Category: Military sf

With the Lightnings, Second Edition (RCN Series Book 1)

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With the Lightnings, Second Edition (RCN Series Book 1)
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Now with a new Afterword by David Drake

A Friendship Forged in Hell!

Daniel Leary is a lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy with no money and no prospects since he quarreled with his ruthless, politically powerful father.

Adele Mundy is a scholar with no money and no prospects since her family was massacred for conspiring against the Government of Cinnabar.

Kostroma is a wealthy planet which depends on diplomacy to stay independent in a galaxy whose two great powers, Cinnabar and the Alliance, battle for supremacy.

In a few hours, diplomacy is going to fail Kostroma. Daniel, Adele, and the scratch crew they gather aren’t much to stand in the way of a powerful invasion fleet, but just possibly they’re enough.

Men and women who hold courage cheap and honor more dear than life itself face impossible odds in a novel of color, intrigue and slashing action. From the corridors of a treason-ridden palace through the perils of unknown seas and hellish jungles to a final blazlng climax in space, the heroes never bow and the action never flags.

They have nothing on their side but each other—and heaven help whatever tries to stand in their way!

A Bright Shore

A Bright Shore
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A military Sci-Fi, technothriller set a short decade from now. Western Civilization has had its run. The West’s own governments are giving up, have already lost, or are leading the charge to something else. This doesn’t sit well with those who believe in liberty. This is the story of a people who have lost the political fight, lost the culture wars, haven’t seen a level playing field in a generation, and are about to be made serfs. None of that matters. They’re leaving… Fresh starts are never easy. This is the first book in a story about a new world, different enemies, and old luggage.

AUTHOR’s Warning: We’ve all read Sci-fi or speculative fiction where the dystopian backdrop is some form of fascism – usually portrayed as conservatism run amok. This is not that kind of book. The backdrop of this book is a socialist and corporate statist disaster on a global scale. It is extremism arising from the left. I had to give the protagonists a reason to do what they do. . . as such there are numerous disturbing scenes within, portraying everything from political re-education camps, five year economic plans and government enforced serfdom.

If you think any of that sounds like a panacea for the future, you will not like this book. A debut novel, the first in a series from a former CIA operations officer who has decided that his lifelong writing habit/hobby/obsession is more fun than “real” work.

Cobra Alliance: Cobra War Book I

Cobra Alliance: Cobra War Book I
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The colony worlds Adirondack and Silvern fell to the Troft forces almost without a struggle. Outnumbered and on the defensive, Earth made a desperate decision. It would attack the aliens not from space, but on the ground—with forces the Trofts did not even suspect. Thus were created the Cobras, a guerilla force whose weapons were surgically implanted, invisible to the unsuspecting eye, yet undeniably deadly. And the Moreau family were the most famous of the Cobra warriors.
Long after victory over the Troft was achieved, the Cobras made common cause with their former adversaries against a new enemy. Their reward was three planets that would be a home for the Cobras, whose deadly powers made them too dangerous to feel at home on Earth.
Now, years had passed and not everyone on the Cobra worlds thought that the Cobras were worth the high cost of providing their training and maintaining their existing built-in weaponry, let alone supporting research to improve the Cobra weapons, and possibly even put an end to the negative effects of that built-in weaponry, which caused Cobras to die much too young. Many who had never known interplanetary war were convinced that the Cobras were not needed at all.
That was a grave miscalculation, because a new menace was approaching, one that even the formidable Cobra warriors might not be able to defeat . . .

Cartwright’s Cavaliers (The Revelations Cycle Book 1)

Cartwright's Cavaliers (The Revelations Cycle Book 1)
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** 2017 Dragon Award Finalist for Best Military Scifi ***

Heir to one of the leading “Four Horsemen” mercenary companies, Jim Cartwright is having a bad year. Having failed his high school VOWS tests, he’s just learned his mother bankrupted the family company before disappearing, robbing him of his Cavalier birthright.

But the Horsemen of eras past were smart—they left a legacy of equipment Jim can use to complete the next contract and resurrect the company. It’s up to Jim to find the people he needs to operate the machinery of war, train them, and lead them to victory. If he’s good enough, the company can still be salvaged.

But then again, he’s never been good enough.

World Breakers

World Breakers
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Formed from cold steel and superpowered computing brains, these gigantic tanks with the firepower of an entire army have been the decisive factors in interplanetary battle. But are humans worthy of the extraordinary instruments of war that they have created? Are the Worldbreakers the greatest protector of human liberty, or its worst threat? For, while these Worldbreakers very definitely have minds of their own, the question remains: within their iron and superluminal quantum breasts, does there lie a faithful heart? Stories of world breakers and world makers in the great tradition of Keith Laumer’s Bolos from David Weber, Larry Correia, Wen Spencer, and more!

