New hard / mil SciFi read recommendations requested - just finished a marathon series
Hello bookwyrms.
I've just finished reading the entire Aeon 14 universe, that's around 100 ish-books. It had some great moments, some high highs, and a few that I had to plough through, but on the whole, really great and I'm quite sad to be at the end of it. Happy to answer some questions if anyone wants to know about Aeon 14.
Following this I read Children Of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, and thought it was just okay. I liked the generational ship aspects - though not the humans, they were not likeable and entirely forgettable. The non human characters were great, easily the best parts.
I didn't like it enough to continue with the series though.
So. I'm after suggestions for next read. I've read a lot by Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, and Alastair Reynolds, Douglas Adams, also I do read books by authors who don't start with A, but I always smile that Poul Anderson is in my library and Kevin Anderson, and Allen Steele, and ... anyway.
Whilst I do like space opera, I feel that Aeon 14 leans toward that, which is why I'm looking for more hard or mil suggestions. Any ideas?
Edit:
Result!
Thanks everyone. Iain Banks Culture series is up next, though there are so many great suggestions, it might be a couple of years before I come seeking more recommendations :)
The Expanse Series by James SA Corey. We've had plenty of debates on how hard it is but it definitely ticks the mil box. It's a 9 book series that I highly recommend.
If you want to get into a new series, James SA Corey has The Mercy of Gods (first volume of a trilogy I believe) out which I enjoyed along with it's companion novella Livesuit.
The Imperial Radch Trilogy by Ann Leckie. Imperial expansion is a pretty big theme. Highly recommend it if you like Le Guin.
Ah I've read The Expanse. Great book series, and magnificent TV adaptation too. I like Corey so I should certainly check out other works. Thanks!
My holy trinity is probably Haldeman's The Forever War, Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Pohl's Gateway. They all probe our place in the universe.
Heinlein's Stranger in A Strange Land and Starship Troopers are a great couplet, two very different works written at the same time. That said, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is probably my favourite of his.
Lem's The Invincible and Solaris are brilliant, but don't overlook His Masters Voice, which is up there with Rendezvous with Rama when it comes to contact stories.
Philip K. Dick doesn't perhaps fit into the hard or military scifi genres, but The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Ubik and VALIS get my instant recommendations, and there is of course much more in his catalogue to enjoy, if you like his thought experiments.
These are all classics, so you are probably already familiar with them. Somehow newer scifi rarely excites me. Andy Weir is an exception though: The Martian and Project Hail Mary are both brilliant hard scifi reads. And if you have more patience than me, Liu Cixin's Remembrance of Earth's Past series is also interesting. But these are probably also very familiar names for you?
I would also have given you a tentative recommendation for Children of Time, but you have already read it. Let me mention though that like you, I find only half of the book interesting, but for me it was the other half: I had absolutely no interest in the spiders, but the human story I found intriguing. So with that in mind, maybe you actually want to take my above recommendations as suggestions to avoid?
I second Project Hail Mary and recommend going into it blind, e.g., don't read summaries or the blurb on the back cover :)
My brother gave me the same advice and I 100% agree. I'm not even sure why, since it's not exactly a book full of crazy twists and reveals.
Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace in 2026!
I'm so excited for this, have been looking forward to it for years.
I also really, really hope they don't decide to change the ending. Actually on second thought I don't really care, as that would make the book's ending even more special.
Yeah! I'm so excited for the movie and also trying to look at the movie independently so I don't compare too harshly with the book.
debatable spoiler
I'm so curious what they're gonna do with Rocky! I wonder how similar or far off my imagination is :D
Wut? The blurb is the best bit! I can spend hours reading blurb.
In middle school I started reading Rendezvous with Rama and became so engrossed that I pulled just short of an all nighter (on a school night) to finish it. I wasn't crazy about how the series ended, but there was something so engaging about that first book. Such a good premise: here's some neat alien stuff, explore it.
