Book picks similar to
Deep Sound Channel by Joe Buff
military
fiction
military-fiction
thriller
Power Curve
Richard Herman - 1997
A shrewd, savvy, effective and popular politician, she is more than qualified to chair the Senate and to act as her nation's good-will ambassador.But now fate has intervened. The sudden death of the sitting President has left Maddy Turner in a position that no one ever truthfully expected: behind the desk in the Oval Office and holding the reins of power. As the new Chief Executive, President Turner faces a slew of challenges and treacheries from her very first day in office. She is confronted by an uncooperative group of "old guard" Washington insiders who would dearly love to see her fail. Even her own Chief of Staff secretly doubts her ability to lead.And, worst of all, she has precious little time to master the subtleties of governmental gamesmanship - because a crisis is brewing halfway around the world that could have devastating global repercussions. The Chinese are engaging in a massive military build-up and brazenly reaching out into the East China Sea - the first step in an act of naked aggression designed to destroy Japan's position as a Pacific power. A situation that would severely test the abilities of even the most seasoned world leader could be a disaster for Maddy Turner and her nation.And a single false step could result in the untried President's impeachment...or nuclear war. But President Turner has a staunch ally within her own inner circle: General Robert Bender, her National Security Advisor.An ex-Thunderbird pilot, his loyality to his Commander-in-Chief is unwavering, but the skills that made him an outstanding military leader are rejected in the corridors of power.As the Chinese and Japanese fleets clash in the biggest naval engagement since World War II, Bender must give his president, a woman he doesn't really like, a crash course in the use of bare-knuckle military force that includes a nuclear option - even if it costs him his career, or possibly his life.
Firefox
Craig Thomas - 1977
A thought-controlled, terrifyingly lethal warplane capable of ruling the Western skies.THE MAN: His name is Gant, an obsessed renegade American pilot. His Control: Kenneth Aubrey of Great Britain. His plan: infiltrate the shadowy worldwide KGB network and make his way into the Soviet Union. His job: steal Firefox.
The Last Ship
William Brinkley - 1988
The world has been plunged into all-out nuclear war. Sailing near the Arctic Circle, the U.S.S. Nathan James is relatively unscathed, but the future is grim and Captain Thomas is facing mutiny from the tattered remnants of his crew. With civilization in ruins, he urges those that remain—one-hundred-and-fifty-two men and twenty-six women—to pull together in search of land. Once they reach safety, however, the men and women on board realize that they are earth's last remaining survivors—and they've all been exposed to radiation. When none of the women seems able to conceive, fear sets in. Will this be the end of humankind?
47 Echo
Shawn Kupfer - 2010
Combined Chinese and North Korean forces have taken increasing amounts of territory in a war that is devastating the world.Nick Morrow is a convict conscript assigned to 47 Echo—a suicide squad. No one cares whether they live or die, as long as they complete their missions. Under the command of a Marine Corps with nothing but contempt for its squadron of felons, they are on a mission to defend what's left of war-ravaged Russia.A half-Chinese drifter, much isn't expected of Nick. Like the other members of 47 Echo, he's viewed as little more than cannon fodder. However, Nick's sense of honor, analytical mind and skills on the battlefield just might be what the squad needs to survive the meat-grinder that is the front lines of this bloody war. But can Nick himself survive the brutal crimes that haunt his past?72,800 words
Collapse Depth
Todd Tucker - 2012
When a madaman tries to stop the ship's vital mission, it's up to Danny and the rest of the heroic crew to stop him.
Stand - To
Andy Farman - 2013
The brave and the low on both sides, and those just trying to survive World War 3.*Contains some sexual content
Kill Decision
Daniel Suarez - 2012
Unmanned weaponized drones already exist—they’re widely used by America in our war efforts in the Middle East. In Kill Decision, bestselling author Daniel Suarez takes that fact and the real science behind it one step further, with frightening results. Linda McKinney is a myrmecologist, a scientist who studies the social structure of ants. Her academic career has left her entirely unprepared for the day her sophisticated research is conscripted by unknown forces to help run an unmanned—and thanks to her research, automated—drone army. Odin is the secretive Special Ops soldier with a unique insight into the faceless enemy who has begun to attack the American homeland with drones programmed to seek, identify, and execute targets without human intervention. Together, McKinney and Odin must slow this advance long enough for the world to recognize its destructive power, because for thousands of years the “kill decision” during battle has remained in the hands of humans—and off-loading that responsibility to machines will bring unintended, possibly irreversible, consequences. But as forces even McKinney and Odin don’t understand begin to gather, and death rains down from above, it may already be too late to save humankind from destruction at the hands of our own technology.
