Here are 73 books that Rogue fans have personally recommended if you like
Rogue.
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For me, writing space opera was obvious because it's what I like to read. There's so much scope for human and non-human societies out there, complete with the history of how they were created, and the inevitable cut-and-thrust of politics. If the book also has a love story– where do I pay my money? I do like the science in my science fiction to be convincing, though. My background as a computer programmer helps with that and I'm often grateful for my history degree when coming up with convincing empires and events.
Mix a couple of strong, mysterious characters with a dangerous quest and you've got me. It's a plot where I had to pay attention as the danger ratchets up with betrayals and twists and turns that kept me guessing. There's enough detail in settings and tech to convince without any info dumps and the romance is an integral part of the story. Loved it.
When the cure for a deadly disease is stolen, two misfits are all that stands between greed and intergalactic tragedy.
Luka Foxe can’t let anyone know about his secret mental abilities. Debilitated by their influence when faced with violence, the brilliant forensic investigator now only takes assignments involving theft. But when he has to hunt down a hijacked vaccine for a galaxy-wide pandemic, the tragic first clue is his best friend’s brutal murder.
Nightshift guard Mairwen Morganthur knows she must keep a low profile. The product of illegal genetic alteration, she’s a lethal weapon with no social graces. But when…
I’ve been writing fantasy for two decades now and still, I can’t resist a foul-mouthed rogue with a grubby soul. They’re usually the most entertaining characters to write and in the long days of plugging away at a book, they’re often the ones that remind you what’s so fun about the job. When I started Stranger of Tempest it was (pretty much solely) with that in mind – I wanted a disparate band of crazed, badass idiots to go on an adventure with and see where it took me. Of course, as I got to know them I found there was more to their tales than that, but it was fun right to the end!
Chel isn’t a man cut out to be a hard-nosed mercenary, but he falls in with a badass crew and the resulting exploits and squabbling prove highly entertaining for the rest of us even if he’s miserable throughout much of it! It’s a simple tale of being chased across the country by assassins, all told with foul-mouthed and engaging aplomb, so what’s not to love?
Dark, thrilling, and hilarious, The Black Hawks is an epic adventure perfect for fans of Joe Abercrombie and Scott Lynch.
Life as a knight is not what Vedren Chel imagined. Bound by oath to a dead-end job in the service of a lazy step-uncle, Chel no longer dreams of glory - he dreams of going home.
When invaders throw the kingdom into turmoil, Chel finds opportunity in the chaos: if he escorts a stranded prince to safety, Chel will be released from his oath.
All he has to do is drag the brat from one side of the country to…
The books I recommend here have inspired me and shaped my work. You see, I have always been a writer, but for a long time I viewed it as just a hobby. I did a lot of fan writing (Pern, especially) that allowed me to follow my heart and just have fun writing. My current work questions some of the underlying assumptions in fantasy. Must every problem be solved at the point of a sword? Does magical power always corrupt? And is it truly possible for evildoers to be redeemed? I hope you'll visit my land of Skaythe and find it as magical as Estcarp, Earthsea, and Eld Mountain!
Barbara Hambly brings us rousing adventures that unexpectedly go into dark places. I love how she sets up the premise of hapless females begging for help, and then shows us they aren't so helpless after all.
The viewpoint character is a mercenary captain, coerced by poison into training a band of misfit females who are determined to save their families from an evil wizard. Unbeknownst even to him, Sunwolf is developing magic of his own. It's great fun to watch the partnership grow out of an adversarial relationship between the scrappy women and the mercenary who finds himself suddenly vulnerable.
First in the series from a New York Times–bestselling author and “fabulously talented writer” featuring a brilliant mercenary and his fierce female partner (Charlaine Harris). Gifted with courage, strength, and the intelligence to know when to fight, Sun Wolf is the greatest mercenary in a land overrun by war. With his first lieutenant, Starhawk—a woman more deadly than any man—at his side, he has laid waste to countless cities, taking the best of their treasures for himself, and distributing the rest among his bloodthirsty crew. Then a woman comes to him, an emissary from the town of Mandrigyn, a lush…
I’ve been writing fantasy for two decades now and still, I can’t resist a foul-mouthed rogue with a grubby soul. They’re usually the most entertaining characters to write and in the long days of plugging away at a book, they’re often the ones that remind you what’s so fun about the job. When I started Stranger of Tempest it was (pretty much solely) with that in mind – I wanted a disparate band of crazed, badass idiots to go on an adventure with and see where it took me. Of course, as I got to know them I found there was more to their tales than that, but it was fun right to the end!
The oldest book on the list and easily the most influential I’d suggest, the Black Company’s effect on fantasy goes way beyond books about mercenaries. The prose style isn’t for everyone (including me, I do find his style off-putting at times) but this is fantasy without dreamy illusions written by a man who knew first-hand what soldiers were really like. It’s grim and it’s dark, but he’s not playing for cheap or lurid shocks any more than he’s idealising anything.
Growing up I devoured science-fiction and spy stories by the boatload—the only person I wanted to be more than James Bond was probably Han Solo. Of course, I couldn’t really become either of them, but I always knew the next best thing would be telling stories about those kinds of characters. Ultimately, I couldn’t decide whether to focus on space adventures or spies, so the only real answer was to smash those two genres together. Five years and four novels later, the world of the Galactic Cold War is humming along quite nicely. But I’m still always on the lookout for the next great sci-fi spy novel.