I have Haldeman's Peace And War on my shelf unread for a very long time :(
Forever Peace is really good. I don't think I liked Forever Free so much.
Haldeman's Camouflage is also worth reading, or at least it left a strong impression on me. I think if it's military scifi that you are after, from all the classic authors, he is the one with the most interesting things to say.
I'd recommend the Culture series by Ian M. Banks as well as his newer stand alone book The Algebraist
Ooookey, I've said this more than once in this thread I think, but Culture it is. I got Consider Phlebas next up on the 'ol Kobo, so that series is starting tonight. What better way to come down from a 100+ book series, than a 10 book one :)
One word of "warning": Consider Phlebas is a bit of a rough start to the Culture, and even people who are usually pro-publication-order for reading a series will often recommend starting with The Player of Games.
I'd even go so far as to say that CP isn't really a Culture series book, more of a "set in the Culture Universe" type of thing. There's only one character in it that's from the Culture, and you don't really get a feel for anything having to do with them in the course of it.
It does showcase Banks's audacity in approaching far-future technology and the social ramifications of things like the ability to create star-system-scale megaprojects and whatnot that would take center stage later on in the series, so it's not the worst intro to his work. OK, it is the worst intro, but it could've been even worse.
Yup, I bounced off it myself recently at about the halfway point. However, I am still interested enough in the setting to give the next one a go.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi and The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell might be in that area.
Would put Scalzi on the more serious side and Campbell as more of a popcorn series, but they're each fun military sci-fi series.
I have indeed read and enjoyed The Lost Fleet. I'll check out Scalzi too :) Thanks
There are 20 books in the Expeditionary Forces series by Craig (wait for it…) Alanson. Much of it is irreverent and even silly, but the author has a legit military background and the science is mostly sound.
It’s popcorn for the most part but he really will make you care for the characters and the plot, as present-day humanity struggles against the schemes of multiple alien races with the help of the “Elder AI” known as Skippy.
I listened to the audiobooks as narrated by the great RC Bray, who is not only one of the best narrators out there, but his kind support helped get my own narration career going years ago. Love that guy.
Ah that sounds interesting, cheers! And I did grin at the author's name. Dunno what it is with my reads and the letter A.
If you're looking for military hard sci fi you can't go wrong with the Forerunner Saga by Greg Bear.
I would argue that even if you've never played Halo it's a great story in itself.
The Remembrance of Earth's Past by Cixin Liu is also great hard militaristic sci fi. Bonus points because this is a Chinese writer so the sci fi concepts are different than most Western writers.
Trying to think if I've read any Greg Bear before. Certainly seen books by that author when mooching around stores. I didn't know he wrote Halo books, and I've played the early Halo games before they got terrible. I'm not interested in video game crossovers though, in my experience they don't tend to work too well, in film or print. Might check out some of his other work though, I'm sure it's an author I've overlooked and should rectify
Three Body Problem - now that I've heard of through the recent adaptation, I'll for sure add these to the list, thanks!
Greg Bear wrote Blood Music, one of my favorite novellas which he also expanded into a lovely and slightly different novel.
I always think of John Ringo when I hear military sf, though he can get kind of goofy when left to his own devices.
Ringo paired with David Weber, on the other hand, is a really great time. The March Upcountry trilogy is one of my favorites, though it's been long enough that I don't remember it perfectly.
It follows a spoiled prince and the soldiers assigned to keep him alive as they get stranded on a backwater planet full of dangers and interesting aliens, and have to make their way across the planet. Lots of great tactical combat, politics, and resource management.
Since you mention David Weber, the Honorverse series might also be something for @trim to look into. Though truth be told, I haven't read the latest three books. Meaning that I read the other books over a decade ago. At the time I quite enjoyed the series and the first few books can pretty much stand on their own.
OP has chosen, but fans of Honor Harrington might also like the scrappy captain in Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series, the first book is Trading in danger.
