What's the Name of That Book??? discussion

I'm in the mood for some sci-fi and was wondering if anyone had a suggestion on a book centered around an interstellar war between humans and aliens (e.g. Ender's Game or Starship Troopers)?

Now I know there are probably thousands of books with this sort of backdrop, but I think I'm specifically looking for something that is less hard, speculative sci-fi and more exciting action/adventure. Something that's pretty fast paced and will be hard for me to put down.

Thanks in advance!

The Sioux Spaceman is interesting, although it's more of a cold war.

Check out this list:

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

Prador Moon is short, fast paced and a stand alone.
Another stand alone that is quite good but more planet-based is Armor.
If none of these suffies you may want to try one of Robert A. Heinlein juveniles.

That's a nice list Binkeybat--unfortunately a lot of the books are not about wars--or at least wars with aliens, but are general "space opera" type books. While I haven't read all of them, I have read a lot, and they are all worth a read Pelephant. For instance The Moon is a Harsh Mistress does have some fighting in it, but its all between humans--those on Earth and those on the Moon (and for those on the Moon--can we all say Botany Bay on steroids?)

It tends towards the hard sf end of the spectrum, but The Forever War is an absolute classic. A soldier from the 20th century ends up experiencing a millennia long war against aliens because of relativistic time dilation from all the space travel he does. Fantastic story.

Orphanage by Robert Buettner is the First in a series about a war with alien slugs. The main character starts as a snot nosed recruit but ends up a high muckety-muck. Good story, but definitely not all that deep or hard sf.

On Basilisk Station

Mass Effect: Revelation

The Blackcollar is kind of what you are looking for. Except that it's AFTER the war is lost, and the resistance that springs up to free humans from the aliens.

Valor's Choice and the whole series. Fun, lots of action, and a great kick-ass heroine. There's multiple aliens on 'our' side, plus the ones they're fighting against who you lean more about as the series goes on. And the first few books are based on some actual real life battles/engagements which I thought was kinda neat.

Cara's Craftastic Creations wrote: "On Basilisk Station"

Do the Honor Harrington books have aliens as the antagonists? I thought they were all (at least the first 7 or so that I read years ago) about two warring human governments/star systems.

Mars Evacuees by Sophia McDougall is an excellent YA novel about a human vs. alien war. Mars Evacuees Funny and fast-paced.

Pandora's Star + Judas Unchained

Terminal Alliance by Jim C. Hines

Aerulan wrote: "Cara's Craftastic Creations wrote: "On Basilisk Station"

Do the Honor Harrington books have aliens as the antagonists? I thought they were all (at least the first 7 or so that I read ..."

Sorry haven't read it yet. I just thought that I should mention it.

I can’t believe I forgot to mention Old Man's War by John Scalzi when I first responded. A 70-some year old man joins the military (which is made up entirely of old geezers) and ends up fighting against a variety of nasty aliens. Fantastic book, and first of a series.

Aerulan wrote: "Cara's Craftastic Creations wrote: "On Basilisk Station"

Do the Honor Harrington books have aliens as the antagonists? I thought they were all (at least the first 7 or so that I read ..."

OBS involves aliens, though they're proxies for the (human) bad guys. The rest of the series is all human-on-human conflict.

Maybe the "Dragon and Thief" series by Timothy Zahn? A human and an alien (teen boy and warrior alien) team up to defeat both human and alien enemies. Six books, which are more-or-less one long book broken into segments.

Some new suggestions:

A Hymn Before Battle and its sequels - Humanity is contacted by a federation of peaceful/cowardly alien races who need our help fighting a horde of all-conquering warrior aliens. Contrived and not terribly well written with some weird priorities in what the author chooses to focus on, but stuff blows up real good.

Going old school with some of the earliest space opera, Galactic Patrol and the rest of the Lensman books (Galactic Patrol is listed as #3 in the series, but the first two are prequels and not as good in my opinion). This involves aliens of many varieties on both sides of the conflict (including human-like aliens and some thoroughly weird and wonderful ones) and some of the most spectacular and over-the-top space battles in all of fiction (including things like planets being hurled as projectiles).

The Beast Master and it's follow up Lord Of Thunder both have a war with aliens in the story. But the 2 books are set immediately AFTER the war is over, but there are, of course, holdouts from the losing aliens.

I LOVED A Hymn Before Battle and a few of its follow ups. John Ringo was voted an honourary citizen of Fredericksburg, VA by many of it's loyal citizens. And, since I KNOW that inquiring minds want to know why...... It's because he blows up the Federal Building--which is a truly nasty 1970's era 6 story monstrosity built right in the HEART of the historic district. Ok, it was used to lure the aliens into a trap, but it really was a wonderful thrill for those of us who lived in the 'Burg and really hated that building. But hey, it's the Federal Government, and they do what they want to do, wherever they want to do it, right? Ok, over my fangirl squeals about John.

Time Traders/Galactic Derelict (another book by Sci-fi and Fantasy great Andre Norton) is set on an Earth very similar to ours, and set in a time like ours, and has the Time Traders fighting aliens in history. There are like 6 or 7 or so books in this series, but I don't remember exactly how many of them are battling the aliens.

The author Odette C. Bell has a few quick and easy to read space opera books/series.

The betwixt series
A plain jane series
Ghost of mind series
Ourobos series

Odette C. Bell

The Dread Empire's Fall trilogy by Walter John Williams (starting with The Praxis) is, like the Lensman series, not strictly humans vs. aliens, but it's well worth mentioning here. It depicts a civil war in a multi-species interstellar empire that breaks out after the original species that created the empire dies out, with the leaders of the species that was conquered first (insectoid aliens) deciding they should be in charge now and attempting to conquer the others, including humans.

Seconding previous recommendations for The Forever War and Old Man's War.

Legion of the Damned

This one just showed up on one of my email lists of "books you might enjoy and are currently on sale (or free)". I haven't read anything more than the blurb, but it sounds like it might be what you are looking for.

The Ember War