Military science fiction follows soldiers, pilots and ship crews through the wars of the future: boot camp, power armor, fleet battles, and what fighting does to the people who do it. Every book below was recommended by a YouTube channel, an Instagram book creator or a named reviewer, or won or was shortlisted for a major science fiction award; each card says which. Each card also says what to know before you start. The list is spoiler-free.
Start here
The classics that come up on almost every list.
Starship Troopers
- What it is
- Johnny Rico enlists after high school, goes through boot camp, learns to fight in power armor and is sent to war against an alien species the soldiers call the Bugs.
- Good to know
- as much moral and political philosophy as combat, and readers still argue about its politics. One creator calls it the easiest book to start a discussion with.
- Awards
- Hugo Award for Best Novel, 1960.
The Forever War
- What it is
- a soldier is drafted into an interstellar war. Travel near the speed of light means far more time passes at home than for him. Haldeman was drafted and fought in Vietnam, and it shows.
- Good to know
- power armor, but the real subject is what the war is for. Forever Peace is a separate novel, not a sequel.
- Awards
- Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.
Armor
- What it is
- Felix, a soldier in power armor on the planet Banshee, survives battle after battle, and the book stays with what that does to his mind. A second storyline follows a different man on another world.
- Good to know
- often compared to The Forever War. One creator found the second storyline a slog to get through.
Ender's Game
- What it is
- a gifted child is put through brutal war games at an orbital Battle School to prepare for an alien invasion.
- Good to know
- a much younger hero than the rest of this list.
- Awards
- Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel.
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Power armor and the front line
All You Need Is Kill
- What it is
- a new recruit in a power suit dies in battle against the alien Mimics and wakes up on the same day, again and again, until a legendary soldier named Rita helps him find a way out.
- Good to know
- the book behind the film Edge of Tomorrow, with a different ending. Short.
The Light Brigade
- What it is
- Dietz joins a corporate army for a war with Mars. Soldiers are broken down into light and beamed to the battlefield, and Dietz's drops start going wrong: the battles she remembers don't match the war she is told about.
- Good to know
- a mystery as much as a war story. One creator rates it ten out of ten.
- Awards
- Hugo Award finalist and Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, 2020.
Old Man's War
- What it is
- old people are recruited to fight aliens in exchange for new young bodies, and the hero goes to war with friends his own age.
- Good to know
- funny and fast; a playful answer to Starship Troopers and The Forever War.
- Awards
- Hugo Award finalist, 2006; the series won the Hugo for Best Series in 2026.
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Steel on Target
- What it is
- after his power-armored infantry unit is overrun by insect-like aliens, Lieutenant Mike Sandhurst is left for dead, rescued and reassigned to tanks, where he has to learn armored warfare from scratch.
- Good to know
- tanks, infantry and air support fighting together; reviewer Jim Chapman ranks the series among the best of recent decades.
Hammer's Slammers
- What it is
- Colonel Hammer's mercenary armored regiment, with supertanks and powerguns, fights other people's wars. Drake served with the 11th Armored Cavalry in Vietnam and Cambodia.
- Good to know
- brutal close combat; one reviewer reads it as a horror story about war. Each story ends on a grim note.
Columbus Day
- What it is
- aliens invade Earth, and a soldier who helps capture one ends up shipped off to fight on another planet.
- Good to know
- humor and competence; one reviewer calls it the military-SF Dungeon Crawler Carl, while the other found a main character's banter cringeworthy.
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Ships and fleets
On Basilisk Station
- What it is
- Honor Harrington, a captain in the Royal Manticoran Navy, fights age-of-sail naval battles in space: broadsides, crossing the enemy's T, and plenty of politics.
- Good to know
- Master and Commander in space. Slow and detailed; one of the two reviewers bounced off it.
Also onIf You Like This Game or War Film, Read This Book
Warship
- What it is
- an aging starship and its captain, in a fleet that has not fought in generations, run into aliens who have wiped out human colonies.
- Good to know
- straightforward ship combat with believable orbital maneuvering. The reviewer liked book three less than the first two.
The Vorkosigan Saga
- What it is
- a military and aristocratic family in a feudal interstellar society. In Barrayar, Cordelia, who cannot win by violence, has to find other ways through a coup.
- Good to know
- over twenty episodic books, some more military than others; you can stop anywhere.
- Awards
- Hugo Award for Best Series, 2017.
Downbelow Station
- What it is
- Pell station is caught between a declining Earth Company, its neglected Fleet and the rising Union. Refugees from a destroyed station pour in, and the station's leaders have to hold it together.
- Good to know
- as much about logistics, refugees and station politics as about battles, told through several viewpoints.
- Awards
- Hugo Award for Best Novel, 1982.
The Mote in God's Eye
- What it is
- when an alien probe arrives from the Mote system, the Imperial Navy sends two warships and an embassy to make first contact with the Moties.
- Good to know
- a source of many military-SF conventions. A reviewer flags dated attitudes: the navy has no women, and the Empire treats destroying whole worlds as an option.
- Awards
- Hugo and Nebula Award nominee; second in the 1975 Locus poll.