The Crypt

The Crypt
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“A gritty tale of cosmic dread.”
—Pierce Brown, #1 New York Times Bestselling author of RED RISING

The only way out is to die…

Few know the warship’s actual name. Fewer still know what it really is. And almost no one knows of its unique ability, an ability that could tilt the balance of power if not outright win the war.

But everyone has heard the rumors. Rumors about the worst place the Planetary Union Fleet can send you. Rumors of a ship with an eighty percent crew mortality rate. In these hushed, fearful whispers, the ship does have a name.

People call it “the Crypt,” because those aboard are as good as dead.

The PUV James Keeling can do something no other vessel in existence can do — slip into another dimension, travel undetected, then re-emerge onto our plane and surprise enemy targets. But the thing that makes the Crypt unique also makes it a nightmare for those onboard; interdimensional travel causes hallucinations, violent behavior, and psychotic breakdowns.

Keeling could be the Union’s greatest weapon, a game-changing asset that can defeat the bloodthirsty zealots of the Purist Nation, the Union’s mortal enemy. If, that is, the brass can find the right crew.

But with those dark rumors traveling at lightspeed throughout Fleet, sailors with connections, with favors to call in, or those with careers on the rise pull any string they can to avoid being assigned to the Crypt. The brightest and best shield themselves from this top-secret craft, yet the brass must send it out on critical missions.

As the war drags on and casualties pile up, Fleet crews the ship by assigning the worst of the worst. If you are convicted of assault, fraud, cowardice, theft, rape, murder — or you cross the wrong Admiral — you may find yourself aboard the Crypt. Most are given a choice: serve a two-year stint on the Keeling and have your record expunged, or be executed for your crimes.

Crisis of Empire series by David Drake

Crisis of Empire series by David Drake
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A modern take on Golden Age space opera the serie is set in the year 5341

The Emperor is dead, leaving only a child as successor. Will the leaders of the empire rally behind the heir? If not, interstellar civilization will once again dissolve into civil war and slide into another long night of barbarism. Book 1 of the Crisis of Empire series.

book 1

book 2

book 3

book 4

Redliners by David Drake

Redliners by David Drake
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Now with a new afterword by David Drake!

They were the toughest fighters in the galaxy-
until they got used up.

The mission: redemption-or death,
The troops were walking dead already,
so there wasn’t much of a downside.

Major Arthur Farrell and the troops of Strike Force Company C41 had seen too much war with the alien Kalendru. They had too many screaming memories to be fit for combat again, but they were far too dangerous to themselves and others to be returned to civilian life.

Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire Book 1)

Ninefox Gambit (Machineries of Empire Book 1)
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NEW YORK TIMES BEST-SELLING AUTHOR – WINNER OF THE 2016 LOCUS AWARD – NOMINATED FOR THE HUGO, NEBULA AND ARTHUR C. CLARKE AWARDS.

When Captain Kel Cheris of the hexarchate is disgraced for her unconventional tactics, Kel Command gives her a chance to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics. Cheris’s career isn’t the only thing at stake: if the fortress falls, the hexarchate itself might be next.

Cheris’s best hope is to ally with the undead tactician Shuos Jedao. The good news is that Jedao has never lost a battle, and he may be the only one who can figure out how to successfully besiege the fortress. The bad news is that Jedao went mad in his first life and massacred two armies, one of them his own.

As the siege wears on, Cheris must decide how far she can trust Jedao – because she might be his next victim.

Joe Haldemann – The Forever War

Joe Haldemann - The Forever War
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Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards: A futuristic masterpiece, “perhaps the most important war novel written since Vietnam” (Junot Díaz).

In this novel, a landmark of science fiction that began as an MFA thesis for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and went on to become an award-winning classic—inspiring a play, a graphic novel, and most recently an in-development film—man has taken to the stars, and soldiers fighting the wars of the future return to Earth forever alienated from their home.

Conscripted into service for the United Nations Exploratory Force, a highly trained unit built for revenge, physics student William Mandella fights for his planet light years away against the alien force known as the Taurans. “Mandella’s attempt to survive and remain human in the face of an absurd, almost endless war is harrowing, hilarious, heartbreaking, and true,” says Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Junot Díaz—and because of the relative passage of time when one travels at incredibly high speed, the Earth Mandella returns to after his two-year experience has progressed decades and is foreign to him in disturbing ways.

Based in part on the author’s experiences in Vietnam, The Forever War is regarded as one of the greatest military science fiction novels ever written, capturing the alienation that servicemen and women experience even now upon returning home from battle. It shines a light not only on the culture of the 1970s in which it was written, but also on our potential future. “To say that The Forever War is the best science fiction war novel ever written is to damn it with faint praise. It is . . . as fine and woundingly genuine a war story as any I’ve read” (William Gibson).

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Joe Haldeman including rare images from the author’s personal collection