - 1994
Reissue.
Trials and Tribulations: A Kurtherian Gambit Series
Natalie Grey - 2019
When you have made a point of not doing risking love for a thousand years... You wonder if the promise is worth the pain...
Sometimes... Risk Be Damned, your heart doesn't ask permission.
Stephen, Michael's brother, is charged with finding out what is happening to Wechselbalg in Europe and uncovers a sinister plot. Jennifer is working this operation with him.
While the Queen is watching from above.
How will the two of them work together, as Stephen tries to deal with handling a true romance for the first time in centuries? How often will Bethany Anne tease him?
How often will he go too far protecting Jennifer?
Emotions in turmoil, Stephen, and Jennifer deal with someone who knows too much about the UnknownWorld, and has plans to use it.
Damned to Hell:
Risking One's Heart is often harder than Risking One's life.Jennifer is in a bind, and that doesn't even stop to consider she got herself stuck right in the spider's castle.No, she did something a little rash, more for herself, than anything else. The problem is she knows she has hurt her very new boyfriend and God only knows how he was taking it.The reunion with a man over a thousand-years old might be a bit tense.However, at the end of the day, Jennifer and Stephen are part of the Queen's team and while the emotions for each other run high, they will get the job done.Along with everyone else on the team.While all of this is going on, the Queen has a special set of purchases that are wanted by others, so they can track where she is.And team BMW are trying to figure out who can brew the best beer of all.
To Hell and Back:
Hugo’s plan to use the Wechselbag as slaves has been thwarted - Jennifer and Stephen made sure he died.
Painfully.
The Wechselbag Hugo had stolen are freed and safe, and theythoughttheir work was done.
They were wrong.
The problem? One Wechselbag who survived Hugo’s torture has come to the conclusion that the only way to keep his people safe…Is to kill every human he can get to. He’s rallying Wechselbag to his side and is ready to launch a war that will cost thousands of innocent lives.Stephen failed to keep his house in order once.
He won’t make the same mistake again.
Trials and Tribulations is part of The Kurtherian Gambit Universe set between books 13 and 14. Loosely, these three years are called "The Dark Years" or "The Lost Years."
The Dark Years - when the Trials and Tribulations of being merciful were shouldered by Bethany Anne and her people.
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NOTE: This book contains cursing. Perhaps humorous cursing, but cursing nevertheless. If this offends you, I don't suggest reading this book.
Adrift
Greg Curtis - 2020
After that he had been rescued by more aliens! But only to be dumped on an alien planet in an alien galaxy and left to figure out what to do with the rest of his life. But there was nothing to figure out. The sights were indescribable. The smells intolerable. The food – even the stuff that was supposedly safe to eat – inedible. And the people unimaginable. There was only one thing he knew. He wanted to go home. And if the aliens wouldn't take him back to Earth, then he would just have to buy a spaceship and damn well fly himself back there!
Escape From Aliens
T. Jackson King - 2015
But the Aliens are in for a surprise! Bill is a retired Navy SEAL and Jane is an Air Force Space Command captain. Together they must breakout from escape-proof cells, fight the ship's crew, capture the captain and take over the starship--all before they are delivered to Buyers on an Alien world. Along the way they gain Alien allies, including a naive ship AI. But will their escape survive a space battle at the Market world where captives are bought and sold? All that is certain is it was a bad move to kidnap a SEAL!
The Terran Cycle Box Set: Intrinsic, Tempest, Heretic, Legacy
Philip C. Quaintrell - 2019
He looks like us, he lives like us... but he is not one of us. Kalian knows nothing outside of his mundane life teaching history on 30th century Earth, until a day like any other triggers a series of events, which will tie his fate to that of humanity. A human hand print, embedded into a rock with alien script, is discovered on a moon that mankind has never set foot on. This discovery holds a secret, which will sweep Kalian into the heart of a conspiracy that has corrupted the galaxy for two hundred thousand years.
The Peace Warrior Trilogy - Omnibus
Steven L. Hawk - 2013
************************************************************* Book #1: Peace Warrior It’s the mid-21st century when Sergeant First Class Grant Justice is killed during an ambush on an enemy tank column. Six hundred years later, his body is retrieved from the frozen, arctic lake where he perished. Re-animated by a team of scientists, Grant awakens to a civilization that has abolished war. A civilization that has outlawed violence and cherishes Peace above all else. A civilization that has been enslaved by an alien race called the Minith. Grant is humankind’s final hope against the alien menace. He must be the… Peace Warrior. ************************************************************* Book #2: Peace Army It’s been six years since Grant Justice was brought back to life to help the Peaceful citizens of Earth defeat the Minith. Life should be good. The Minith are gone. Grant now has a loving wife and a remarkable son. He is a hero to the society that once shunned him. But Grant hasn’t been taking life easy. He’s been recruiting fighters away from Peace. He’s been cobbling together an army from the dregs of society and training them to fight. Which is a good thing, because another alien Mothership is heading their way. It will reach Earth in less than a week. Grant and his small army have been preparing for this day. They must be the… Peace Army. ************************************************************* Book #3: Peace World Reanimated after six hundred years, Grant Justice has become the leader of Earth's new army. Unwilling to sit back and wait for the next attack, Grant decides to take the fight to the enemy. He and a mothership full of his best fighters are headed toward Waa, the aliens' new home world. Unknown to Grant, a fleet of alien motherships is headed toward Earth—intent on punishing the planet for destroying Minith. Who will win the battle for supremacy—the alien slavers with a thirst for war, or the humans struggling to survive and save their way of life? Who will finally rule the… Peace World. ************************************************************* REVIEWS FOR THE PEACE WARRIOR TRILOGY "I'll get right to the point: Peace Warrior is a flawlessly-written science fiction adventure with sympathetic characters and a fast-paced plot. Though billed as military science fiction, Peace Warrior cuts across genres and subgenres by incorporating cultural issues of nature and nurture, war and peace. Complex heroes like Grant Justice and complex issues like these hit the page with the force of an alien mothership biting the dust. " Isabella Morales, The Scattering Blog "Steven Hawk has written a sci-fi masterpiece. Each of the three books is a great story in and of itself. Together they achieve greatness. Hawk writes with the straight-forward, action-driven style of Asimov, and at the same time brings an inventive, provocative point of view like Orson Scott Card. If you like great science fiction with compelling characters, you'll be glad you connected with this trilogy. You will get a real kick out of the hero and ancient warrior Grant Justice, and your perspective on the concept of "peace" will be stretched.
