The Fantasy Review’s list of 8 Science Fiction Books with Epic Space Battles That Will Blow Your Mind.
The Forever War (The Forever War, #1) by Joe Haldeman
Check out our review of The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. We also have a Beginner’s Guide to The Forever War you can check out before diving into this classic of the genre!
From the blurb:
The Earth’s leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand–despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But “home” may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries…
Dorsai! (Childe Cycle, #1) by Gordon R. Dickson
From the blurb:
Donal Graeme set out to re-shape the galaxy, but first he must tear it apart.
Donal Graeme, Dorsai of the Dorsai, was the final link in a long genetic train, the ultimate soldier, whose breadth of vision made him a master of space war and strategy – and something even greater. He was the focus of centuries of evolution, the culmination of planned development, and through him a new force made itself felt….
Old Man’s War (Old Man’s War, #1) by John Scalzi
From the blurb:
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife’s grave. Then he joined the army.
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce―and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding….
Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, #1) by Jack Campbell
From the blurb:
The Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century—and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who’s emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief….
Captain John “Black Jack” Geary’s exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic “last stand” in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance Fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics….
On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, #1) by David Weber
From the blurb:
Exiled to Basilisk Station by a superior out to ruin her, Commander Honor Harrington must battle corrupt merchants, dangerous smugglers, and aborigines whose drug of choice is a homicide-inducing hallucinogen.…
Trading in Danger (Vatta’s War, #1) by Elizabeth Moon
From the blurb:
Kylara Vatta is the only daughter in a family full of sons, and her father’s only child to buck tradition by choosing a military career instead of joining the family business. For Ky, it’s no contest: Even running the prestigious Vatta Transport Ltd. shipping concern can’t hold a candle to shipping out as an officer aboard an interstellar cruiser. It’s adventure, not commerce, that stirs her soul. And despite her family’s misgivings, there can be no doubt that a Vatta in the service will prove a valuable asset. But with a single error in judgment, it all comes crumbling down.…
Orphanage (Jason Wander, #1) by Robert Buettner
From the blurb:
When earth needs heroes, whom will we call to valor? When mankind’s enemy is beyond our worst imagination, who will be our champions? Will we pick the brightest and the toughest? Or the ones with nothing left to lose? War is an Orphanage Mankind’s first alien contact tears into Earth: projectiles launched from Jupiter’s moon, Ganymede, have vaporized whole cities...
Armor by John Steakley
From the blurb:
The planet is called Banshee. The air is unbreathable, the water is poisonous. It is home to the most implacable enemies that humanity, in all its interstellar expansion, has ever encountered.
Body armor has been devised for the commando forces that are to be dropped on Banshee—the culmination of ten thousand years of the armorers’ craft. A trooper in this armor is a one-man, atomic powered battle fortress. But he will have to fight a nearly endless horde of berserk, hard-shelled monsters—the fighting arm of a species which uses biological technology to design perfect, mindless war minions….
