MIllitary SF recommendation

[Stego]

Also, a lot of Heinlein's YA stuff is fairly military sci-fi. Citizen of the Galaxy, Time for The Stars, Tunnel in the Sky, Space cadet. Sure they're YA but I think YA is actually Heinlein's strongpoint. ( Ok, Stego, you can kill me now :P)

Nah, I love his YA books. It's definitely a valid opinion. If you said you thought his early 80's novels were his best, I'd have to kill you.

Also, I loved David Feintuch's fantasy series. (The Still, The King) I never read his SF, but the fantasy was very good for its time.

[needle]

Nah, I love his YA books. It's definitely a valid opinion. If you said you thought his early 80's novels were his best, I'd have to kill you.

Also, I loved David Feintuch's fantasy series. (The Still, The King) I never read his SF, but the fantasy was very good for its time.

Hey, I liked Friday and Job. If someone could give me back the hours wasted on To Sail Beyond the Sunset I would be very happy, howwever.

Ohh, I liked the Still. Never came across any more though. Shall go look them out.

Actually, if you haven't read Feintuch's 'Hope' series, you really should. Right up your street.

[Noroldis]

It's just too awful. He's told me he was shocked that someone wanted to reprint it.

Hmm. It's been awhile since I last read Night of the Vampyres. Looks like I might need to reread it.

[peterbound]

I've really enjoyed Jack Campbell's 'Lost Fleet' series. Fun read.

[Lord O' Bones]

Heinlen clowning himself in Number of the Beast totally redeemed that weird-ass book, Friday's shortcomings, and some of Stranger in a Strange Land's as well.

[Jussi]

David Drake's Hammer's Slammers series

I would also recommend Drake's stand-alone novel Redliners.

[RWHamel]

I enjoyed "A Small Colonial War" by Robert Frezza.

"The Prince" by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Sterling. Which is a compilation of 4 previous novels about the CoDominium Universe. You have to stretch you imagination a little bit, because the books are about a future where the Soviet Union didn't fall.

[RWHamel]

Here are 3 books you can download for free here. Perfectly legal, because they are in the public domain.

By H. Beam Piper

Uller Uprising - Basically the Sepoy mutiny set in the future, with the aliens being the sepoys.

The Cosmic Computer - Takes place on a backwards planet that once figured prominently in an interstellar civil war based loosely on the American Civil War.

Space Viking - The title says it all.

[Aedan]

wow guys, thanks very much, you helped me a lot, but feel free to write more if you remember :)

[shortstark]

One of my favorite Space Opera/Military Sci/fi is Dread Empire's Fall by Walter John Williams, (the author is an associate of GRRM, not that that in itself is an indicator of quality)

Its a trilogy comprising The Praxis, The Sundering, and the Convention's of War.

It has believable alien races and some of the best space battles i have read.

The female lead is very good imo, and her flashbacks make a nice side story, the male lead is a more humdrum, the story is told from their viewpoint

I think its very good but dont recall seeing it mentioned much on this forum.

[Noroldis]

One of my favorite Space Opera/Military Sci/fi is Dread Empire's Fall by Walter John Williams, (the author is an associate of GRRM, not that that in itself is an indicator of quality)

Its a trilogy comprising The Praxis, The Sundering, and the Convention's of War.

It has believable alien races and some of the best space battles i have read.

The female lead is very good imo, and her flashbacks make a nice side story, the male lead is a more humdrum, the story is told from their viewpoint

I think its very good but dont recall seeing it mentioned much on this forum.

I bought this trilogy on GRRM's recommendation, and I'm sorry to say I was thoroughly disappointed. The reason the two main protagonists are good at warfare isn't IMO that they are themselves exceptional as much that very nearly everyone else is a retarded fossil where it comes to tactics. For instance, the accepted and insisted-upon tactic for fleet engagements is... the line of battle. In the three-dimensional environment of space. I kid you not.

Now, one could argue that the stratified societies and tactics seen in this series are appropriate given that up until the series' beginning all the "lesser" races (including humanity) had for a very long time been ruled by a superior race that insisted upon those arrangements so as to maintain unity and control... But I've never been able to enjoy a series where one side's leadership is made up of Keystone Kops. In this series, nearly everyone but the two main characters is a Keystone Kop.

[Lothlorian]

Not that these are strictly Military SF, but a few that I would recommend would be the Black Company series by Glen Cook. I would also recommend "The Cyberiad" by Stanislaw Lem, a bunch of short stories usually featuring robots, and "The Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut, which is excellent and also has some scenes of the Martian army in action. My two cents.

