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Originally Posted by ficbot
I appreciate the recommendations. I don't know much about what ;military' SF is. I did get a free month of webscriptions from someone and I know none of the included books really worked for me. I am more of a straight mystery reader and the only sci-fi I really like is what would probably be more 'paranormal' than straight sci-fi. I was hoping there was a mystery publisher who was doing something like what Baen does.
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Baen free offerings that are my favorites and that are character-driven, with the military aspect of the story being just one of many elements in it (not overwhelming it):
Eric Flint's "1632":
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In the year 1632 in northern Germany a reasonable person might conclude that things couldn't get much worse. There was no food. Disease was rampant. For over a decade religious war had ravaged the land and the people. Catholic and Protestant armies marched and countermarched across the northern plains, laying waste the cities and slaughtering everywhere. In many rural areas population plummeted toward zero. Only the aristocrats remained relatively unscathed; for the peasants, death was a mercy.
2000 Things are going OK in Grantville, West Virginia. The mines are working, the buck are plentiful (it's deer season) and everybody attending the wedding of Mike Stearn's sister (including the entire membership of the local chapter of the United Mine Workers of America, which Mike leads) is having a good time.
THEN, EVERYTHING CHANGED....
When the dust settles, Mike leads a small group of armed miners to find out what's going on. Out past the edge of town Grantville's asphalt road is cut, as with a sword. On the other side, a scene out of Hell; a man nailed to a farmhouse door, his wife and daughter Iying screaming in muck at the center of a ring of attentive men in steel vests. Faced with this, Mike and his friends don't have to ask who to shoot.
At that moment Freedom and Justice, American style, are introduced to the middle of The Thirty Years War.
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Catherine Asaro's "Primary Inversion":
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In an unusually masterful first novel, physicist Asaro combines hard speculative science and first-rate storytelling to look at the galaxy's distant future. Earth's peaceful Alliance shares power with two other empires, those of the Skolians and the Traders, who are mortal enemies of each other. Heir apparent to oversee the Skolian empire, Sauscony Valdoria is a bioengineered fighter pilot who has inherited rare psychic abilities that link her to the powerful "psiberspace" Skolian Web. Taking shore leave on a neutral planet, Sauscony encounters Jaibriol, an heir to the throne of the sadistic Trader Empire. During a fortuitous melding of minds, Sauscony not only recognizes Jaibriol as her psychic soul mate but realizes her new love has been bred specifically to give Traders the power to vanquish the Skolian empire. Asaro innovatively blends computer technology and telepathy into the electrifying, action-rich drama she creates.
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David Weber & John Ringo's "March Upcountry":
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Roger Ramius Sergei Chiang MacClintock didn't understand.
He was young, handsome, athletic, an excellent dresser, and third in line for the Throne of Man ... so why wouldn't anyone at Court trust him
Why wouldn't even his own mother, the Empress, explain why they didn't trust him Or why the very mention of his father's name was forbidden at Court Or why his mother had decided to pack him off to a backwater planet aboard what was little more than a tramp freighter to represent her at a local political event better suited to a third assistant undersecretary of state
It probably wasn't too surprising that someone in his position should react by becoming spoiled, self-centered, and petulant. After all, what else did he have to do with his life
But that was before a saboteur tried to blow up his transport. Then warships of the Empire of Man's worst rivals shot the crippled vessel out of space. Then Roger found himself shipwrecked on the planet Marduk, whose jungles were full of damnbeasts, killerpillars, carnivorous plants, torrential rain, and barbarian hordes with really bad dispositions. Now all Roger has to do is hike halfway around the entire planet, then capture a spaceport from the Bad Guys, somehow commandeer a starship, and then go home to Mother for explanations.
Fortunately, Roger has an ace in the hole: Bravo Company of Bronze Battalion of The Empress� Own Regiment. If anyone can get him off Marduk alive, it's the Bronze Barbarians.
Assuming that Prince Roger manages to grow up before he gets all of them killed.
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All three of the books mentioned above are the beginning books of their series. Don't be misled by covers that emphasize weapons and space ships; I found that I became completely invested in the characters and that in any scenes that could be deemed "military" the emphasis is on the characters, not on reams and reams of techno-geek babble. These authors all know how to create a universe that is totally believable.