Book picks similar to
Deliverance by M.R. Forbes


sci-fi
science-fiction
space
aliens

Half Way Home


Hugh Howey - 2010
    The colony ship they arrived on is aflame. The rest of their contingent is dead. They've only received half their training, and they are being asked to conquer an entire planet. Before they can, however, they must first survive each other. In this gritty tale of youths struggling to survive, Hugh Howey fuses the best of young adult fantasy with the piercing social commentary of speculative fiction. The result is a book that begs to be read in a single sitting. An adventurous romp that will leave readers exhausted and begging for more.

Ambush


Dean M. Cole - 2014
    If you like action-packed, page-turning novels, then you'll love the electrifying action in this apocalyptic thriller. Grab Book One Today! [image]Independence Day meets The X-Files when Air Force fighter pilots Jake Giard and Sandra Fitzpatrick join a decades-old global conspiracy to integrate humanity into a galactic government. But when a galactic civil war spills onto our shores, plunging the planet into an otherworldly post-apocalyptic hell, can Jake and Sandy save humanity from extinction? A Little More About Ambush... As unknown aliens with a dark secret continue to raid the planet, Jake fights through a post-apocalyptic hell, struggling to comprehend the enigmatic aftermath of the first attack.On the West Coast, Sandra's squadron smashes against the invading aliens. Thrown to ground, Sandy wades through blazing infernos and demented looters in a desperate attempt to save her family.Finally, with the fate of the world in the balance, both captains must take the battle to the enemy—humanity's very survival hanging on their success. What the Critics are Saying KirkusReviews.com: "Cole tackles the first-contact scenario with bombastic flair. [He] delivers the high-resolution imagery of a Hollywood blockbuster ... A technologically riveting dream for sci-fi action fans." AudiobookReviewer.com: "SECTOR 64: Ambush was a highly imaginative action-packed apocalyptic assault on your mind." IndieReader.com: "SECTOR 64: AMBUSH is an engaging book from the very first page to the final words of the Epilogue." Audiobook-Heaven.com: "His descriptions of aerial battle and military procedure are accurately detailed and his knowledge of the aircraft themselves fascinated me ... Sector 64: Ambush is a great read." Scroll up and grab a copy today. **Huffington Post - IndieReader Best of 2014** What happens to present-day Earth if friendly aliens take humanity under their wing? What happens when their enemy becomes ours? X-Files meet Independence Day when incredible events thrust Air Force Captains Jake Giard and Sandra Fitzpatrick into a decades-long global conspiracy to integrate humanity into a galactic government. However, as Jake finishes indoctrination into the program, it renders present-day Earth a disposable pawn in a galactic civil war.Unknown aliens with a dark secret raid the planet.Within and even below Washington DC, Jake fights through a post-apocalyptic hell, struggling to comprehend the enigmatic aftermath of the first attack. On the West Coast, Sandra's squadron smashes against the invading aliens. Thrown to ground, Sandy wades through blazing infernos and demented looters in a desperate attempt to save her family.Finally, with the fate of the world in the balance, both captains must take the battle to the enemy--humanity's very survival hanging on their success. What the Critics are Saying AudiobookReviewer.com "SECTOR 64: Ambush was a highly imaginative action packed apocalyptic assault on your mind." IndieReader.com "SECTOR 64: AMBUSH is an engaging book from the very first page to the final words of the Epilogue." Audiobook-Heaven.com "Cole has a good thing going here ... His descriptions of aerial battle and military procedure are accurately detailed and his knowledge of the aircraft themselves fascinated me ... He created a couple of races of aliens, gave them their own histories and cultures and just made them outright interesting. His characters are realistic and believable as well. Sector 64: Ambush is a great read." Scroll up and grab a copy today.

Mountain Man


Keith C. Blackmore - 2011
    Living on the outskirts of a city and scavenging for whatever supplies remain after civilization died two years ago, Gus knows that every time he goes down into undead suburbia could be his last.A novel of the zombie apocalypse. *First book of a completed 4-book series.* Contains graphic language and scenes of violence. Complete series order:Book 1: Mountain ManBook 2: SafariBook 3: HellifaxBook 4: Well FedAlso :The Hospital (a single short story, also part of the collection "CauldronGristle." This story happens six months before the events of "MountainMan." )

The Remaining


D.J. Molles - 2012
    On the surface, a plague ravages the planet, infecting over 90% of the populace. The bacterium burrows through the brain, destroying all signs of humanity and leaving behind little more than base, prehistoric instincts. The infected turn into hyper-aggressive predators, with an insatiable desire to kill and feed. Some day soon, Captain Harden will have to open the hatch to his bunker, and step out into this new wasteland, to complete his very simple mission: Subvenire Refectus.To Rescue and Rebuild.

Revelation Space


Alastair Reynolds - 2000
    Now one scientist, Dan Sylveste, will stop at nothing to solve the Amarantin riddle before ancient history repeats itself. With no other resources at his disposal, Sylveste forges a dangerous alliance with the cyborg crew of the starship Nostalgia for Infinity. But as he closes in on the secret, a killer closes in on him. Because the Amarantin were destroyed for a reason — and if that reason is uncovered, the universe—and reality itself — could be irrecoverably altered….

