A couple of military SF books that are worth a look are the Subterrene War series:
Germline (n.) the genetic material contained in a cellular lineage which can be passed to the next generation. Also: secret military program to develop genetically engineered super-soldiers (slang).
War is Oscar Wendell’s ticket to greatness. A reporter for The Stars and Stripes, he has the only one way pass to the front lines of a brutal war over natural resources buried underneath the icy, mineral rich mountains of Kazakhstan.
But war is nothing like he expected. Heavily armored soldiers battle genetically engineered troops hundreds of meters below the surface. The genetics-the germline soldiers-are the key to winning this war, but some inventions can’t be un-done. Some technologies can’t be put back in the box.
Kaz will change everything, not least Oscar himself. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline and drugs, Oscar doesn’t find the war, the war finds him.
and Embedded by Dan Abnett:
When journalist Lex Falk gets himself chipped into the brain of a combat soldier, he thinks he has the ultimate scoop - a report from the forbidden front line of a distant planetary war, live to the living rooms of Earth. When the soldier is killed, however, Lex has to take over the body and somehow get himself back to safety once more… broadcasting all the way.
Anything by Cordwainer Smith (pseudonym of Paul Linebarger).
+1000 on A Canticle for Liebowitz , Walter M. Miller, Jr. Hilariously funny and heartbreakingly sad, often simultaneously.
Totenfeier:
Anything by Cordwainer Smith (pseudonym of Paul Linebarger).
+1000 on A Canticle for Liebowitz , Walter M. Miller, Jr. Hilariously funny and heartbreakingly sad, often simultaneously.
I agree with both of these, though I’d have to say Cordwainer Smith is more of an acquired taste. His work is simply unlike anything else I’ve ever read, though I mean that in a good way. My favorite short story of his is The Game of Rat and Dragon .