The most recommended space warfare books

Leia Organa has always been my favorite character from the Star Wars universe; she’s strong, capable, and witty while being a great leader but acknowledging vulnerability. Bloodline by Claudia Grey perfectly captures the untold times in the years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens and Leia’s work as a senator, fending off threats to the Republic. A combination of both political intrigue and action, anyone wanting to learn more about Leia’s life and decisions should definitely pick up this book.

Shards of Earth is a rip-roaring science fiction adventure story full of the things I love.

A rag-tag space salvage crew trying to survive and maybe profit against a backdrop of war and invasion finds themselves at the very center of events with the fate of humanity in the balance. There are vast, inscrutable alien death machines wrecking whole planets for reasons nobody can figure out. It even has weird human societies and weirder extraterrestrials.

It's a great space opera with vivid characters, amazing but plausible technology, and a grand scope.

This final work in Banks’ Culture sci-fi series is all about technologically advanced species making the decision to sublime – to depart the “real world” to reside in “higher dimensions”.

As I read the book I found my philosopher’s brain bullied to understand what subliming could possibly be. When techno-enthusiasts propose radical human enhancement are they effectively suggesting that we should sublime? When the aspiring trillionaires of AI are asked about the future in which they make AIs much smarter than us, they get vague about the details.

The throwaway line of OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella is “all bets are off” after they achieve their stated goal of artificial superintelligence. Should we approach the future gifts of AI much in the way that Banks’s characters approach the offer of subliming?

And since Speaker for the Dead, number 2 in OSC’s Ender series and another Nebula and Hugo Award winner, is my favorite of all his books, I must include it as well. After the great, terrible war, Ender disappears and many years pass. A mysterious figure, the Speaker for the Dead, arises to reveal the souls and redeem those who have passed on. I very much related to someone who really could grok the life of one recently deceased and speak to the survivors in a way that clarified, resolved, revealed, and redeemed the deceased’s entire existence for them. And the whole new, recently discovered world with a new intelligent race of beings again pulled me and the Speaker right into it. More than with any other author, I felt I was right there living and experiencing what the characters were. And, of course, the dynamic question of what… show more.

Parts of Gust Front hit home. I read this while living in the Appalachians, so seeing Cally preparing for an invasion in a remote valley in Georgia, and the subsequent fighting that takes place in and around the Appalachians, struck a nerve with me. If the worst happened, up to and including the alien invasion depicted here, would the mountains be the best place to hold out and resist? The scope of the novel covers many settings, including other familiar ones like Washington D.C., all of which ground the speculative premise of an alien invasion in a story that feels very real; something that any of us could be forced to live through.

Star Wars is probably the most famous example of space operas with magic, but most people probably don’t realize there are dozens of books that take place in the universe.

Even if you’re just an original trilogy fan, you’ll like Gray’s books about Leia, majorly because she nails Leia's character (just like in the previous book Bloodline, but I think this book is better). Since it takes place between Episodes III and IV, it ties in heavily to the events of the original trilogy. Leia is learning about politics and the rebellion and the reader can see why she becomes the most important person in the rebellion.

I won’t spoil it, but the ending alone (especially the last line) is enough to make this one a worthy read.

When I received Ninefox Gambit for Christmas, I have to say that I was blown away. What I loved the most about it wasn’t just that Yoon Ha Lee dropped me in the middle of a war and hit the ground running (from lazer blasts!) The tactician Shuos Jedao leads Cheris into an inner battle that turns out to be even more consequential than the war itself. And when finally the question arises of “who is right” in the conflict, something that the good soldier Cheris has never asked herself before, the answer depends on who’s answering. Cheris, like all of us, must decide for herself whether the secrets of Jedao’s past are true, or whether she’s having her strings pulled.

A galactic society with living ships! This pan-ultimate technological empire is so immense, I seized upon the concept for a sequel to my book regarding the symbiosis of human and machine. Joshua Calver's astro-archeological adventure was the most enjoyable for me. The idea of immersing in progenitor hyper-technological society's exciting, and forms the basis of RPGs such as Mass Effect. It's not entirely alien a concept either but based on the real history of Earth and its megalithic stone cut marvels, featuring precision cutting on either impossibly large building stones or delicate bowls.

I was moved from the opening lines of Old Man’s War. An ordinary man of 75 visits his wife’s grave, then joins the army. What? Oh yeah, now I understand. Mind uploading is integral to this book, first published in 2005, and it will soon be the rage in the real world of our near future. In Old Man’s War we experience mind uploading through the character, John Perry, and other new recruits. Then we fight. Perry becomes a war hero, and he crosses paths with his wife along the way. What? I thought she was dead? Oh yeah, now I understand. She was grown from Kathy Perry’s DNA, but she has no memory of John. Or does she? Military sci-fi adventure blooms into a love story? Wow, this could be a series. Oh, wait. It is! 

I loved Jadzia Dax in Deep Space Nine, and I was always fascinated by the Trill, a species in which some lucky few are selected to join as hosts with a symbiont creature that lives for several lifetimes and imbues the actual host with the talents and memories of all the previous hosts.

The TV show only scratched the surface of what that means psychologically and culturally, so I was really looking forward to reading this book. White did a lot of research on the Trill and then took the creepy premise of some kind of zombie Trill to really explore what it means to be Trill, to be joined or to be denied the joining by the almighty Symbiosis Commission.

A thrilling (and also empowering) Jadzia adventure.