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I'd like to throw out a recommendation for "The Prince" by S.M. Stirling and Jerry Pournelle. It takes place in the same universe as Stirling and Larry Niven's later novels "The Mote in God's Eye" and "The Gripping Hand." It mostly follows the career of one man as he moves up through the Navy and eventually leads his own mercenary legion as the central government on Earth struggles to maintain control of its colonies. Many of the stories are set on colony worlds with various problems (corrupt governors, transporation of criminals, overbearing policies from Earth - basically the whole colonial playbook from actual history). There's an interesting cadre of side characters that develop over time and an overarching background plot where the central government is slowly collapsing. From a mil-SF angle, there's a lot of interesting small-unit actions, and situations explored where they realistically work around the limits of technology and logistics on backwater worlds (e.g. limited satellite coverage, area denial for aircraft, supply chain issues). It's been a few years since I've re-read it but I don't recall any strong overtones of crazy political leanings or worldviews unlike some of the other stuff mentioned in this thread (correct me if I'm wrong). There is some imperialism going on (they declare an Empire of Man towards the end, based on a planet founded by American constitutional scholars) but it's nowhere near as fetishistic as Weber's stuff. If you've read "The Mote in God's Eye," these stories happen in the distant past of that book and there are some connections. Pournelle created a whole CoDominium universe with backstory and a timeline, not unlike Niven's Known Space series, and similarly there are a whole host of short stories by other authors that take place in this universe (the WarWorld books). (Way more details here)
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Jun 29, 2019 01:42
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Yeah, I have read the Lost Fleet books and they were fine, but not anything I want to re-read. I see that the author has written a few other series in that universe (prequels and sequels).
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Jul 2, 2019 23:06
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PupsOfWar posted:i saw it in the Store a couple of weeks ago and flipped to the back 2 see how it all ends Well, fill us in... does she glass Earth?
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Jul 5, 2019 22:49
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:I just saw this thread and wanted to mention one of the things about Weber's HH books that struck me as hilariously absurd. I feel like this is just Weber poorly aping Age of Sail books (like A-M, Hornblower, real life) where naval officers were all worried about their prize money (although they would also invest in pyramid schemes and bad investments or their bank would go under and they'd lose it all). So here Weber is trying to write something like that but it just falls on its face because it's hollow and boring.
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Aug 6, 2019 04:54
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