Starship Liberator


David VanDyke - 2016
    The human worlds are strong, but the Hok have the resources of a thousand planets behind them, and their fleets attack in endless waves. The long war has transformed the Hundred Worlds into heavily fortified star systems. Their economies are geared for military output, and they raise specialized soldiers to save our species. Assault Captain Derek Straker is one such man among many. Genetically sculpted to drive a mech-suit as if he wears a second skin, he must find a path to victory. It's a battle in which he'll never admit defeat, but not even Straker knows the dark truth behind this titanic struggle. With Lieutenant Carla Engels piloting, Starship Liberator explores enemy territory in search of answers.

Children of the Fleet


Orson Scott Card - 2017
    Children of the Fleet is a new angle on Card's bestselling series, telling the story of the Fleet in space, parallel to the story on Earth told in the Ender's Shadow series. Ender Wiggin won the Third Formic war, ending the alien threat to Earth. Afterwards, all the terraformed Formic worlds were open to settlement by humans, and the International Fleet became the arm of the Ministry of Colonization, run by Hirum Graff. MinCol now runs Fleet School on the old Battle School station, and still recruits very smart kids to train as leaders of colony ships, and colonies. Dabeet Ochoa is a very smart kid. Top of his class in every school. But he doesn't think he has a chance at Fleet School, because he has no connections to the Fleet. That he knows of. At least until the day that Colonel Graff arrives at his school for an interview.

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.

The Messengers


Lindsay Joelle - 2020
    A soldier and a pilot are tasked to deliver a package. A messenger and a refugee decide to work together on a dying alien planet. A love letter is lost that could be the key to a new future. A dark comedy about the messages we carry in our bones.

Forging Zero


Sara King - 2013
    Now they own us.The Legend of ZERO: Forging Zero is the epic journey of 14-year-old Joe Dobbs in a post-apocalyptic universe following a massive galactic empire's invasion of Earth. The oldest of the children drafted from humanity’s devastated planet, Joe is impressed into service by the alien Congressional Ground Force—and becomes the unwitting centerpiece in a millennia-long alien struggle for independence. Once his training begins, one of the elusive and prophetic Trith appears to give Joe a spine chilling prophecy that the universe has been anticipating for millions of years: Joe will be the one to finally shatter the vast alien government known as Congress. And the Trith cannot lie.…But first Joe has to make it through bootcamp.

An Ancient Peace


Tanya Huff - 2015
    But when she learned the truth about the war the Confederation was fighting, she left the military for good.But Torin couldn’t walk away from preserving and protecting everything the Confederation represented. Instead, she drew together an elite corps of friends and allies to take on covert missions that the Justice Department and the Corps could not—or would not—officially touch. Torin just hoped the one they were about to embark on wouldn’t be the death of them.Ancient H’san grave goods are showing up on the black market—grave goods from just before the formation of the Confederation, when the H’san gave up war and buried their planet-destroying weapons…as grave goods for the death of war. Someone is searching for these weapons and they’re very close to finding them. As the Elder Races have turned away from war, those searchers can only be members of the Younger Races.Fortunately, only the Corps Intelligence Service has this information. Unfortunately, they can do nothing about it—bound by laws of full disclosure, their every move is monitored.Though Torin Kerr and her team are no longer a part of the military, the six of them tackling the H’san defenses and the lethally armed grave robbers are the only chance the Confederation has. The only chance to avoid millions more dead.But the more Torin learns about the relationship between the Elder Races and the Younger, the more she begins to fear war might be an unavoidable result.

The Salvage Crew


Yudhanjaya Wijeratne - 2020
    They thought wrong.An AI overseer and a human crew arrive on a distant planet to salvage an ancient UN starship. The overseer is unhappy. The crew, well, they're certainly no A-team. Not even a C-team on the best of days.And worse? Urmahon Beta, the planet, is at the ass-end of nowhere. Everybody expects this to be a long, ugly, and thankless job.Then it all goes disastrously wrong. What they thought was an uninhabited backwater turns out to be anything but empty. Megafauna roam the land, a rival crew with some terrifyingly high-powered gear haunts the dig site, and a secret that will change humanity forever is waiting in the darkness.Stuck on this unmapped, hostile planet, lacking resources, and with tech built by the cheapest bidder, the salvage crew must engineer their way to payday...and beat Urmahon Beta before it kills them all.Experience this space exploration adventure told from the perspective of a snarky artificial intelligence you won't soon forget.

Freedom's Landing


Anne McCaffrey - 1995
    As human slaves were herded into the maw of a massive vessel, Kristin realized her normal life was over and her fight for freedom was just beginning…The alien Catteni value strength and intelligence in their slaves—and Kristin has managed to survive her enslavement while hundreds of other humans have not. But her trial has just begun, for now she finds herself part of a massive experiment. The aliens have discovered a new world, and they have a simple way of finding out if it’s habitable: drop hundreds of slaves on the surface and see what happens.If they survive, colonization can begin. If not, there are always more slaves.

Tomorrow's Kin


Nancy Kress - 2017
    they've landed their Embassy ship on a platform in New York Harbor, and will only speak with the United Nations. They say that their world is so different from Earth, in terms of gravity and atmosphere, that they cannot leave their ship. The population of Earth has erupted in fear and speculation.One day Dr. Marianne Jenner, an obscure scientist working with the human genome, receives an invitation that she cannot refuse. The Secret Service arrives at her college to escort her to New York, for she has been invited, along with the Secretary General of the UN and a few other ambassadors, to visit the alien Embassy.The truth is about to be revealed. Earth s most elite scientists have ten months to prevent a disaster and not everyone is willing to wait."

Shards of Earth


Adrian Tchaikovsky - 2021
    Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.