Book picks similar to
A Learning Experience by Christopher G. Nuttall
science-fiction
sci-fi
space-opera
military-scifi
Trading in Danger
Elizabeth Moon - 2003
For Ky, it's no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can't hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It's adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family's misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down.Expelled from the Academy in disgrace—and returning home to her humiliated family, a storm of high-profile media coverage, and the gaping void of her own future—Ky is ready to face the inevitable onslaught of anger, disappointment, even pity. But soon after opportunity's door slams shut, Ky finds herself with a ticket to ride—and a shot at redemption—as captain of a Vatta Transport ship.It's a simple assignment: escorting one of the Vatta fleet's oldest ships on its final voyage . . . to the scrapyard. But keeping it simple has never been Ky's style. And even though her father has provided a crew of seasoned veterans to baby-sit the fledgling captain on her maiden milk run, they can't stop Ky from turning the routine mission into a risky venture—in the name of turning a profit for Vatta Transport, of course.By snapping up a lucrative delivery contract defaulted on by a rival company, and using part of the proceeds to upgrade her condemned vehicle, Ky aims to prove she's got more going for her than just her family's famous name. But business will soon have to take a backseat to bravery, when Ky's change of plans sails her and the crew straight into the middle of a colonial war. For all her commercial savvy, it's her military training and born-soldier's instincts that Ky will need to call on in the face of deadly combat, dangerous mercenaries, and violent mutiny. . . .
The Praxis
Walter Jon Williams - 2002
But the Shaa will soon be no more. The dread empire is in its rapidly fading twilight, and with its impending fall comes the promise of a new galactic order... and bloody chaos.A young Terran naval officer marked by his lowly birth, Lt. Gareth Martinez is the first to recognize the insidious plot of the Naxid -- the powerful, warlike insectoid society that was enslaved before all others -- to replace the masters’ despotic rule with their own. Barely escaping a swarming surprise attack, Martinez and Caroline Sula, a pilot whose beautiful face conceals a deadly secret, are now the last hope for freedom for every being who ever languished in Shaa chains -- as the interstellar battle begins against a merciless foe whose only perfect truth is annihilation.
Horus Rising
Dan Abnett - 2006
His dream for humanity nearly accomplished, the emperor hands over the reins of power to his warmaster, Horus, and heads back to Terra. But is Horus strong enough to control his fellow commanders and continue the emperor's grand design?
Koban
Stephen W. Bennett - 2012
Nearly unlimited cheap energy from tachyons led to the creation of Jump Hole technology and faster than light travel to the stars. In two hundred years, humanity had colonized over seven hundred planets in a volume five hundred light years in radius. Humankind enjoyed the benefits of the end of wars and disbanded its standing armies. Life was idyllic for three hundred years. Then the Krall came.The Krall, a warrior race with lightning-fast reflexes has used combat for 25,000 years to select the genes of the strongest and fastest warriors. This breeding program created a species fit to dominate the galaxy. Dominate everywhere but on Koban, an uninhabited planet with high gravity, teal colored flora and impossibly fast and savage animals that employ organic superconducting nerves.The Krall captured humans at the fringes of their expansion for testing on Koban. Humanity was useful only if they were adequate fighters. If not, the Krall intended to destroy the species because they already had slave races, and humans were poor tasting meat animals. If humans proved worthy opponents, the Krall would fight with the same weapons humans used, in order to continue their quest for physical perfection.Growing weary of the humans’ incapacity to fight well, the Krall were close to a decision to eliminate the race when they captured their last cargo of humans for testing – a ship containing bio-scientists. The choice was simple: Put up a good fight or condemn humanity to extinction. The Krall will discover more than one species knows how to bypass natural selection.
Linesman
S.K. Dunstall - 2015
No ship can traverse the void without them. Only linesmen can work with them. But only Ean Lambert hears their song. And everyone thinks he’s crazy…Most slum kids never go far, certainly not becoming a level-ten linesman like Ean. Even if he’s part of a small, and unethical, cartel, and the other linesmen disdain his self-taught methods, he’s certified and working.Then a mysterious alien ship is discovered at the edges of the galaxy. Each of the major galactic powers is desperate to be the first to uncover the ship’s secrets, but all they’ve learned is that it has the familiar lines of energy—and a defense system that, once triggered, annihilates everything in a 200 kilometer radius.The vessel threatens any linesman who dares to approach it, except Ean. His unique talents may be the key to understanding this alarming new force—and reconfiguring the relationship between humans and the ships that serve them, forever.
