Here are 58 books that The Terran Privateer fans have personally recommended if you like
The Terran Privateer.
Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I have always been eager to read weird, speculative, sapphic stories, but they were difficult to find throughout my early life. As a teenager, I started to write them, creating what I hoped to see in the world, and I haven’t stopped since. I’m thrilled to see that this niche is becoming more common and celebrated, particularly in the more experimental short fiction space. As an adult, I’ve had many weird, speculative, sapphic short stories and novelettes published, including one that won the Best of the Net award and two that were shortlisted for Brave New Weird: The Best New Weird Horror.
I was pleasantly surprised by just how weird this book is.
It is, as it was often marketed to me, “gay necromancers in space,” but it’s so much more than that. Disorientation, cerebral puzzles, and intricate worldbuilding permeate this whole book from chapter one. Tamsyn Muir is unapologetic about writing exactly what she wants, even if it’s outside a lot of readers’ comfort zones.
I found the strangeness of the societies, the challenges, and the mysteries woven into this book intriguing. It’s a murder mystery! In a high-stakes competition! With queer female main characters who have a lot of friction but are nonetheless deeply devoted to each other!
I loved how new and fresh it felt and that I couldn’t predict what would happen next.
15+ pages of new, original content, including a glossary of terms, in-universe writings, and more!
A USA Today Best-Selling Novel!
"Unlike anything I've ever read. " --V.E. Schwab
"Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!" --Charles Stross
"Brilliantly original, messy and weird straight through." --NPR
The Emperor needs necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.
Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth, first in The Locked Tomb Trilogy, unveils a solar system of swordplay, cut-throat politics, and lesbian necromancers. Her characters leap off the page, as…
One of the reasons I love my job as a Space History Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum is that I am fascinated to learn how people think about space, the cosmos, and their human connection with the universe. I am always eager to get beyond questions of what we know and how we know it and ask: Why do we ask the questions we ask in the first place? The books I’ve listed here all explore our relationship with space and how we engage personally or collectively with space exploration.
This science fiction novel, written by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck under the pen name James S. A. Corey, was the beginning of the Expanse series (now totaling 9 novels and additional stories). It is one of the best space science fiction novels of the 21st century and became the basis for one of my favorite TV/streaming series, The Expanse.
The books dive deep into the political, social, and cultural complexities of sending humans to live on the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt, and it’s a nuanced reflection of our current ideas and ambitions when it comes to spaceflight. I am particularly drawn to the depiction of humans who, after multiple generations off Earth, consider their primary identity to be Martian.
Humanity has colonized the planets - interstellar travel is still beyond our reach, but the solar system has become a dense network of colonies. But there are tensions - the mineral-rich outer planets resent their dependence on Earth and Mars and the political and military clout they wield over the Belt and beyond. Now, when Captain Jim Holden's ice miner stumbles across a derelict, abandoned ship, he uncovers a secret that threatens to throw the entire system into war. Attacked by a stealth ship belonging to the Mars fleet, Holden must find a way to uncover the motives behind the…
In writing character-driven space fantasy, heavily influenced by my training as an electromechanical engineer, I’ve realized a love for stories with a heavy emphasis on moral dilemmas and shifts in thinking. How does a character change direction after realizing much of what they always believed was a lie? When well-trained instincts pull them backward instead of propelling them forward? I love these stories, mirroring my own messy self-discovery journey through life. The settings and stakes are more fantastical, but that makes them more appealing. A way to confront my own trials without becoming burdened by them. If the characters can do it, so can I.
I enjoy a good redemption arc, particularly ones that show more messy mistakes. In this book, Samantha Mills crafts a tight narrative detailing Zenya's fall and redemption as she navigates the complicated choices of her life. The story is told in parallels, each alternate chapter unfolding details of her present or past in complementary ways, revealing Zenya’s character in a way that emphasizes how both have led to her current situation.
It also pulls no punches. Zenya’s relationships are colored by various forms of emotional abuse, ranging from the neglect of her father to the manipulative grooming of her mother figure, in ways that struck home personally. It’s a difficult path, portrayed here with compassion and brutal honesty.
In this gripping debut novel from acclaimed Nebula, Sturgeon, and Locus Award-winning author Samantha Mills, a disgraced soldier fights to make sense of her world and the gods who abandoned it. The Wings Upon Her Back is an action-packed, devastating exploration of the brutal costs of zealous loyalty.
Zenya was a teenager when she ran away to join the mechanically-modified warrior sect. She was determined to earn mechanized wings and protect the people…
Unlike the typical tales of a flawless fighting unit, this story follows Commander Kami Trenn and her ragtag squad of mixed-race space marines.
Dog Squad fights a mysterious adversary whose presence remains shrouded in secrecy. The fate of the universe hangs in the balance, but will they be able to make enough of a difference?
Can they hope to uncover the enemy’s plans for galactic dominance before the Alliance falls? Maybe. If they can stop fighting each other.
Across the void formed by two galactic spiral arms, vast forces face each other.