Came here to mention the Honorverse. The first book drags a bit but it takes off after that.
I read his Ghost series when I was a fair bit younger and while I enjoyed it overall at the time, I was always a little put off by all the macho-ness and exploitation of the women.
Yeah, I've heard Ghost is some of his worst work, haven't read any of those myself.
I mostly associate him with the Posleen books, and the Looking Glass series, both of which I read fairly uncritically ages ago and remember having a good time. Like I said though, his solo work tends to be a lot weaker than when he's got a collaborator, as in March Upcountry.
Ghost from the 'Kildar' series is just about the worst stuff he has ever written.
If you haven't read it, but are wondering how bad it is, look up the essay/review 'Oh John Ringo NO' on livejournal.
The Posleen series is mil SF, but not hard. It's very much in the Micheal Bay 'Big Explosions' catergory.
The Vorkosigan Saga is really good, and I recommend the tweaked chronological reading order that starts with Shards of Honor and Barrayar.
The Sten series is kind of pulpy but a lot of fun.
I'm kind of surprised I don't see more people recommending the Vorkosigan Saga. They're a little goofy, and Miles a tad bit Mary Sue, but they're good fun. That was the first series I thought of when OP mentioned military sci-fi, though they come nowhere near "hard sci-fi."
OP said they didn't really want another space opera after reading Aeon 14, which is the only reason I didn't mention Vorkosigan Saga myself. It's a great series, but it's definitely way more on the space opera side of things.
I just meant I'm surprised I don't see more people recommending it generally. I can see how it might not be the best rec for this thread.
Ah, gotcha. And yeah, unfortunately Vorkosigan Saga does seems to be a bit underappreciated. Despite considering myself a scifi nerd, I hadn't even heard of it until a few years ago when
@streblo@stu2b50 recommended it to me. But after that I plowed through the whole thing in a few months since I was so enthralled by it. :PDoing my first read right now and there's things I like but it's aged, and reading it fresh now is not the same as rereading it with nostalgia
I only read them for the first time less than a decade ago, so I didn't have the nostalgia goggles on going in, and I still enjoyed them.
I've read a lot of old sci-fi though, so I've got some practice in the particular brand of suspension of disbelief where societies are capable of interstellar flight but still don't have cell phones. I could see it being more difficult to read if that kind of thing trips you up though.
No it's more the persistent threats of and actual sexual assault, and really questionable consent situations that are portrayed as good relationships actually. (It's not that the topic is dealt with at all, it's the persistence of it and the fact that we're not supposed to think less of our hero for some of his explicit deliberate actions. I just finished Mirror Dance and started Memory if that helps, and I'm still just focusing on Miles not other POV characters.)
I say it the way I did because I'm discussing it with folks who do have nostalgic feelings for it and their reactions to my response were stark. Our conversation led me to compare it to Valdemar and Pern, which also have their own issues with sexual violence and homophobia, which I read as a kid. And folks did find that apt. It's of its time but that puts it sharply out of how modern works are written.
The lack of an ansible or equivalent doesn't trip me up at all. I'm actually surprised that was your first thought! But no I've read plenty of things older. The communication difficulties are the SF equivalent of setting your story before cell phones.
I wasn't thinking of communications specifically, just of the sort of odd anachronisms in technology you often see in older sci-fi. I used cell phones as a shorthand for how many sci-fi authors envision futuristic settings that are essentially their own times with a couple of twists, not being able to actually see the future course of tech. Communications always come to mind for me because I remember reading stories written in the 50s about the far-off future time of 2010, in which characters have the miraculous ability to simply print out entire newspapers at home instead of going to a newsstand or having it delivered, as though printing your daily newspaper makes a lick of sense when you can just read it on a screen. That sort of thing.