Fallen Dragon
Peter F. Hamilton - 2001
But as the Skins invade bucolic Thallspring, Z-B's strategy is about to go awry, all because of: Sgt. Lawrence Newton, a dreamer whose twenty years as a Skin have destroyed his hopes and desires; Denise Ebourn, a school teacher and resistance leader whose guerrilla tactics rival those of Che Guevara and George Washington and Simon Roderick, the director who serves Z-B with a dedication that not even he himself can understand. Grimly determined to steal, or protect, a mysterious treasure, the three players engage in a private war that will explode into unimaginable quests for personal grace...or galactic domination
Scrapyard Ship
Mark Wayne McGinnis - 2013
Worse yet, he’s relegated to his grandfather’s old house and rambling scrapyard. To complicate things, the women in his life are pulling from every direction. But It’s through a bizarre turn of events that Jason is led to a dried up subterranean aquifer hundreds of feet below ground. Here he discovers an advanced alien spacecraft, one that will propel his life in a new direction. The adventure begins… and with it new troubles for Jason: The Craing, an unstoppable interstellar threat, is headed right for Earth. A desperate situation goes from bad to worse as the Alliance crumbles.Fortunately, Jason’s unorthodox and impetuous nature seems to work in his favor as he moves up to the captain’s chair. First order of business is to reconnect with his SEAL team compatriots and face this enemy head on. What's at stake? The very survival of the human race.This is a full-length 70,000-word novel, first in the science fiction adventure series for Scrapyard Ship.
Hard Duty
Mark E. Cooper - 2012
Two hundred years later, the Alliance is cautiously exploring beyond its borders again, but the survey corp is considered a mere gesture by some. General Burgton of the 501st Infantry Regiment believes a lack of expansion is leading the Alliance into stagnation. So when one small ship discovers a new alien race, it should be an easy decision to make contact, but what if the aliens are like the Merkiaari?Captain Jeff Colgan of the survey ship ASN Canada is at the tip of the spear. His ship made the discovery, his crew's lives are on the line, and his decisions will decide the outcome. Will the Alliance make new friends or will he be responsible for another sixteen billion deaths? When the aliens discover his ship and begin hunting him through their system, his mission changes from one of study to one of survival.
Admiral
Sean Danker - 2016
I tried to look on the bright side.” He is the last to wake. The label on his sleeper pad identifies him as an admiral of the Evagardian Empire—a surprise as much to him as to the three recent recruits now under his command. He wears no uniform, and he is ignorant of military protocol, but the ship’s records confirm he is their superior officer. Whether he is an Evagardian admiral or a spy will be of little consequence if the crew members all end up dead. They are marooned on a strange world, their ship’s systems are failing one by one—and they are not alone.
Prador Moon
Neal Asher - 2006
Academic and insightful, its dominion stretches from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. But when the Polity finally encounters alien life in the form of massive, hostile, crab-like carnivores known as the Prador, there can be only one outcome — total warfare! Starships clash, planets fall, and space stations are overrun, but for Jebel Krong and Moria Salem, two unlikely heroes trapped at the center of the action, this war is far more than a mere clash of cultures, far more than technology versus brute force... this war is personal.
Starship Troopers
Robert A. Heinlein - 1959
We just call it “The Bug War." Everything up to then and still later were "incidents," "patrols," or "police actions." However, you are just as dead if you buy the farm in an "incident" as you are if you buy it in a declared war...In one of Robert A. Heinlein’s most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe—and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind’s most alarming enemy.
Columbus Day
Craig Alanson - 2016
And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. So, Columbus Day. It fits. When the morning sky twinkled again, this time with Kristang starships jumping in to hammer the Ruhar, we thought we were saved. The UN Expeditionary Force hitched a ride on Kristang ships to fight the Ruhar, wherever our new allies thought we could be useful. So, I went from fighting with the US Army in Nigeria, to fighting in space. It was lies, all of it. We shouldn't even be fighting the Ruhar, they aren't our enemy, our allies are. I'd better start at the beginning....
Terra Nova
Richard Fox - 2017
The promised world is humanity’s new home, safe from the threats of a dangerous galaxy, where veterans of a long war could live in peace. The promise was a lie. Chief Katherine “Kit” Carson, of the elite Pathfinder Corps, joins the mission as a last-minute replacement, hoping to put a spotty past behind her and build a new life on a brave new world. The expedition arrives on Terra Nova, expecting to join the first wave of colonists, instead they find abandoned cities and are soon faced with a new, terrifying enemy humanity has never encountered before. For the colony to survive, Carson must unravel the mystery of her new home and learn the fate of the first mission to settle the planet… Terra Nova is the first chapter in an exciting new series of space exploration, alien first contact and adventure across brave new worlds. Join the team and read today!
Decisively Engaged
C.J. Carella - 2015
A NATION AT WAR: The United Stars of America. Born in the conflagration of unprovoked alien attack, the newest entrant to galactic politics took the few crumbs of hypertech gifted to it and ran with them, soon expanding over dozens of star systems and establishing a wide trade network, protected by its powerful Navy and the dreaded Warp Marines. A FIGHT TO THE DEATH: A single Marine platoon, tasked with protecting an embassy on a hostile alien planet. An embassy – and the human enclave around it – that soon finds itself surrounded by armed mobs. Can the Marines and a ragtag band of civilian and Navy personnel survive long enough to be rescued?
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.