This is probably my favorite book of all time, from my favorite series of all time, The Vorkosigan Saga. Miles Vorkosigan, spy and accidental leader of a mercenary fleet, comes face to face with his mortality when he’s injured during a mission. As he recovers, he has to rebuild his life and his identity and find a new purpose in an empire that prizes warriors—a long-running challenge for this diminutive disabled hero. Meanwhile, one of his mentors, spymaster Simon Illyan, is dealing with a threat that could not only unravel his own life but decades’ worth of the Empire’s secrets. It’s funny, tense, and touching all at turns; I can’t think of that many sci-fi adventures that will have you laughing and crying.
1
author picked
Memory
as one of their favorite books, and they share
why you should read it.
This book is for kids age
16, and
17.
What is this book about?
Dying is easy. Coming back to life is hard. At least that's what Miles
Vorkosigan thinks, and he should know, having died once already. That was when
he last visited Jackson's Whole, rescuing his brother. Thanks to quick thinking
on the part of h
I am the author of more than sixty published novels, most of which are military science fiction, or near-future alternative history fiction, so I have an abiding interest in the subgenre, and the authors who helped to shape it.
As with my other recommendations, I am making this one based on the impact the book had on me. From this novel, as well as the others that Jerry wrote, I learned how important it is to build a comprehensive world-universe when planning a book. And, when I sat down to pen the first book in what would become the Legion of the Damned series, I attempted to build a reality as fully realized as the CoDominium universe is.
In a future universe in which prisoner colonists are shipped to strange worlds for a corrupt alliance of Earth nations, John Christian Falkenberg gives up a brilliant military career and makes a monumental sacrifice
I am a world traveler and educator, a student of psychology and myth, and a lover of the wild and ancient places. I believe that sword and sorcery, the vanguard of modern fantasy, is overdue for a comeback. These tales echo the trials of Hercules, the rage of Achilles, and the melancholy of Gilgamesh and Beowulf, to name a few. There is much yet to learn: I write to stir my readers’ blood, and to examine the lessons of the epics: that man must face down the inhuman and monstrous to discover himself; that we cannot truly live until we have borne a great trial of our own. Stay fierce!
For me, The Black Companyopened a whole range of personalities that could “work” for fantasy—the grim, desperate men of the Company are not good men… but they’re heroes nonetheless.I found The Black Company’sfocus on character over grandiose plot to be refreshing after many years of reading swollen tomes. Even better,The Black Companytaught me a lot about focusing in on the relationship between men: the Company men talk like the men I know, gruff, to the point, competitive and combative even when they’re working together. It feels rough and real in a way that sticks with me even years later. As a dad and an educator, my reading time is limited; Cook gets far more across, in far less space, than many other fantasy authors.
Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead.
Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her...
So begins one of the greatest fantasy epics of our age―Glen Cook's Chronicles of the Black Company.
A member of the LGBTQ community, I set out to write books about people that looked like me, that were under-represented in the media. I’m disabled, living with multiple medical conditions and mental health issues, which also inform my writing. I self-identify as a “full-time geek” – I have a passion for history and science, as well as being an avid gamer. My reading (and writing) time is spent wandering through fantasy realms, traveling the outer reaches of space, or delving into historical time periods.
A classical space romp with a twist. World-building is a must for any sci-fi, and this doesn’t disappoint. You’re sucked into this world and its people, carried by an interesting cast of characters. It’s a short read, filled with a big heart, and a world just dying to be explored further in future installments.
Fighting with your back to the wall is all well and good—as long as you’ve chosen the right wall.
When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can’t refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs.
Kyle’s best lead is the Scorpion, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the Scorpion’s pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He’s everything Kyle lost with his legs,…
Writing science fiction was the natural result of a lifetime of reading it for pleasure and studying whenever I could as part of my English Lit course at University. When I started writing, it was really important to me as a woman (especially a gay woman) to write female characters that weren’t just strong and likable; I wanted them to be interesting, unpalatable, and tough. Above all, not easy to dismiss. All of the women in the books I’ve listed fulfill at least some of these categories, which is the core of why these novels hold such a special place in my heart.
This was a book that really surprised me. A very no-nonsense macho family member recommended it to me on a holiday, and I remember raising my eyebrows reading the back cover and finding out it heavily featured an interspecies romance.
The minute I started reading, I got so wrapped up in the adrenaline and action that I actually went on to recommend it to my sci-fi-loving dad, who read it in a day and went on to borrow the rest of the series. The heroine, a power armor-wearing mercenary, is incredibly competent and badass but avoids falling into either Mary Sue or Damsel in Distress territory as the plot proceeds.
Additionally, while I kept going for the action-romance, the worldbuilding was surprisingly interesting and in-depth. Whenever I’m reluctantly charmed by something, I find it hard not to gush about it; it’s just such a fun experience as a reader to…
A promising young mercenary's future gets thrown into jeopardy after a fateful encounter with an alien in the start to a propulsive space opera series perfect for fans of Firefly and Killjoys.
"Devi is hands-down one of the best sci-fi heroines I've read in a long time." RT Book Reviews Devi Morris isn't your average mercenary. She has plans. Big ones. And a ton of ambition. It's a combination that's going to get her killed one day -- but not just yet.
That is, until she just gets a job on a tiny trade ship with a nasty reputation for…
Dr. Sean McFate is an expert on international relations and a former military contractor. He is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington DC think tank, and a professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Syracuse University's Maxwell School, and the National Defense University. He began his career as a paratrooper and officer in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division.
A difficult book to find, but worth it. Barlow was the founder of Executive Outcomes or “EO,” the (in)famous mercenary corporation based out of South Africa in the 1990s. Now decommissioned, no other private military company has since rivaled EO’s power. When I worked in Africa, I would look to the EO alumnae network for talent. That and former French Foreign Legionnaires. In this memoir, Barlow reflects on his time as a private military commander, his missions, what he’s learned. It’s not prose but it is honest, and the best window into today’s market for force.
This book is currently not available on Bookshop.org or Amazon.