Highway to the Stars: The Beginning
B.E. Wilson - 2014
It would turn out to be the worst day of his life. With a recession looming and the economy tanking, he and his team of automotive engineers would lose their jobs, their research and have their lives changed forever. Not wanting to give up on years of hard work, they devised a plan to keep their research and their dreams alive. Working for a solution to sustain diesel fuel for extreme mileage, they would call that solution, sustainability. While searching for sustainability, they discovered something that would change our world forever. Others would steal or kill to obtain this new technology. Running for their lives they continued to develop their technology, trying to learn its full capabilities and just what purpose it was to be used for. Treachery and deceit, even from the ones they loved. They found themselves fighting to achieve their dreams…the dreams of touching a star. Follow John Kemp and his unusual band of misfits, as they journey where others have only dreamt of going.
The Cyclops Effect
CJ Williams - 2020
But that’s what happens when medical technology goes awry. Doctors said they could train her brain to interpret digital signals from the camera in her artificial eye. The module even has wi-fi so they can monitor signal traffic across her optic nerve. What they didn’t anticipate was that her brain would figure out how to use the wi-fi connection both ways. Asha can now see the Internet. ASHA'S INTELLIGENCE IS NOT ARTIFICIAL As her digital brain develops, she creates an online AI by copying part of her mind to the cloud. The AI she calls Abbot becomes her right hand as she goes to work for the FBI tracking down international terrorists. Unfortunately, she is so effective, the government believes she may be a co-conspirator. When they refuse to pay her, she walks out. IT'S NOT JUST THE FBI WHO SUSPECT HER When Asha crosses paths with Chinese military hackers, she stops them by taking out Shanghai’s electrical grid. Now the communist government wants to know who did it and how. Things go downhill after Asha gives a copy of Abbot to her husband’s company. When the Chinese military steals a copy of it, they immediately recognize its military significance. Their top priority, however, is to take out the woman who came up with it in the first place. CHINA FLEXES ITS NEW CYBER WARFARE TOOL Using her own technology against her, the Chinese suddenly become a serious threat to the US. The FBI calls Asha back and ask one last favor: stop the Chinese attack. She agrees, but this time there are conditions. Either they pay upfront, or she will take care of the Asian threat in her own way, and knowing Asha, that could mean World War Three.
Resistance
Max Carver - 2017
Rapid expansion into habitable worlds brings immense prosperity and a new age of exploration unlike any humanity has seen. WAR Conflicts over control of the colonial worlds spawn a massive, generation-long war among humans. Under a shaky armistice, humanity has just begun to crawl out of the shadows of destruction, but suspicion and bitter hostility run deep. INVASION On a rocky, desolate planet, a small band of gold prospectors find themselves making a discovery they never expected—valuable and powerful relics of the galaxy's deep past. The prospectors also discover a hostile alien species, ruthless beings who do not tolerate humans and wipe them out on sight. Humanity's first contact with intelligent aliens becomes a war for survival. The invasion has begun...but the beginning of the invasion is also the beginning of the resistance. "Resistance is a terrific space opera adventure. It combines mystery, heart-pounding action, and a good dose of humor. It's Aliens meets Tremors. I can't wait to read the sequel." -Daniel Arenson, USA Today bestselling author of the Earthrise series
Downstream - Episode 1
Nick Jones - 2014
My name is Joseph Bridgeman. I am a moderately depressed, reclusive insomniac with a failing antiques business and a constant headache. And you need to trust me when I tell you, that’s the good bit. I’ve lived alone for years, avoiding social contact and emotional connection very nicely thanks. Until now. You see, when you stop earning, money tends to run out (ever noticed that?) and if I don’t do something soon, Martin says I could be out on the street; and that would mean connecting with people and for someone with my affliction that never ends wells. Martin? Oh he’s my annoyingly successful accountant. This morning he gave me the name of a hypnotherapist, said it might help. Clearly, he doesn’t understand how busy I am? I have places to go, things to do, people to avoid, vinyl to buy. Anyway, I went to see her and things got a little complicated. I thought my day started badly but where I ended up? I could never, ever, possibly have imagined. Oh, did I just say where? What I meant to say was when…
SNAFU: Heroes
Geoff Brown - 2014
SNAFU HeroesFour tales of military horror from Jonathan Maberry, Weston Ochse, Joseph Nassise, and James A Moore.A supplemental volume to SNAFU, this book contains short stories and novellas from four of the best military horror writers in the field.From demons to horrors from the deep, the battles keep on coming.Fight or die…50,000 words to keep you on the edge of your seat.