If the OP is into Star Wars at all, I’ll toss out Tim Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy. Lots of politics mixed it with battles and treachery and derring-do and a great set of villains.
Don’t know if they can be found, but Brian Daley’s Hobart Floyt & Alacrity FitzHugh books were big galactic buddy adventures. Basicaly serious, dangerous stuff happening but with some humor as well.
That series starts with Requiem For A Ruler of Worlds.
You must try the Culture novels of Iain M. Banks.
A lesser known and new one i’d recommend is Ian Douglas’s Star Carrier books. A trilogy, first two out, next early next year.
Great space opera action. The twist i like is the heavy emphasis on relatavistic combat. There is the usual jump drive between systems, after that it’s all fractional c bombardment and attacking on the heels of your light signature reaching their sensors. Makes a nice change from wooden ships or WW2 transplanted into space.
Word.
Gordon R. Dickson’s Childe Cycle (the Dorsai series) are military sci-fi. Although some of the books aren’t as military-focused.
C.J. Cherryh has some good action sci-fi – particularly her Company Wars books, Chanur novels, and the Faded Sun trilogy.
And Dan Abnett’s Warhammer 40,000 novels are very good military sci-fi – particularly the endless Gaunt’s Ghosts series, and the Horus Heresy books he’s done. (Quality from other Warhammer 40K writers is… erratic.)
Maybe the Berserker stories by Fred Saberhagen (and others)?
I’d actually recommend *against *Honor Harrington (David Weber).
The first few (ok, all of them) have some awesome space-battles, but there is a metric-crap-ton of politiking going down, and it just gets worse as the series progresses. I don’t think the OP is looking to wade through 450 pages of talking heads and blow-by-blow interstellar policies in order to get to the (admittedly damn cool) 50 page space frigate battle at the end of the book.
I will however second The Old Man’s War series - Scalzi is my personal hero for that series. Uplift series by Brin is also pretty damn cool. Startide Rising is one of the very first sci-fi books I ever read, and it hooked me hard.
Seriously tho - read Dune. It’s pretty much exactly what you posted in the OP, plus strange religions and freaky cool protagonists and enemies.
You might like Elizabeth Moon’s sci-fi series Vatta’s War (her Paksenarrion got mentioned in the fantasy thread, and it’s amazing also). They seem very similar to me in tone and feel to the John Cambell series mentioned earlier - The Lost Fleet.
You may also like Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear. It’s a little weird, but definitely action-packed.
One series I don’t see mentioned much, but which I really enjoyed, was the Hope series by David Feintuch. The first book is called Midshipman’s Hope.
It’s sort of like Horatio Hornblower with spaceships. The drive system used to travel between star systems can cause a kind of cancer with prolonged exposure, so passengers generally only take one trip in a lifetime. But the body adapts to the environment if exposed early enough, so the crews start out very young.
The main character is a 17-year-old midshipman when a couple of shipboard situations lead to him being the senior surviving officer on a 3-year mission. The regulations don’t allow him to relinquish command, so he’s forced to take control, commanding a ship full of people much older than him who naturally don’t respect him much. The later books follow his whole career.
I on the other hand would recommend it. I’ve noticed he seems somewhat of a love-him-or-hate-him author.
Have you tried Peter F Hamilton? He has two separate series in the same universe with some shared characters. Lots of starships and space battles, and a rattling good plot, especially in the first Commonwealth series. You can read the first chapter of Pandora’s star here:
http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk/index.php?page=Pandora_s_Star_Prologue
Or you could try his Night’s Dawn series.
Basically it’s humans versus space zombies. With sentient starships and Al Capone.
I highly recommend the Paratwa saga, a trilogy, by Christopher Hinz. The genetically-engineered assassins in it (especially the ‘twins’ and ‘triplets’) are the most fearsome killers in all sf. From the very first page of the very first book it sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let up until the end. Hinz writes graphic novels too, including a series for DC called Gemini Blood which deals with similar themes and characters to the Paratwa saga.
From way back…
H. Beam Piper. For my money one of the best mostly forgotten SF writers of the 50s and 60s. Killed himself when he thought he’d failed as an author and couldn’t support himself.
But he left behind some great novels and short stories including his ‘Terro-Human Future History’. And his stated approach to SF was 'people like ideas but they WANT ‘Blood and Thunder’ so that’s what they get. ‘Space Viking’, ‘Paratime’, ‘Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen’ and others mix neat ideas with great epic battles/concepts/violence.
Let me recommend a parody of the genre, Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers, by Harry Harrison. Very funny space opera.
Oh, I love the series myself, but it doesn’t at all seem to match what the OP was asking for - he wanted action, and HH really is into political intrigue punctuated with epic space battles. Now, I’m not knocking the battles and combat tactics! They are, as stated above, epic. However, over time, the proportions of politics vs starships getting blown to flinders has tilted noticeably towards the politics.
I don’t mind, but the OP wanted action.
HH *starts out *very action-packed, but if you get really invested in the series and you aren’t someone who enjoys politicking, then you’re going to be disappointed as it progresses, IMO.
There’s the Bolo series, centering on (naturally) Bolos; immensely powerful sentient AI controlled tanks. Tanks with firepower measured in megatons per second, and AIs designed as the perfect honorable warriors; “for the honor of the regiment!” The short story collections are especially good for highly concentrated action.
That reminds me; there’s the series that he co-authored with Steve White, the Starfire books. Those have a higher action-to-politics ratio I believe.
Don’t remember the author, pohl I think “mutineers moon”. I loved that book if only for creative weaponry. Warp grenades, guns that fire concentrated streams of gravity, and “mass missiles” (who needs explosives when you can make a 200 pound hunk of metal move just shy of light speed and slam into target)
Mass x velocity = ouch
How about Tanya Huff’s “Valor Confederation” books? I read the first and quite liked it… which might be a bad sign. 