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Originally Posted by gnawingonfoot
I'm also kinda lost on where to start with the Baen freebies, and it certainly doesn't help that I've read nothing by any of the authors listed on there. Lately I've really been into Philip José Farmer, John Brunner, Harry Harrison, and Roger Zelazny. If anyone could recommend something new for me based on this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!
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Based on what you like about Harry Harrison (ie: are you a Make Room, Make Room kind of guy? Deathworld? Stainless Steel Rat?), you could try:
Any of the collections of Keith Laumer (but stay away from
The Road to Damascus which is a Bolo story by John Ringo; I thought it was a stinker). Laumer often writes science fiction with a touch of humour and social commentary (like Harrison) although he also does great cliffhanger action. His Retief stories are sort of a commentary on Big Power meddling in small states.
Interstellar Patrol and
Pandora's Legions are collections of related Christopher Anvil stories which are also pretty good. Beware that you need to read Pandora's Legions as a collection of short stories. I think Eric Flint (the editor) tried to stitch them together, but it feels clumsy if you read it as a novel. These stories are less action oriented that the Laumer ones and are more in the problem solving vein (like, say Larry Niven short stories)
If you like Harrison more in his Deathworld style, then I think you could try With The Lightnings by David Drake (and its sequels) which is about a young man in the navy who gets caught up in a war (much better written than the Harrington books imo)
They have a Fred Saberhagen "Bezerker" collection up. I'm sure that needs no introduction.
If you like Zelazny, you might also like Mercedes Lackey.