The tenuous Alliance, sixty civilizations united only by fear of invasion, prepare to resist the encroachment of their as-yet unseen enemy, known only as the Creeps.
The Void has become a battleground. Three thousand light years across, and populated by a scattering of ten thousand ‘dark’ worlds, it is the Alliance’s last chance to protect their way of life. Self-destructive, robotic drones pour across the Void in ever-increasing numbers, testing the Alliance fleets to breaking point.
In writing character-driven space fantasy, heavily influenced by my training as an electromechanical engineer, I’ve realized a love for stories with a heavy emphasis on moral dilemmas and shifts in thinking. How does a character change direction after realizing much of what they always believed was a lie? When well-trained instincts pull them backward instead of propelling them forward? I love these stories, mirroring my own messy self-discovery journey through life. The settings and stakes are more fantastical, but that makes them more appealing. A way to confront my own trials without becoming burdened by them. If the characters can do it, so can I.
I’m a sucker for unique worldbuilding, and this book's combination of military traditions and the age of sail with magic space travel scratches that itch nicely. Dianne Morrison tells a heartfelt and deeply emotional tale that is at once both a coming-of-age story following a young elf’s pursuit of dreams as a star-pilot and a gritty cautionary tale on the horrors of war.
I felt for Shaundar and friends as they struggled through their own challenges to pursue their dreams, their patriotism as they snuck away to join the new war effort, and their horror as those dreams fell apart and survival became paramount. Check the content warnings on this one, as the narrative leans heavily beyond heroes and into the dark sides of war.
Toy Soldier: A derogatory slang term for an elven marine.Battles great and terrible, small and bitter, raged across Known Space as the wars of Elves and Orcs played out their legacy of hatred across the stars themselves. Epics would be written, songs would be sung; but wars are fought by real people with loves and families and homes.
All Shaundar Sunfall ever wanted to be was a Star-Pilot. Raised on his father's ship, he has found an affinity for the stars -- although as a mixed-race elf and a bit of troublemaker, he often runs afoul of his commanding officers.…
I’m a writer-researcher based at the University of East Anglia. My work is driven by a love of travel and the sea, and an interest in how people move between cultures and ideas across time. I’ve written widely on early modern travel writing and maritime culture, plays about cultural encounter including first contact, and the intersections between ideas about gender, race, colonial and/or imperial identities, and power. At heart, I’m a cultural historian interested in how people and writing can say one thing but mean another.
This study is a model of how to use meticulous archival research – here in the records of the High Court of Admiralty – to make a powerful argument with far-reaching implications: that many of Elizabethan England’s principal merchants and highest-ranking members of the court, including the queen, invested in and profited from extra-legal activities, and that England’s capitalist system was based on theft from European rivals. Andrews’ achievement is to explain clearly the ways the court operated and what its records – depositions and testimonies, complaints and interrogations, and summaries of activities – can tell us. Using information about who was licensed as a privateer and when, how plunder was distributed, and the international disputes caused by the depredations of privateers and pirates, Andrews book exemplifies how economic and naval history can be brought into productive dialogue.
Privateering was a form of legal private warfare at sea in which individuals who possessed suitable ships took the opportunity offered by a war to plunder enemy commerce. In this study of privateering during the Elizabethan war with Spain, which was originally published in 1966, Dr Andrews shows that it was closely connected with trade, in particular having a stimulating effect on oceanic commerce and that it was at the time the main form of English maritime warfare. Dr Andrews begins with an account of how privateering became legal and how it was organised. He then examines the various types…
My fascination with pirates began as a student in Bristol (UK) – the legendary hometown of Edward Teach a.k.a. Blackbeard. Later, I visited the Pirates of Nassau Museum in the Bahamas and was amazed to learn there had been women buccaneers too. I wanted to discover more about these daring females and find out what might have enticed them to brave a tenuous life on the account. As fate would have it, I now live in North Carolina near the Outer Banks where Blackbeard met his fate. These experiences inspired me to write a different kind of adventure story about the real pirates of the Caribbean featuring a strong, resilient, swashbuckling female.
Although I captain my own lake boat, I knew very little about ancient nautical sailing and warfare when I began writing Fire on Dark Water. Benerson Little’s book, The Sea Rover’s Practice, taught me about different types of crafts, weapons, battle tactics, sea villains, ship routines, sailor superstitions, methods of stealth attack, treatment of prisoners, and even the types of food eaten on board ship throughout 1630 – 1730. It was a very valuable resource.
To read of sea roving's various incarnations - piracy, privateering, buccaneering, la flibuste, la course - is to bring forth romantic, and often violent, imagery. Indeed, much of this imagery has become a literary and cinematic cliche?. And what an image it is!
But its truth is by halves, and paradoxically it is the picaresque imagery of Pyle, Wyeth, Sabatini, and Hollywood that is often closer to the reality, while the historical details of arms, tactics, and language are often inaccurate or entirely anachronistic.
