Help! New books wanted

Hi everyone,

I am looking for some new books to devour. I can generally consume a 500 page book in 3 days and I have been in book limbo for most of the summer and now that winter is coming and it seem like most of the authors that I read are having a prolonged period between books, so I figured that I would reach out to see what some people suggest. I thought the best way to go about this is to list my favorite books/series to give you guys an Idea of what I am into and maybe it can help a few of you out as well.

I have just started Ark Royal by Christopher Nuttall….very rough around the edges but the story itself has promise. I believe that there are at least 2 other book in this series so it will keep me busy for about 2 weeks in all. (To my dismay I have only found this book on kindle. I only say this because I either have hard copies or nook versions of books and I didn’t want to start another ebook library.)

Here we go!

Starting with the obvious, but other than that no particular order

Safehold, Honorverse, Dahak, Path of the Fury….and you all know who wrote these.
Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson…..Great recommendation by some people here
Lost fleet series by jack Campbell
Old Man's War By John Scalzi………………………This is actual the start of a series great books all of them
Ender’s Game/Shadow by Orson Scott Card…….all of the books
Star Wars X-Wing #1: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole…..very good series 10 books I think. I have also read almost all of the books starting from Star Wars A New Hope and forward in the time line
Starship Troopers By Robert A. Heinlein
Starship Series by Mike Resnick……..quick easy reads but fun story
DeathDay/EarthRise by William C. Dietz
False Colors (Wing Commander) by William R. Forstchen, William H. Keith
Soldier……….I cannot remember the author and the book is currently packed great story though. (spoilers) Humanity is at peace (for the most part still have pirates and the such) and an alien race comes out of nowhere and starts taking out colonies and the human race pulls everything together and beats the snot out of them.


I don’t normally ready fantasy or mystery/thriller but I enjoyed these:

The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher…………………These Stories are definitely in my top five
Codex Alera Series by Jim Butcher
Jack Reacher Series by Lee Child……………….I have read them all. The plots for the most part are always the same someone died or was hurt, Jack come through town and ends up involved, someone betrays the person he is helping and he get the bad guy in the end….Still fun reads.

And personally my favorite authors are In order: David Weber, Jim Butcher, John Scalzi and Jack Campbell.
Don’t get me wrong there are other great authors that would make my top 10 but these four truly take me into their worlds and whenever I get my hands on a new book they put out everything else in my life gets put to the side well, except for Work (so I have the money to buy their books) and my wife (happy wife happy life)

Thanks and I look forward to everyone's suggestions.

The Firekeeper series by Jane Lindskold perhaps?

The books (in order) are...

Through Wolf's Eyes
Wolf's Head, Wolf's Heart
The Dragon of Despair
Wolf Captured
Wolf Hunting
Wolf's Blood

You probably know her through her work on the Treecat/Stephanie Harrington books...

Ryk Brown's Frontier Saga is awesome - the writing starts off a little rough and smooths out, but the storytelling is epic throughout.

Raymond L Weil has two series, Galactic Empire and Slaver Wars. If you found Ark Royal a little rough, I'd dis-recommend Slaver Wars, but Weil has smoothed out quite a bit by the time he started the Galactic Empire series.

Unfortunately, I believe both of these are only available on Kindle. I think the latest Frontier Sage may be available as a CS paperback.

The Phoenix Crisis by Richard L Sanders series is decent.

I found Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen books very Weber-esque, they and Safehold remind me a lot of each other!

(There's also a series of novellas called Starship's Mage by some dude named Glynn Stewart, which ARE available on Nook )

barkerpa3466 wrote:Hi everyone,

I am looking for some new books to devour. I can generally consume a 500 page book in 3 days and I have been in book limbo for most of the summer and now that winter is coming and it seem like most of the authors that I read are having a prolonged period between books, so I figured that I would reach out to see what some people suggest. I thought the best way to go about this is to list my favorite books/series to give you guys an Idea of what I am into and maybe it can help a few of you out as well.

I have just started Ark Royal by Christopher Nuttall….very rough around the edges but the story itself has promise. I believe that there are at least 2 other book in this series so it will keep me busy for about 2 weeks in all. (To my dismay I have only found this book on kindle. I only say this because I either have hard copies or nook versions of books and I didn’t want to start another ebook library.)

Here we go!

Dewey Lambdin has written now about 20 neat cool saucy Napoleon War era British Sailing Navy adventure novels. The main character is Alan Lewrie, who is a rascal, rake, rogue and basically a spoiled rich punk kid when forced to enter the Royal Navy as a midshipman at the old age of 17.

