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Recommendations for Mil SF/Space Opera with great space battles not focused on ground combat?
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Thanks for recommending Basilisk, Eva. The Kindle version is free. I don't know for how long.Agree with you about Dauntless.
I'm reading Asher's The Soldier, but am only 20 pages into it. So no can tell.
You could try Columbus Day. The first book has a bit more ground battles, but it sets the rest of the series, which is basically about space pirates fighting other aliens and having to be super sneaky, so there's a lot of estrategizing as well.
Thank you for your input! I'd love to hear more about The Soldier when you've read more. And I hope you'll enjoy Basilisk as much as I did. It's loosely inspired by Admiral Nelson's life story, so it's very reminiscent of the old Hornblower and Aubrey & Maturin series of the Napoleonic wars. Just now in space and no longer limited to white British men. Columbus Day's sequels sound great! And it's under 300 pages, so I wouldn't have to read through very much to get to the good stuff. Thank you very much!
Bruce Bretthauer's Families War series is rife with naval type action. Firestar is the first book in the series and you will be hard pressed to find a better matriarchal society and the reasons for it anywhere.
Marko Kloos writes Military sci fi. Might be worth looking into. ETA: Actually, Aftershocks specifically mentions the MC is a naval character. I tried a sample once and kept meaning to read the whole thing but haven't gotten around to it.
Hereford wrote: "Bruce Bretthauer's Families War series is rife with naval type action. Firestar is the first book in the series and you will be hard pressed to find a better matriarchal society and the reasons for..."Oh, very cool - I'd never heard of it! I do actually love men dearly, so a lack of them is not really a selling point for me, but the unique and weird society sounds intriguing.
You might take a look at the RCN series by Davis Drake starting with With the Lightnings. I listened to the first two years ago and am remembering space battles, but ... it's been too long to be sure, lol. Some of the current reviews say "Master and Commander in space" but that's not really definitive either. But it's a fun series (also loooong!) so might be worth reading the first one to check it out. :)
Sarah wrote: "Marko Kloos writes Military sci fi. Might be worth looking into. ETA: Actually, Aftershocks specifically mentions the MC is a naval character. I tried a sample once and kept meani..."
Hmm, yes, I could try this. On the other hand, it mentions three main characters, one of which is "a sergeant with the occupation forces" - clearly ground troops, and another is the president, probably also on the ground. But I'll keep it in mind, thank you!
Ann wrote: "You might take a look at the RCN series by Davis Drake"
Oh, that sounds perfect, awesome! I hope it's also well-written, I'll put it on my TBR.
P.S.: Oops, I take it back: the second review claims "There’s a ship in space decorating the cover image. They also talk about “invasion fleet” in the book burb. There’s no fleet action whatsoever in this book."
Maybe it's a case of again having to read through the first book to then get to the space battles in the second?
Eva wrote: "Sarah wrote: "Marko Kloos writes Military sci fi. Might be worth looking into. ETA: Actually, Aftershocks specifically mentions the MC is a naval character. I tried a sample once ..."
I was reading some of the blurbs and reviews on the RCN series - it sounds like there is a space battle near the end of book 1, can't tell about book 2, but book 3 says "it will require a space battle on a scale that a tiny corvette like the Princess Cecile has no business being involved in. But she'll be in the middle of it anyway" so I think that one must have some. Wish I remembered better! I know a lot of it is in space - they're on a ship much of the time, I think - but I sure don't remember the number of battles!
Oh, and the first book is somewhat stilted in places from what I remember, but it does improve - either that or I got used to the style. :)
Thank you, Ann! One battle per book is enough as long as the rest of the book isn't filled with ground combat. :-)
Steve White and David Weber wrote a rather good series of military SF books that are mostly concentrated on space combat. I am not sure what is the actual the name of the series but following books are part of it:Insurrection
Crusade
In Death Ground
The Shiva Option
There might be some additional books in the series but the above listed left a truly good impression on me. Lots of twists, politicking (remote colonies and alien contacts) and space combat between variety of ship classes.
If you like U-Boot type of stories (highly claustrophobic and stressful work conditions, highly sensitive and fragile ships fighting behind enemy lines always expecting to be blasted out by superior chaser force) then I suggest the following:
Passage at Arms
And come to it there is one more Glen Cook's book that is centered on space warfare and has a rather strange (but ultimately epic) feeling to it and is centered around space combat:
The Dragon Never Sleeps
As for the other authors you asked about you might like Neal Asher although action in his books is (literally) all over the place - space, ground, underground, wormholes, cybernetic computer networks and several things I cannot remember right now :) I like his works immensely and I highly recommend his books in general.