Successful sea rovers were careful practitioners of a complex profession that sought wealth by stratagem and…
Let's face it: pirates of the Golden Age are just cool. No one would actually want to encounter them, but they have been the stuff of escapist dreams since childhood. Adventure, fellowship, treasure–the “romantic” aspects of piracy are what make these otherwise nasty individuals anti-heroes par excellence. As an adult and academic and as an occasional crewman on square riggers, I adopted pirates as a favorite sub-set of maritime history. As with other aspects of the past, I view the history of pirates and piracy as really two narratives: what the records tell us happened and why and what our persistent fascination with them reveals about us.
I like books that challenge longstanding but doubtful dogma and expose historical fallacies. This collection of essays does just that, and it quickly brought me up to speed on some of the best and latest studies about pirates and piracy.
More than a dozen essays by as many noted historians helped dispel my misconceptions concerning Blacks as pirates, the practices of piracy and privateering, the roles of women at the business end of piracy (booty is only good if you can sell it), and more.
Dispelling the romanticized myths surrounding pirates, Pennell's edited collection provides a corrective history of bandits at sea
The romantic fiction of pirates as swashbuckling marauders terrorizing the high seas has long eclipsed historical fact. Bandits at Sea offers a long-overdue corrective to the mythology and the mystique which has plagued the study of pirates and served to deny them their rightful legitimacy as subjects of investigation.
With essays by the foremost scholars on these countercultural "social bandits," as Lingua Franca recently dubbed them, this collection examines various aspects of the phenomenon in the three main areas where it occurred: the…
From the beginning of my reading journey, I wished for more stories about women who were courageous, passionate, and in control of their own destiny. I wanted to write books for female readers who loved characters like Zorro, Robin Hood, and Jack Sparrow, but wanted to see themselves shining through them. In the process of researching, I discovered unforgettable characters like Captain Mabbot and Clare Sullivan. The Legends of Vioria series focuses on such women, who use their wit and strength to navigate the world. It is my hope to continue to write stories that will inspire others just as the books in this list inspired me.
Captive is another romance with pirates and passion. It’s part of a larger series featuring the LeVeq family. In this story, privateer Dominic LeVeq, frees and falls for slave Clare Sullivan. Soon they become desperate to have each other. I loved the relationship between these two characters and the devotion that develops between them.
I’m an award-winning author and professor of history at Wayne State College in Nebraska. Called “the dean of 1812 scholarship” by the New Yorker, I’ve written eleven books and more than a hundred articles, mostly on the War of 1812 and its causes. I didn’t become interested in this battle until well into my academic career, when I decided to turn the series of articles on the War of 1812 that I had written into my first book. I quickly became fascinated by the cast of characters, headed by tough-as-nails Andrew Jackson; Baratarian pirate Jean Laffite; and the British commander, Sir Edward Pakenham, who was the Duke of Wellington’s brother-in-law. No less intriguing was the magnitude of the U.S. victory and the British defeat, the profound and lasting legacy of the battle, and the many popular misconceptions about what actually happened in the battle or what might have happened had the British won.
The Laffite brothers, Pierre and especially Jean, loom large in the mythology of the Battle of New Orleans, although in truth the contribution of the Baratarian pirates to Jackson’s great victory was rather modest. In this work, Davis fleshes out the life and character of the two brothers, showing how the accepted view of their contribution to Jackson’s success in the campaign has been overstated.
An “engrossing and exciting” account of legendary New Orleans privateers Pierre and Jean Laffite and their adventures along the Gulf Coast (Booklist, starred review).
At large during the most colorful period in New Orleans' history, from just after the Louisiana Purchase through the War of 1812, privateers Jean and Pierre Laffite made life hell for Spanish merchants on the Gulf.
Pirates to the US Navy officers who chased them, heroes to the private citizens who shopped for contraband at their well-publicized auctions, the brothers became important members of a filibustering syndicate that included lawyers, bankers, merchants, and corrupt US officials.…
Since I was twelve years old and scribbling stories in an old notebook, I’ve been in love with pirate romance. The intense adventure, the dramatic romance, the freedom of the sea—and most importantly, the chance to find love and redemption, a theme that’s prominent in my Christian pirate romance series and the novels I read and enjoy! This list curates some of the top pirate/privateer novels I’ve read, all with clean romance and inspiring themes, to keep your TBR filled with swashbuckling high-seas voyages!
Not only is Laura Frantz one of my most favorite authors, her historical romanceA Heart Adrift is one of my favorite privateer stories. I quickly fell in love with the swoony Captain Henri Lennox, related to quiet dreamer and chocolatier Esmee Shaw, and was enchanted by every beautiful word that made up this inspiring and intriguing novel! If you love the sea, second chance romance, and stories that will captivate and uplift you, A Heart Adriftis for you!
"Full of rich historical detail, this title is rooted in its time yet filled with issues that resonate today such as racial inequalities, economic injustice, and a pandemic."--Library Journal starred review
"A redemptive story of war, regrets, romance, and an attempt to heal old wounds."--Woman's World
***
It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmee Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she's never quite recovered. But she longs to…