I see what you mean about the questionable content, and yeah, it could be a bit much to recommend without some kind of preface. I think the series as a whole approaches sexual violence and what we'd consider abuse in an interesting way, though. I could see such a series just kind of taking violence and abuse as a given and never really questioning the ethics of it, and many do. McMaster-Bujold actually tackles the ethics of it to an extent though, even if I don't entirely go along with her conclusions. There's a tension between Beta Colony and Barrayar that's more nuanced than just "weak soy-boy space liberals vs. manly-man future Spartans" (though that nuance may only come as the series developed; it's been a minute since I read them). There's a moral contemplation of the subjects of abuse and cultural context that I could easily see being completely ignored in other entries in the genre, and I think the willingness to actually approach the subjects goes a long way.
Gotcha, yeah I've read much older SF so that didn't even phase me.
I agree there are some things that LMB handles really well. She addressed male victims of abuse/assault well in some ways, probably very well for the time. She.. sort of handles sexuality and gender ok, it's fine. But she does also keep putting Miles with minors in prisoner situations and that just doesn't need to happen. Or our MC could be a better person than she's written him. Either way it's .... Unappealing. And IMO his ethics are not challenged in those cases, not seriously. He has a brief thought about ethics and then ignores them. (See also sleeping with two subordinates). (It's not just Miles either so the Barrayar/Beta aspect rarely comes up, though I'm disappointed in his "women shouldn't fight" POV given his mother being who she is. Barrayar or no, it's wild he absorbed all that and still feels some "claim" to Elena by Memory)
It's just disappointing that she handles it so poorly because she's writes well. If she were a worse author I'd have chucked Shards out a window and been done.
Anyway, I think they show their age pretty starkly and while fifteen year old me wouldn't have thought twice, 40+ y/o me just thinks they're fine.
I think it also has to do with what morality specifically she wanted to address. She seemed more interested in exploring a sort of post-colonial intercultural morality rather than interpersonal sexual and gendered ones, though she does intentionally introduce gender and sexual politics, so maybe it's a wash.
I guess my overall impression is more that she fell more on the "who are we to impose our notions of morality on other cultures?" side of things rather than "maybe gender and sex aren't as definitional and rigid as we think" side. She pretty clearly had a desire to write about a heroic warrior culture of the sort to ravish away a modern independent damsel, especially early on in the series, and a lot of the moral dilemmas are constructed in a way to justify her favored culture's view. Which, yeah, that's maybe not great. She does end up softening the Barrayarans a great deal by the end though, and that's specifically through the fusion of the Beta Colony's ethics with the Barrayar moral code via the persons of Cordelia and Miles.
Like I said, I can't really say I'm onboard with where she ends up, but I will give her credit for actually approaching the moral tension rather than simply ignoring it. It would have been easy to just take as a given that the traditionalist morality of Barrayar is superior without question, but she makes a point to inject some contemplation of the underlying morality of it, which is better than I can say for a lot of escapist space opera.
I get what you're saying but I don't think the situations I'm referring fit into it. There's little to no thought to the morality, it's brushed aside or never mentioned (and there's so much "but it's not fair why she/they won't get with me. I get why people love Miles in say Mountains of Mourning or when he makes a stand to save lives. less so with any of his sexual or romantic encounters where he kind of sucks as a person. (And he just needs the right woman to "fix" him he thinks.)
Maybe the exploration of these will come later. But I am frustrated with the author putting him in multiple "well we're prisoners together so we better hook up" situations with minors this far into the series. It's a weird choice and not one where his actions are ever really challenged by himself or anyone else. (The first time he thinks about first it because she's scary.) It's just very off-putting.
I can appreciate the bigger picture themes but right now they're getting drowned out by the character development stalling out and doing. (Which is in part IMO because of the order they're written, when you write prequels or books between other books, you have to keep them consistent). It's a shame. And I need the Miles of MoM instead of Mirror Dance and the beginning of Memory. I wish there was more contemplation. And maybe it's coming. Fingers crossed
It's been a little while since I read them, and I don't have a clear picture of the flow of the series and the themes each book tackles, so I'm sure you're right. I'm kind of dredging it up as a gestalt of the whole thing with maybe a bit more emphasis on the last few books, so maybe that's where I'm getting my impressions.