(Though I can't imagine you havn't at least read the Vonnegut)

[Paul K Choate]

What about Harry Turtledove?

[Antonius Pius]

So, I've been reading this thread (I second Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts and Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain), but I would like to ask, is there a shortlist for Lois Bujold McMaster? I checked her wiki-page, and it lists a lot of titles, both books and novella's. A bit daunting, really, but as the praise is high, I thought I'd give it a try.

So any recommendations on how to proceed? Chronologically? Books only? Read the omnibuses?

[Selmy]

Not sure if anyone suggested The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. It's pretty classic. Think it won Nebula and Hugo awards back in the day.

It's sort of about space marines that go off to war and return to a society they no longer recognize.

[mjgambino]

So, I've been reading this thread (I second Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts and Sandy Mitchell's Ciaphas Cain), but I would like to ask, is there a shortlist for Lois Bujold McMaster? I checked her wiki-page, and it lists a lot of titles, both books and novella's. A bit daunting, really, but as the praise is high, I thought I'd give it a try.

So any recommendations on how to proceed? Chronologically? Books only? Read the omnibuses?

Get the omnibuses, when possible and read them chronologically, not publication order. Which is:

Cordelia's Honor

Young Miles

Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem

Miles Errant

Memory (Not in any omnibus editions)

Miles in Love

Miles, Mutants, and Microbes

Cryoburn (Also not in an omnibus edition)

[Antonius Pius]

Get the omnibuses, when possible and read them chronologically, not publication order. Which is:

Cordelia's Honor

Young Miles

Miles, Mystery, and Mayhem

Miles Errant

Memory (Not in any omnibus editions)

Miles in Love

Miles, Mutants, and Microbes

Cryoburn (Also not in an omnibus edition)

Thanks!

Now to find some copies...

[imladolen]

If you don't mind short stories, The Best Military Science Fiction of the 20th Century has some good ones, including one by none else than George R.R. Martin.

Just picked that up at a used book sale for $1!

I haven't kept up with the franchize in many a long season, but I believe one of the main series of those Starwars novels that tend more toward the military is the X-wing books [Rogue Squadron, Wedge's Gamble, etc], some of which are written by Michael Stackpole and some by Aaron Allston. I remember them fondly but haven't read them since my mid teens.

I enjoyed those a lot as well.

Probably not Altered Carbon, but the later two Kovacs books also seem to be quite big on military action (if more at the mercenary-mission level).

Peter F. Hamilton doesn't write military SF per se, but both The Night's Dawn Trilogy and The Commonwealth Saga duology feature lots of military action, which he is spectacularly good at. The Void Trilogy de-emphasises this angle a lot.

Completely agree. Morgan and Hamilton are both pretty damned good. And as far as Military SF, Fallen Dragon really fits that bill.

Also, check out Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regnant series. But avoid Mike Shepherd's Kris Longkife stuff as I found them way too derivative after reading Moon and Weber. I'm still trying to figure out why I subjected myself to that entire series after I realized how shitty they were after starting the second book.

I have to second (third? fourth?) the David Weber stuff. Any of his SF stuff would be pretty good to read, though some of it gets repetitive (he reuses some ideas too many times), but the Honor Harrington stuff is definitely a must read as far as Military SF goes.

Also, Timothy Zahn's Cobra series was fun stuff.

[Knight Of The North]

This probably doesn't qualify, but if you like gritty truth and military theory, New Model Army by Adam Roberts is right up your alley.

For the other side of the spectrum, Prospero Burns has some incredibly haunting scenes, a harsh truth about all militaries (You NEED someone who will go to this place, at this time, and kill these people, no matter what) and lots of violence.

Haven't read it in donkey's years, but Black Man by Richard Morgan is something special.

Can't second Wert's suggestion of The Founding enough. Builds up steadily, until the ending, which otherwise I found alittle cheesy and quiant, really makes your eyes water.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

The War World novels edited by Jerry Pournelle were kind of cool...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_World

It's a Shared World Collaborative set of short stories written by various SF authors (Poul Anderson, S.M. Stirling, Harry Turtledove, Larry Niven and others) Set on a backwater, forgotten planet in Pournelle's CoDominium Universe. Somewhat reminiscent of Robert Lynn Aspirin's Thieves World except in a Sci-Fi setting instead of Fantasy.