Peter F Hamilton's works are epic but these are not books you carry when you travel anywhere because with his books you do not need to go to gym, books are huuuuuge. Same as with Asher works are epic SF encompassing periods of sometimes hundred's of years. There are space battles but do note these are not the main elements of the story.
Zare wrote: "Peter F Hamilton's works are epic but these are not books you carry when you travel anywhere because with his books you do not need to go to gym, books are huuuuuge. "Not in Kindle format, they're very light and you could carry all of them and they'd weigh just a few ounces total.
I like F.M. Busby's Young Rissa series and Zelde M'Tana for space bttles. Zelda is not available in Kindle format unfortunately.
Completely forgot about that :) what can I say, I prefer the old "analog" variant :)
Baen Books publishes a lot of military sf. They offer many ebooks, mostly first in series, for free. If you like audiobooks, getting the free ebook through Amazon will (sometimes?) give you a discount on the same title at Audible.Baen Free Library: https://www.baen.com/allbooks/categor...
Baen Books on Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=baen+books...
So many wonderful suggestions - thank you, everyone! My TBR has grown a lot (I've even found a used copy of Zelde M'Tana). But I wouldn't want to go through all of Baen's free library blindly though, I'd first need someone to tell me what's in the book and if they enjoyed it.
Thanks a lot for more information on Asher: I've got Gridlinked right here, ready to start.
In terms of the hugeness of Hamilton's work: definitely, Pandora's Star has been glaring at me intimidatingly for months now. Maybe I'll try Fallen Dragon first - it's shorter and a standalone. Or is that the wrong choice?
When you first posted this thread earlier, I was going to look into and possibly rec Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell. By the time I got out of bed and onto my laptop, you'd deleted the thread :D So I'm still not 100% sure if there's ground combat, because I tend to zone out during any battle scenes, but there is a magnificent space battle! There's a great sentient spaceship character, some interesting humans, and cool aliens. The series is finished, so if you like it, you can read all of it. I know there's at least one big space battle in the first book, and I want to say there are more in the rest of the series, but I don't remember enough to be sure.
Sarah wrote: "Marko Kloos writes Military sci fi. Might be worth looking into. ETA: Actually, Aftershocks specifically mentions the MC is a naval character. I tried a sample once and kept meani..."
Aftershocks have some space battles but not many since there are two other POVs who were ground based. I really enjoyed that series. I read his Frontlines series too and most of it are unfortunately ground battles.
Have not read many of them but Star Wars legends and new Disney canon have lots of X-Wing pilot novels. The ones I read features some space battles: Before the Awakening. And of course there's the Poe Dameron graphic novels.
Eva wrote: "Columbus Day's sequels sound great! And it's under 300 pages, so I wouldn't have to read through very much to get to the good stuff."I wouldn't rely on that being very accurate. Columbus Day has page counts ranging from 300 - 500 pages depending on which version you look at. It was much longer than I expected and I would say the page count is closer to 500 than 300 pages.
Anna wrote: "When you first posted this thread earlier, I was going to look into and possibly rec Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell. By the time I got out of bed and onto my lap..."Thanks! I kept changing my mind about posting this thread because after all, I do still have a few Weber books left unread, but curiosity won out in the end! I've read Embers of War (it was okay) and do remember lots of ground combat and zero space combat because the ending relies on (view spoiler). Unless you count the brief "shoot the planet directly" moment in the beginning. But it was pretty good anyway.
Silvana said: "Aftershocks have some space battles but not many..." One is enough, it's mostly the careful planning, navigational calculation and strategizing in preparation for one big clash that I find cool. But the ground combat content still sounds like probably too much for my taste... I'll give it a try when I'm done with the more naval suggestions. :-)
If you’re gonna read a stand-alone by Hamilton I would go with GREAT NORTH ROAD. It’s an interesting melange of SF and mystery. Not very much military SF really, although it does involve colonization of a world.But really the duopoly PANDORAS STAR/JUDAS UNCHAINED is also fantastic (but each is 800+ pages?) DEFINITELY milSF—alíen invasion is a key element plus advance technology as in all Hamilton’s works.
Thank you - Pandora's Star/Judas Unchained it is, then! :-)
Eva wrote: "Anna wrote: "When you first posted this thread earlier, I was going to look into and possibly rec Embers of War by Gareth L. Powell. By the time I got out of bed an..."Sure thing. This thread just made me realized I read more marines than naval and now you have whet my appetite.