I can empathize with the eye-rolling at some of the contrived situations. That always gets on my nerves, and doubly so when it's clearly the author's intent to justify morally dubious acts by the protagonist. That's part of why I'm working on a time machine that will allow me to go back and rescue any shred of time I wasted as a kid on some of the things Piers Anthony wrote.
Please share that time machine because I also did my time of reading his work and then wishing to burn it from my brain afterwards. That man is way too interested in teenage girls.
Anyway, yeah I'm still reading Vorkosigan, because the podcast I'm following is still covering them. But I think they're significantly less good without the nostalgia of having read them as a teen. And again I say this as a Valdemar/Pern fan. The later books of Valdemar at least also did better so I'll hold out hope for Vorkosigan
For modern SciFi I loved A Memory Called Empire. There are technically 2 books, but the first stands on its own well. The second book is more military, with an intergalactic war bend to it, but the first is more of a personal story amid some revolution.
Now that is a unique suggestion. Recent too, I like it! I think we might have a winner.
Thanks everyone. Iain Banks Culture series is up next, though there are so many great suggestions, it might be a couple of years before I come seeking more recommendations :)
The Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson is hard sf of the best kind.
Lots of good stuff by Neal Stephenson; I really enjoyed Seveneves.
I really like his book The Diamond Age; interesting look into a possible future.
First off, I see you settled on The Culture series... you'll love it. Consider Phleabus seems to be pretty divisive so if you don't like that one just keep reading anyways.
For military type stuff I would recommend Forever War (the 1974 one), Armor, and Starship Troopers in no particular order just because they're very different takes on a very similar theme.
Less military but space opera in general try out Peter F Hamilton as an author.
I felt Children of Time was the better than the next one by a long shot. RE the human characters: I felt that they were more of a representation of the really harsh state that humanity was in each moment.
Steakley's Armor! Yes! I'm about due for a reread.
I don't have any recommendations at the moment, but curious how long did it take you to read 100(!!!) books?
Early days it was slower, I was devouring them towards the end. But around 4 years in total, so around one every couple of weeks or so on average sounds about right
Warhammer 40k isn't "hard" scifi, but definitely has the milfic aspect nailed down.
Gaunt's Ghosts (16 novels) is probably the best place to start, IMO. I read all of them a few years ago and enjoyed them a lot. And Ciaphas Cain (11 novels), a parody/satire series based on Gaunt's Ghosts, is also pretty damn funny and I similarly enjoyed it.
But if you really want to dive into a ridiculously long 40k war focused series, there is always The Horus Heresy (64 volumes). However, the quality of each book is supposedly pretty varied since they're written by a ton of different authors, and I have only read a handful of them myself.
If you're new to Wahammer 40k you have to think of it like this: It's a fantasy scifi opera universe set in the distant future, with a high level of technology, draped in a cyberpunk aesthetic.
IMO, it's more steam/dieselpunk than cyberpunk due to the anachronistic nature of the technology and medieval-inspired, repressive religion+culture of the Imperium. And it's also far far far more grimdark ("In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war") than space opera since life in the 40k Universe is pretty miserable, and the "good" guys (which nobody really is, everyone is just different shades of evil) often lose... and even when they do win it's usually Pyrrhic.
I mean... that sounds amazing. Added to my reading list based on this description alone.
As someone who has been reading 40k series off and on for years, I would also add in the Eisenhorn series and its relevant sequel series that follow characters related to the main character in the initial series, Ravenor and Bequin. I haven't read Bequin yet, but Eisenhorn and Ravenor are fantastic.