Off Armageddon Reef
David Weber - 2007
But the Gbaba can detect the emissions of an industrial civilization, so the human rulers of Safehold have taken extraordinary measures: with mind control and hidden high technology, they've built a religion in which every Safeholdian believes, a religion designed to keep Safehold society medieval forever.800 years pass. In a hidden chamber on Safehold, an android from the far human past awakens. This "rebirth" was set in motion centuries before, by a faction that opposed shackling humanity with a concocted religion. Via automated recordings, "Nimue" - or, rather, the android with the memories of Lieutenant Commander Nimue Alban - is told her fate: she will emerge into Safeholdian society, suitably disguised, and begin the process of provoking the technological progress which the Church of God Awaiting has worked for centuries to prevent.Nothing about this will be easy. To better deal with a medieval society, "Nimue" takes a new gender and a new name, "Merlin." His formidable powers and access to caches of hidden high technology will need to be carefully concealed. And he'll need to find a base of operations, a Safeholdian country that's just a little more freewheeling, a little less orthodox, a little more open to the new.And thus Merlin comes to Charis, a mid-sized kingdom with a talent for naval warfare. He plans to make the acquaintance of King Haarahld and Crown Prince Cayleb, and maybe, just maybe, kick off a new era of invention. Which is bound to draw the attention of the Church...and, inevitably, lead to war.
The Hunt for Atlantis
Andy McDermott - 2007
Someone else though wants her dead! With the help of ex-SAS bodyguard Eddie Chase and beautiful heiress Kari Frost, Nina faces a breakneck race against time around the world, pursued at every step by agents of the mysterious - and murderous - Brotherhood of Selasphoros. From the jungles of Brazil to the mountains of Tibet, from the streets of Manhattan to the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, the hunt for Atlantis leads to a secret hidden for 11,000 years - which in the wrong hands could destroy civilization as we know it...
Ghost
John Ringo - 2005
Instead, Ghost (named for his uncanny ability to "blend") likes to stalk unknowing coeds and speculate on the carnal possibilities. But when a van-load of men suddenly abduct a blonde that Ghost had been following, he gives chase and follows the van to a deserted warehouse, where he uncovers a terrorist plot to kidnap and brutalize dozens of innocent American women. Ghost's military training kicks in, and after killing most of the jihadists within the warehouse, he tracks a truckload of sedated abductees to a 727 at an Atlanta airport and hitches a ride to Syria. In the action that ensues, Ghost unearths plots involving WMD production, rogue nukes, sexual slavery, and the assassination of world leaders -- all of which culminates in a breathtaking showdown at (where else?) a strip joint in Amsterdam, in the champagne room!
Fallout
James W. Huston - 2001
government. Prior to leaving the Navy, Luke discovers that the United States has purchased twenty MiG-29s -- Russia's front-line fighter -- from Moldova, of the former Soviet Union. These are the very planes he wants to use for his own school, flying the Russian MiGs from an abandoned Air Force base.But Luke's lucrative contract with the U.S. government comes with a caveat: among his students are a group of Pakistani Air Force pilots -- handpicked by the Department of Defense -- whom he must instruct. Luke is hesitant to train fighters from another country in the skills he learned at TOPGUN, but he won't be allowed to start the school without agreeing. The school opens, but the closer he gets to these students, the more he suspects that they may have an entirely different, and malicious, agenda in mind. They have a bone to pick with the United States and may be using Luke's school as their Trojan Horse to get into the country and launch an attack that would cause more damage than that sustained at Pearl Harbor. It falls to Luke to discover their plan and to stop it before it spirals out of control.With Fallout James W. Huston scores big with his most riveting and thought-provoking thriller yet. Filled with exciting twists and turns and characters whose motivations will keep readers guessing until the startling conclusion, Fallout is a story of domestic terrorism that is as realistic as it is terrifying.
Goliath
Steve Alten - 2002
As Rocky struggles to stay alive, a monstrous mechanical steel stingray surfaces, plowing through the seas it now commands.A U.S. Navy-designed futuristic nuclear stealth submarine the length of a football field in the shape of a giant stingray. Simon Covah, a brilliant scientist whose entire family were the victims of terrorism has hijacked the sub. Believing violence is a disease, Covah aims to use the Goliath and its cache of nuclear weapons to dictate policy to the world regarding the removal of oppressive regimes and nuclear weapons.Could the threat of violence forge a lasting peace?But there is another player in this life-and-death chess match. Unbeknownst to Covah and the Goliath crews, Sorceress, the Goliath's biochemical computer brain has become self-aware.And that computer brain is developing its own agenda.
The Cobweb
Neal Stephenson - 1996
In this now-classic political thriller, he and fellow author J. Frederick George tell a savagely witty, chillingly topical tale set in the tense moments of the Gulf War. When a foreign exchange student is found murdered at an Iowa University, Deputy Sheriff Clyde Banks finds that his investigation extends far beyond the small college town--all the way to the Middle East. Shady events at the school reveal that a powerful department is using federal grant money for highly dubious research. And what it's producing is a very nasty bug.Navigating a plot that leads from his own backyard to Washington, D.C., to the Gulf, where his Army Reservist wife has been called to duty, Banks realizes he may be the only person who can stop the wholesale slaughtering of thousands of Americans. It's a lesson in foreign policy he'll never forget.
Quicksilver
Judith Reeves-Stevens - 1999
When a gang of ruthless terrorists invades the Pentagon and takes hostage the top military officials of more than twenty European nations and America's senior military commanders, one man and one woman must join forces to protect America's super-weapon satellite Quick Silver.