The Hulzein Dynasty - F.M. BusbyWhich contain the previously mentioned Young Rissa and Zelde M'Tana books are not really what you're looking for. There is no "warp" type engines and few if any space battles because of the time dilation traveling causes. Fun read thought.
No one is really doing what David Weber does, at least not well.
Which explains his popularity to me.
Honestly gotta recommend Star Wars, particularly the X-wing Series was quite good with space battles first book is Rogue Squadron
I just thought of another author - you might check out M.D. Cooper. She has quite a few different series and some are bound to have space battles ... I think. Okay, I am going to go message her and ask for a rec, as there are just toooo many, lol. I'll be back laters. :)
I was checking out the Kindle deals this morning and saw Archangel One by Evan Currie. Again, haven’t read it so I’m not 100% sure but it looks to be heavily based on naval space battles.
Thank you for thinking of me - I'll check it out!And thanks for the Rogue Squadron recommendation, that will remind me of my childhood playing those old X-Wing and Wing Commander games with my brother.
Did you guys know they're bringing out a new one? (Squadrons)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIonD...
Looks very cool!
Chris wrote: "Baen Books publishes a lot of military sf. They offer many ebooks, mostly first in series, for free. If you like audiobooks, getting the free ebook through Amazon will (sometimes?) give you a disco..."This was an awesome lot of free books. Thanks!
Just heard back from Malorie about her M. D. Cooper books; she says "The Orion War series probably has the highest concentration of space battles. The first book takes a little bit to get there, but there just be lots o space pew pew from there on out." The series starts with Destiny Lost and is pretty long. I've read the Outsystem books and loved them, so can recommend the writing.
Thank you so much for asking her - and I'm also very grateful for her quick reply - I'll check the series out!@John: You probably didn't see it in my original post, but in it I mentioned Dauntless and why I didn't like it that much. But if this aspect improves in later books, I'm willing to give the series another try. Does this change in later books?
There are lots of space battles in John Ringo's Troy Rising series. Only 3 books and currently on hold because the author admits he wrote himself into a corner and did not want to continue with just more of the same. Worth a look, the first book is Live Free or Die
Eva wrote: "Thank you so much for asking her - and I'm also very grateful for her quick reply - I'll check the series out!P.S. Her author site on the German Amazon page has different covers and a male photo ..."
Yep, that's correct. And a rather old photo, things have changed. :) I'll let her know she needs to tidy that!
Thanks, I'd love to get one with the new cover. :-)@AndrewP: Thank you kindly, I'll check it out!
You may already be familiar with this, and it is getting creaky with age (and its treatment of women is objectionable), but the great-grandfather (or something like that) of today's military SF is the "Lensman" series by E.E. Smith.These were published in the 1930s and 1940s, with something of a hiatus for WW II. "Doc" Smith (he had a PhD in chemistry when that was a real scarcity in science fiction circles) includes some ground action, but he was famous in his day for spectacular space battles involving vast fleets of ships, with colorful descriptions of weaponry and defenses.
The series proper consists of:
Triplanetary (adapted for book publication from a non-series story)
First Lensman (written for book publication)
Galactic Patrol (The first to be published as part of a series, it formed the beginning of a tightly connected set of novels -- and by tightly, I mean one book starts a few seconds after the prior book concluded.)
Gray Lensman
Second Stage Lensman
Children of the Lens (published after the hiatus mentioned above)
plus the related, but non-sequential "The Vortex Blasters," also published as "Masters of the Vortex"
There is also "Spacehounds of IPC," which doesn't fit the series: but the original, shorter, version of "Triplanetary" was written as its sequel. It is really a period piece, but when it appeared it had a major impact on, most notably, Robert A. Heinlein.
In their magazine versions, the sequence starting with "Galactic Patrol," which ran in "Astounding," featured a mystery about the real background of events, unveiled bit by bit, but Smith explained matters up front in "Triplanetary" and "First Lensman" when the whole series was published in book form, feeling he should play fair with readers who weren't following them as serials to begin with.
Some of the volumes can be found in free Kindle editions, or are 99 cents, so you can try them without much of an investment..
They should not be confused with Smith's older series, "The Skylark of Space," "Skylark Three" "Skylark of Valeron,' and "Skylark Duquesne." These are also available in free/cheap Kindle editions. One of them has a cover using an illustration from "Amazing Stories," where they originally appeared, but it appears to be from the original "Buck Rogers" story, "Armageddon 2419 A.D."