If you like big guns and big action, there are a number of great series about Space Marine chapters, and I've personally enjoyed the Ultramarines, Space Wolves, Grey Knights (a special secret chapter that specialize in fighting demons for the Inquisition) series off the top of my head. There's also the Night Lords series for Chaos Space Marines, which I thought was great.
There is also the standalone novel Titanicus by Dan Abnett which focuses on titan (giant big fighting mechs that have big guns, big swords, big everything) combat.
The setting is huge and there are a lot of different authors who have written books for it, so the quality can vary quite a bit. If the book sounds cool, I'd say give it a go, and you should have a decent read ahead of you. I've yet to run into a 40k book that I didn't finish and thing, that was enjoyable, and I've read maybe ~60-70 books so far in the setting.
I wholeheartedly second Eisenhorn and Ravenor (but also haven't read Bequin yet either ;). The only reason I didn't recommend them to OP was because they wanted military focused books, and those three series are basically spy/detective/occult thrillers.
I also second Titanicus too, and would also add Double Eagle to the list as well... but TBH, I already consider them part of Gaunt's Ghosts anyways, since they're technically spinoffs.
p.s. Despite loving 40k as a whole, I'm not actually a huge fan of Space Marines, so haven't read any of the Chapter specific series myself.
That's totally fair, I guess my recommendations for those Inquisition (Eisenhorn and Ravenor) books will sit for anyone interested in the setting in general who comes across the the thread.
I got into Warhammer when I was younger and at the time Space Marines really did it for me, and then I picked up the Horus Hersey when I start reading again in earnest. I did stop after losing interest a bit when Games Workshop did something or other related to fan content (this was a couple+ years ago at this point) so my memory of it is hazy. I'll probably start reading 40k again at some point.
Is there anything specific about Space Marines that don't do it for you?
Super badass, exceedingly stoic, genetically engineered super-soldiers don't exactly make for the most compelling characters. Of all the chapters, at least the Space Wolves have some interesting "quirks" in their personalities. But even they are pretty one-dimensional. And as a result, Ulfar was easily my least favorite companion in Rogue Trader. He was fun at first, but the over-the-top viking routine wore thin eventually. So I just can't see myself possibly enjoying reading a bunch of series where all or most of the characters are Space Marines, regardless of the chapter (unless it's one that falls to chaos). E.g. I enjoyed the gameplay of Space Marine 1 and 2, since it's fun to play as a super badass, but the story was pretty subpar precisely because of Titus' personality... or rather, his lack of it.
I prefer my characters to have deeply human frailties, flaws, and insecurities... like most of the Ghost's have. Which is why it's also probably no coincidence that my favorite Ghost was "Mad" Larkin. ;)
Have you read any of the Horus Heresy yet?
I'm not a big fan of space marines either, but I ended up reading a big chunk of the series and enjoyed it. Do yourself a favour and read the first 5 books of HH. It's a depiction of the founding event of 40k and explains where things went so wrong for the Imperium. The character work is better than you'd expect for space marines!
Edit: it's also worth pointing out the audio books are very well done in my opinion.
After the first 5 books the series opens up a bit and a lot of it is optional content you can read if you want to, and then culminates in the Siege of Terra books.
I think Mechanicum and Nemesis are the only full books I've read from HH, along with a handful of short stories from the anthologies that were also recommended to me as someone who isn't interested in Space Marines (The Voice, The Kaban Project, The Binary Succession, and maybe a few others? can't remember any other story names... it's been a while).
I do plan on trying to give HH a full read at some point, but there are so many other books I am much more interested in, even in the 40k universe, that it's honestly hard to find the motivation or time to dive into HH... I suspect when I do dive back into 40k again, The Infinite and The Divine will be the next thing I read since I've heard great things about it.
Yea there are a lot of good books out there, I sympathize!
