Most read Military Sci-Fi books

Decades after two invasions by an insectoid alien species nearly destroyed humanity, Earth's military breeds and screens its most gifted children to find the commander who can win the next war. Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, a small, brilliant, and unusually empathetic boy, is taken from his family and sent to Battle School, an orbiting academy where children train for war through increasingly ruthless zero-gravity combat games. Isolated by the adults who need him to be extraordinary, and hunted by rivals who resent his talent, Ender rises through the ranks by out-thinking every opponent, all while fearing he is becoming as cruel as the brother he fled on Earth. As the training grows more punishing and the stakes rise toward the real war with the alien "buggers," Ender is pushed to the edge of what a child can bear. Ender's Game is a landmark of modern science fiction, winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. A tense, morally complex story about genius, manipulation, and the cost of victory, it remains a defining novel about children shaped into weapons.

• chosen one

Humanity knows the Trisolaran invasion fleet is coming — and that it will take four centuries to arrive. Earth also knows Trisolaris can monitor every human communication and structure in real time, leaving strategists nowhere to hide their plans. In response, the United Nations launches the Wallfacer Project: four individuals are given sweeping authority and resources to devise defense strategies entirely inside their own minds, safe from alien surveillance, with no obligation to explain their true intentions to anyone — even their own governments. Among them is Luo Ji, an obscure astronomer-sociologist who has no idea why he was chosen, and whom Trisolaris has, inexplicably, marked for assassination above all others. As the other Wallfacers pursue grand, very public schemes, Luo Ji drifts through personal indulgence before slowly realizing that an offhand conversation years earlier may hold the key to humanity's only real chance of survival — a theory about the nature of the universe itself, and why civilizations that reveal themselves rarely survive the encounter.

• reluctant hero
• survival

Darrow, the revolutionary who shattered the chains of oppression, is now a fugitive. Waging a desperate war on Mercury, he questions if he's still the hero he once was or the monster he fought against. Meanwhile, the displaced heir Lysander seeks to unite warring factions, and Sovereign Virginia struggles to protect her Republic and her family. As alliances shift and power changes hands, the fate of worlds hangs in the balance, hurtling towards a new Dark Age.

• morally grey
• reluctant hero
• betrayal
• sacrifice

On his seventy-fifth birthday, John Perry joins the army. In this future, Earth's elderly are the Colonial Defense Forces' best recruits -- given young, engineered bodies in exchange for defending humanity's colonies across a hostile galaxy. Trading his failing body and quiet widowerhood for war among the stars, Perry confronts a lethal learning curve and hard questions about identity and survival. John Scalzi's fast, funny, Hugo-nominated debut and the launch of a beloved military SF saga.

Having someone else support your bad decision feels kind of good. Having volunteered to run a rescue mission, Murderbot realises that it will have to spend significant time with a bunch of humans it doesn't know. Including human children. Ugh. This may well call for … eye contact! (Emotion check: Oh, for f*)

• found family
• reluctant hero

After a major victory, soldiers worship Hadrian Marlowe as Halfmortal, and the Empire's powerful begin to fear him. A sharper Cielcin leader is rising, and the answers Hadrian seeks about the Quiet lie behind doors only the Emperor can open.

This story follows Bean, a brilliant young boy who navigates the harsh realities of street life before being recruited into the elite Battleschool. There, he forms a complex relationship with Ender Wiggin, a fellow student, as they train for an impending interstellar war. It's a tale of intellect, rivalry, and the challenges of growing up under immense pressure.

• rivals
• survival

A traitor scientist leaves his mind recorded, and the Ghost Brigades grow a soldier from his DNA to retrieve it. But Jared Dirac wakes with his own mind, and his superiors are watching for Boutin to surface.

Conscripted into humanity's first interstellar war, physics student William Mandella fights the alien Taurans across the galaxy — but the real enemy is time. Relativistic travel means each tour of duty costs decades on Earth, until the home he's fighting for becomes stranger than any alien world. Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards and shaped by Haldeman's Vietnam service, this is a landmark of military science fiction.

The crew of the Rocinante faces a dire new threat as an old enemy returns with advanced technology. They must unite disparate factions to confront this powerful adversary and protect the fragile peace they've fought to maintain. The future of human civilization rests on their shoulders.

• quest
• survival

Hours after Kingdoms of Death, the Cielcin are united, the Empire stands alone, and a grieving Hadrian Marlowe, rumored dead, must find his feet before the Prophet-King's legions reach the Emperor.

• betrayal

A retired soldier turned village ombudsman agrees to lead a new colony, then finds it stranded on purpose, bait in a scheme against an alliance of four hundred alien species. His answer to their offer will decide far more than the settlers' fate.

• reluctant hero
• court intrigue
• betrayal
• found family

Before he led the Outer Planets Alliance, Colonel Fred Johnson of the UN Marine Corps earned another name in the Belt. A short Expanse prequel about the assault on Anderson Station and the order that made him its butcher.

• morally grey
• redemption arc

The final chapter of the epic space opera has arrived. As the Laconian Empire crumbles, a new war against an ancient foe ignites. Follow the crew of the Rocinante as they fight to unite humanity against an existential threat, while others race to uncover the secrets of the past. The cost of victory may be higher than anyone can bear.

• multiple povs
• quest
• sacrifice
• survival

With the Formic war won, Earth's nations turn on each other, and the Battle School graduates are prizes. When the psychopath Achilles starts taking them, Bean must hunt him down and decide whether to serve Peter Wiggin, a man he distrusts.

• betrayal
• rivals
• morally grey

Takeshi Kovacs returns in the 25th century, this time as a mercenary on a dangerous treasure hunt. He and his crew of resurrected soldiers must navigate a radiation-ravaged city and deadly nanotechnology to find an ancient alien spacecraft. It's a high-stakes mission where survival is far from guaranteed.

• heist
• quest
• morally grey
• anti hero

Peter Wiggin is now Hegemon of Earth, and the former children of Battle School are scattered across a world still at war with itself. Bean and Petra, hiding from the vengeful Achilles de Flandres, learn that a message they trusted was a trap, and Peter's own family is forced to flee. Meanwhile a former comrade has risen to lead much of the Muslim world, and every nation maneuvers for advantage. The third novel of Orson Scott Card's Shadow series is a political thriller built from the strategic minds Ender's Game trained.

• rivals
• morally grey
• multiple povs