Thank you for some old-school recommendations! I hope the tech is not so old-fashioned that it will harm my immersion? I'll give it a try.In case anyone is following this because they feel the same, I've found some more lovely books which feature space battles but don't focus on stuff on the ground through my own search and thought I should mention them:
(A new X-Wing squadron series set in the Star Wars universe, set right after Return of the Jedi.)
Apparently has some very well-done and tactical battles based in real physics.
Was recommended on reddit as containing unforgettable space battles.
Both by CJ Cherryh, whose prose I find difficult to read (but then I'm a foreigner) - apparently these also contain some great battles in space.
This makes me happy because I've already read and liked Revelation Space, the first book in the series. I've heard that this second book has some amazing and very realistically hard SF battles in space.
I've heard that this trilogy contains Hamilton's best battles in space.
George R. R. Martin said about this series: “Space opera the way it ought to be [...] Bujold and Weber, bend the knee; interstellar adventure has a new king, and his name is Walter Jon Williams.”
For a fan of Bujold and Weber, this sounds REALLY awesome, so I'm excited to try this.
Eva wrote: "I hope the tech is not so old-fashioned that it will harm my immersion? I'll give it a try...."Besides some of his social, political, and economic assumptions, E.E. Smith also seems a bit antiquated in certain technological respects: for examples, he projected into the far future things like the discovery of room-temperature superconductors, and the production of stealthed vehicles. Of course, we are still working on the former.
Smith came up with an interesting way of exceeding the speed of light: a device that (somehow) neutralizes inertia, so things can be accelerated really efficiently. He worked out some of the practical problems, like what happens when you turn it off, and things revert to their natural state of motion.
But he never did get around to facing the real relativistic issues regarding the speed of light: his original readers, many of whom knew better, didn't care, as it was hand-waving to make the story work, and accepted as such. Of course, now everyone does it.
And the use of telepathy and extra-sensory perception (as "the sense of perception") has to be taken as a given, or the stories won't work at all.
He did come up with some interesting aliens, with their distinct psychologies and ethics, based on their physiologies or histories as a species. Not very profound, but they were no longer men in rubber suits -- at least some of the time.
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I love Weber's Honor Harrington series (On Basilisk Station etc.) and really enjoy reading about space battles, especially when they're very sneaky and tactical instead of just pew-pew.
I've also read Dauntless by Campbell but didn't like it as much - the opponents seemed very cartoonish and the protagonist seemed to always be right and he never let you forget how right he'd been. I enjoy clever, competent characters, but not if that leads to big special ego snowflake. (Sorry if that impression of the book is wrong, I read it quite a long time ago and my memory might be skewed. Does this get better later in the series?) I've also read Bujold, Card and Yoon Ha Lee and liked them a lot.
Okay, so whenever I look for recommendations for more mil SF or other kinds of novels set in space that have a space battle or two, people always end up recommending lots of stuff that I go out and buy only to discover it's about ground troops. Nothing but ground troops. Ground troops are not my jam.
I don't mind a scene or two of ground troops doing things, but it's just not what I want to read about. So, based on "this is just like David Weber!" recommendations, I've bought: Old Man's War, Valor's Choice, Fortune's Pawn, Trading in Danger, and so on, and so on. And while they are good books, they just didn't give me the clever strategy, and tactics in space ships, and broadsides, etc. that I was actually looking for when I bought them. I mean, in Old Man's War, ships don't even have drives with which to fly through space, they just teleport and then become useless sitting ducks, so send in the ground troops! So, personally, I thought the cover was false advertisement: no such ships exist in-universe! (I don't want my money back, though - it was a good book.)
Are there any other good books actually focused on the naval side of things instead of the marines? Please save me from buying yet more books about grunts on the ground. I want ships! I haven't completely finished the Honor series, but I was hoping to discover some other authors doing similar things.
I'd be very happy and grateful for more naval recommendations, especially if the protagonists are interesting, kind and intelligent people, not crazy pro-war, extra trigger-happy folks. A total lack of US real-life politics in the books would also be appreciated. Does anyone know something? Older books are fine, franchise books such as Star Wars would be fine, as well. I'd also appreciate warnings about more mil SF focused on ground troops so that I won't buy more of them by mistake. Also: it doesn't have to be military, it's fine if it's just normal people trying to survive or defend their home system.
E.g. has anyone read Nagata's Edges, or books by Peter F. Hamilton, or Neal Asher, etc., and can tell me if one of them would have what I'm looking for?