I think what I liked the most out of HH was it's description of
humanity'sThe Imperium's first encounter with Chaos at a large scale, and the buildup and reveal of that was quite well done, it takes full advantage of all the dramatic irony present in the situation.I think one of the biggest reasons for me not reading HH yet, besides my general dislike of Space Marines as characters, is that I already know most of the background lore and sequence of events. I have played almost every 40k game that has ever been made, going all the way back to Dawn of War in 2006 (which I have played through multiple times, including its sequel, and all the DLC for both), and ditto for Rogue Trader, which I have 155 hours played in and HIGHLY recommend, since it's by far the deepest/best 40k game I've ever played! And I also regularly watch a fair amount of YouTube channels dedicated to 40k lore too, such as Arbitor Ian who is easily my favorite of the bunch. So reading the books almost feels a bit redundant at this point, and I'm also a bit worried the characters and events can't possibly live up to how I have already imagined them in my head. :/
Yea I was worried about that as well! I was already quite familiar with a lot of the lore through video games and Youtube when I started HH. It was this video that finally got me to read HH. The video (which is very well done, if you haven't seen it) is basically the cliff notes of the novels' plotline directly lifted into a video format so I was intimately familiar with what was going to happen lol. But something missing from that video and the rest of the online lore around the Heresy is the emotional impact on the characters which the book does quite well. So even if you are very knowledgeable on all the events I would say it's still worth a read at some point. One of the nice things about HH is that it's written for fans of the setting, and the more you know about 40k lore, the more you get out of the books. The books kind of expect you to know who the Primarchs are and it's interesting e.g. to get a PoV from Fulgrim before and during his fall to Chaos with full knowledge of where he ends up.
I have had Rogue Trader installed for a few months now but I haven't played it yet. I have kind of been saving it, but I'm not sure why. it's one of the games I'm most excited to play because I'm a big CRPG guy going back to the Infinity Engine games. I was originally thinking about waiting for the next DLC but I might start it prior to that, I've been in a 40k mood recently. I even started collecting and painting an army, which has been kind of a fun and surprisingly fruitful foray into arts and crafts.
Ah, okay, that's good to hear, and makes me feel a lot less hesitant to read them. :)
Infinity Engine (and SCUMM) games basically defined my childhood! :P You should definitely jump into Rogue Trader if you're in a 40k mood, and are an oldschool CPRG fan. It's basically the Neverwinter Nights of 40k games.
Nice! I've never painted an army, but it is one of my goals to do that eventually. However, right now I am still just tinkering with poly clay model-making. Once I get more confident with that, and with painting them, I will likely pick up a few 40k and AoS models to paint though. :)
Frontlines series by Marko Kloos. 8 books and the story is finished. There's one follow-up book with different characters that just came out.
A "realistic" scifi series, no blasters or phasers and no energy shields. We have colonised planets outside of the solar system. Humanity gets attacked by aliens - not the gray kind but bigger and humanity needs to figure out how to unite and fight back. The main character is a glorified air force traffic controller, which makes things a bit interesting. He's not a super-soldier
Spiral Wars by Joel Shepherd. 9 books, still ongoing - looks like it'll finish at 10.
Earth got attacked by aliens, humans pleaded others to help - they wouldn't. So humans just genocided the attacking race to the last soul. Now humans are a part of the galaxy, even though the other races are not really keen on letting genodiciding maniacs in. Political intrigue, multiple different alien factions, AI/Robots and some of the best space combat in any books ever. Also Trace Thakur is in my top5 best protagonists ever.
They both sound great thanks.
If you want something pretty old school; I can recommend Pandora's Legions by Christopher Anvil.
The writing style is pretty humerous.
Outside of the various Culture novels that have been recommended, I would like to throw the book Excession in the ring. It's one of my favourites in that universe.
One more recommendation if you're looking for a longer/bigger series universe, is the Polity stuff by Neal Asher. Gridlinked is a great starter.
Oh I'd forgotten Polity. I think I've read most of Asher's work. Certainly all the Agent Cormack, and lots of Polity. Loved the Owner series too.