“Weapons of Choice” by John Birmingham was a fun read. It’s the first in a trilogy where a 2020 naval battlefleet gets transported back to around Midway during WWII. It shows how the world adjusts to not only their military technology but also their social views.
E.g. It is a lot easier for men to find “down-time” wives than for the women to find husbands.
I was going to recommend Ringo as well, but the OP specifically excluded aliens.
That leaves out the entire Legacy of the Aldenata series (and it’s spin-off Cally’s War series), his Empire of Man series, and his Troy Rising series, as well as his Looking Glass co-series with Travis Taylor.
That’s the bulk of his catalog.
“Armor” by John Steakley, it’s not a series and never will be 
It’s in the Bug-War vein but definitely a good read. IMNSHO
I enjoy the StarFist series quite a bit. David Sherman and Dan Cragg. No aliens at all until about halfway through the series.
The Last Legion books (4 of them) really only have one major alien race, and they only feature heavily in the second book.
Wow, so many suggestions! Thank you, all. I’m going to have fun reading all these.
Yes, I’ve definitely read, and enjoyed, OSC’s books (even if I don’t like his politics). I probably should’ve mentioned him. Modesitt, too, for that matter.
Him, please. I actually think I tried Stasheff’s A Wizard in Rhyme series a while ago and couldn’t get into it. But I’ll check out this other series, Reepicheep.
And yes to Moon’s fantasy works. Started with those!
I looked into this series before but couldn’t figure out the best place to start so I just moved on to another author - I tend to not like short stories so much. Suggestions?
Get the Complete Hammer’s Slammers Vol. 1 and go from there.
No one has yet mentioned John Hemry. He has 4 JAG in space books: 1- A Just Determination; 2 - Burden of Proof; 3 - Rule of Evidence; 4 - Against All Enemies.
All are set when we are just getting into space, these are all hard s/f.
His other sereis is Stark – Stark’s War; Stark’s Command; Stark’s Crusade. I did not like these as much as the JAG in space books, but some of my friends rave over them.
I like those stories; I have several of the The Honor of the Regiment short story collections, and Keith Laumer’s original Bolo! collection. The OP also said he/she likes Weber, and Weber has written several good Bolo stories.
I haven’t read it, but have heard that Road to Damascus is best avoided. Also, that William H Keith’s Bolo stories have continuity problems with those by other authors.
Note; at Thefifthimperium.com you can get a free & legal e-copy of Weber’s Bolo (some Weber written Bolo short stories) and Old Soldiers here from the Mission of Honor CD image. Weber and some other Baen authors offer these CDs with permission to copy. I believe it’s basically the crack cocaine “first one’s free” marketing model. 
I enjoyed Mars by Ben Bova.
~VOW
These are the same author. The Stark series was his first work, then JAG in Space. His writing improved a great deal IMO in the second. But his sales were not good enough to keep the JAG books going (He had an idea for at least one more) so he fooled the computers by using the Campbell pen name and had a hit with the Lost Fleet series. Enough so that he has started a sequel series to it, where the human race is starting to have to deal with the aliens that showed in the first series.
The Stark books I am meh about, but his later books are well worth reading.
Lok thank you very much. I didn’t have any idea he was writting as John Campbell. I’ve ordered the first two books of the Lost Fleet - which I can see is getting great reviews.
The Forever War is considered a classic of Science Fiction period. A Hugo and Nebula winner. More than 20 years ago now I saw Joe Haldeman at a book reading. Afterwards he talked about his writing including this one. He mentioned that for an action or military book it has very little graphic action or violence. I went back and reread it and he was right. Didn’t really notice it at the time. He is not very descriptive in writing about the violence during the battles (thats not really what the book is about anyway). He explained that he wrote it just a few years after he returned from Viet Nam and he still felt uncomfortable writing about graphic violence.
One of my favorite military science fiction authors was Rick Shelley. Don’t know how easy it would be to find his books. I think I still have them somewhere. He died very young about 10 years ago. IIRC he also came from an actual military background.
**The Gone-Away World **by Nick Harkaway: Catch-22 meets science fiction, long tangents but all-in-all just solid writing. Great ending.
Yeah, do this. The problem is that they’ve re-anthologized the Slammers stories multiple times, so there’s lots of various editions floating around with lots of overlap. So just start with Vol 1 & move on.
If you want to see how you like it first though, one of the earlier collections is in the Baen free library here. Make sure to read his notes too - a lot of Drake’s stories are based on true events from history and his own life.
Ummmmm…guys? I think we need to start drinking heavily. This is post #36 and nobody has mentioned Honor Harrington yet.
:eek:
smack:
Start with On Basilisk Station and prepare for a ride.
The OP mentioned David Weber by name. Are you sure you haven’t already started drinking heavily?
By name doesn’t mean anything, especially somebody like Weber. What books of his has the OP read? We have no idea. But the dude has what, 50+ books out as of this minute? Has the OP read the Honorverse, or the Empire of Man verse, or the Multiverse, or the War God series, or…? We need more information, dammit! We’re anonymous idiots on the Web, not mind-readers!
And I have always started drinking heavily. 
Joel Rosenberg’s Metzadan Mercenary Corps books were damn good.
Rick Shelley’s Dirigent Corps books features future war from a ground-pounder’s point of view. The books follow the main character from his induction as an officer cadet through all his promotions.
Yeah, I’ve read the Honor Harrington books. The author (well, narrator, technically, I guess) really likes to talk. You can tell he’s done a ton of background work on his universe and all the characters. Sometimes he doesn’t seem to know when those things should stay background. But I like them fine.
I’ve started Lost Fleet series and am enjoying it so far! Keep the suggestions coming, if you’ve got more.