About twenty books later he is a senior Frigate Post Captain, but still is a rotten spoiled kid at heart, but has become an effective Navy Officer. Kinda "R" rated in places. Basic feel is kinda uplifting with excellent writing and story lines fairly based upon history. HB of CJ (old coot) Cm.

John Ringo for SiFi and action. Somewhat violent, sexist & fascist but a good story teller.

For naval action the early Alistair McLean (eg HMS Ulysses) books are great as are the Wilbur Smith's (eg Sound of Thunder). Both authors wrote better in their earlier years than later.

David Drake (Hammer's Slammers), Larry Niven (Mote in God's Eye). Elizabeth Moon (SiFi) & Elizabeth Bear (Fantasy like Dresden files), Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint, S.M Stirling (Emberverse), Joel Rosenberg (the Fantasy writer not the fascist racist). Greg Bear, Brin, Bedford, and Jean Auel.

You could also resurrect the golden age classics like EE Smith, Saberhagen, Asimov, Heinlein, etc.

A bit of paternalistic advice I'll supply for free is that I had your problem of speed reading (from University study & management training), and I learned to turn it off when reading for pleasure. I now take days to read a favourite author's latest, and savour all the detail.

Thanks for all of the input!

Does any one know of any books that have the main characters try to find/rebuild or modify a ship or group of ships (space or wet navy) in order to fend off/defeat the enemy? kind of like False Colors (Wing Commander) or Ark Royal.

barkerpa3466 wrote:Thanks for all of the input!

Does any one know of any books that have the main characters try to find/rebuild or modify a ship or group of ships (space or wet navy) in order to fend off/defeat the enemy? kind of like False Colors (Wing Commander) or Ark Royal.

Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen Series has two American destroyers resurrected in the books, and making native built PBY style aircraft. The first book of the series is Into the Storm:



But the first ship resurrection and introduction of native built aircraft is in the fourth book of the series:



Poker

The author is Alexander Kent and the main character is Richard Bolitho. The era is from about 1775+- to 1815. Most of the books are during the Napoleon War era. At least 25 novels in the series. Extremely good reading.

Two of the best classes I ever took were touch typing one and two and speed reading one and two. Both actually taken in high school from 1964 to 1967, We learned touch typing on manual Underwood typewriters ... with blank keys.

You know ... the big heavy Clark Kent type typewriters using old fashioned inked ribbons. One key at a time. Nearly 50 years later it still serves me well. Who would have thunked it? Also easy to read slow for just enjoyment.

HB of CJ (old coot) Cm. I love this Forum!

barkerpa3466 wrote:Hi everyone,

I am looking for some new books to devour. I can generally consume a 500 page book in 3 days and I have been in book limbo for most of the summer and now that winter is coming and it seem like most of the authors that I read are having a prolonged period between books, so I figured that I would reach out to see what some people suggest.

I've been a bookworm as far back as first grade. Speed reading was learned five decades ago. One cure for book drought has been to purposely include a percentage of non-fiction. A list is kept of titles that look interesting but not locally available. This is turned over to the librarian about monthly. The net has been helping also.

Sometimes things turn up that are interesting in unexpected ways and slow me down, such as:

Jung, M. et al. 1992. First observation of bound-state β- decay. Physical Review Letters. 69 (15): 2164–2167.

or:

M. Ozima, S. Zashu, Y. Takigami and G. Turner, "Origin of the Anomalous 40Ar-36Ar Age of Zaire Cubic Diamonds: Excess 40Ar in Pristine Mantle Fluids," Nature, 337 (1989): pp. 226-229.

For some reason, speed reading doesn't help much with things on that level

I'm somewhat of a contrarian: my preference is to locate weak spots in any paradigm. There are many more of them than most people expect are possible.

pokermind wrote:

barkerpa3466 wrote:Thanks for all of the input!

Does any one know of any books that have the main characters try to find/rebuild or modify a ship or group of ships (space or wet navy) in order to fend off/defeat the enemy? kind of like False Colors (Wing Commander) or Ark Royal.

Taylor Anderson's Destroyermen Series has two American destroyers resurrected in the books, and making native built PBY style aircraft. The first book of the series is Into the Storm:



But the first ship resurrection and introduction of native built aircraft is in the fourth book of the series:



Poker

Hi Poker,
Thanks for the recommendation but am up to date on the series and eagerly awaiting a new book not as much as one of Mr. Weber's books but eagerly none the less.