The Expanse
- What it is
- the politics of war inside and between the factions and governments of a settled solar system, seen from both the powerful side and the underdog rebellion.
- Good to know
- not military SF at the start; the military side grows from around book five or six.
War and what it costs
The Parafaith War
- What it is
- one soldier goes from ground combat to pilot school to the intelligence service in a war with strong religious undertones.
- Good to know
- about the ethics of war and how hard it is to stop fighting once the enemy has been made into something other. Ignore the cover: it looks like a romance novel and isn't one.
Use of Weapons
- What it is
- a soldier working for the Culture's Special Circumstances fights in other civilizations' wars. Two timelines alternate.
- Good to know
- the same creators also recommend Look to Windward from the series, for what it says about soldiers and trauma.
Ancillary Justice
- What it is
- the artificial intelligence of a warship, which controls human bodies as part of itself. Half the story follows a military occupation of a colonized planet.
- Good to know
- only book one is military SF; the sequels change focus.
Ninefox Gambit
- What it is
- Captain Kel Cheris, disgraced for unorthodox tactics, gets one chance to redeem herself: retake a fortress held by heretics, with the help of Shuos Jedao, an undead tactician who never lost a battle but once destroyed two armies, one of them his own.
- Good to know
- the author's debut and the first book of the Machineries of Empire series.
- Awards
- Locus Award for Best First Novel, 2017; Hugo, Nebula and Arthur C. Clarke finalist.
Some Desperate Glory
- What it is
- Kyr has trained all her life on Gaea Station, where the last of humanity survives, to avenge Earth's destruction. When Command sends her brother to near-certain death and assigns her to bear children, she escapes, and finds the universe is not what she was taught.
- Good to know
- a book about being raised inside a militarized cause, and what it takes to leave it.
- Awards
- Hugo Award for Best Novel, 2024.
Embedded
- What it is
- a journalist is secretly embedded through a chip in a soldier's head to witness a battle. When the soldier is knocked out, the journalist has to work his body and survive.
- Good to know
- a civilian's view of combat; the creator lists it as an honorable mention because the hero isn't a soldier.
Near-future war
The Red: First Light
- What it is
- Lieutenant James Shelley leads a high-tech squad on night patrols against insurgents in Africa's Sahel, in a war the defense industry keeps going for profit. His one edge is an uncanny sense of danger.
- Good to know
- wired soldiers, drones and exoskeletons; a Locus reviewer compares its shift in tone to the gap between Starship Troopers and The Forever War.
- Awards
- Nebula Award nominee; John W. Campbell Memorial Award finalist.
Ghost Fleet
- What it is
- a near-future war in which a peer adversary cuts off American power projection, fought with drones, 3D printing and new military technology. Each section opens with a quote from Sun Tzu.
- Good to know
- a techno-thriller grounded in real research rather than space opera.
Newer standalones
Rubicon
- What it is
- Sergeant Adrien Valero has been killed and revived 96 times in an unwinnable war against a more advanced alien enemy. A transfer to a covert team changes how she fights.
- Good to know
- ends on a big cliffhanger.
In the Black
- What it is
- Captain Susan and her team investigate missing scout drones and uncover a plot that mixes space opera with military politics, partly from an alien's point of view.
- Good to know
- short, at about 350 pages, but the ending is a cliffhanger.
Misfit Soldier
- What it is
- a sergeant who joined the army to hide after a con went wrong gets a chance to run a con that could save a squadmate and turn the war, if he can manage to be a good soldier.
- Good to know
- light and fun; the creator calls it the author's weakest book.
Long-running reader favorites
Steel World
- What it is
- Earth, a backwater province of a galactic empire, rents out its legions as mercenaries. Soldiers who die can be revived from stored data, and James McGill joins the lowest-ranked legion.
- Good to know
- pulpy and darkly funny. One reviewer calls it "a solidly mediocre pulp sci-fi series" with continuity problems.
Coming from fantasy?
Red Rising and Empire of Silence are science fiction that fantasy readers love; see our page of books like Red Rising. For Warhammer 40,000's soldiers, start with Gaunt's Ghosts on our Warhammer page.
FAQ
What is military science fiction?
Science fiction whose main character serves in a future military and goes through battle. Most books lean toward one of two kinds of war: soldiers in power armor, or ship-to-ship combat in space.
Where should I start with military science fiction?
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein or The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. They are the two classics most lists begin with, and they take opposite views of war.
Are there standalone military science fiction books?
Yes: Starship Troopers, Armor, All You Need Is Kill, The Light Brigade and Embedded all stand alone.
What are good books about power armor?
Starship Troopers, Armor, The Forever War and All You Need Is Kill.
Which military science fiction books have won the Hugo Award?
Starship Troopers, The Forever War, Downbelow Station, Ender's Game and Some Desperate Glory all won the Hugo for Best Novel. The Vorkosigan Saga won the Hugo for Best Series.
Is there military science fiction like Master and Commander?
David Weber's Honor Harrington series, starting with On Basilisk Station.
Sources
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