This isn’t a confession and I don’t feel the slightest bit guilty – I love reading cheesy military sci-fi. You can’t go wrong with super soldiers, aliens, space battles, and tons of testosterone because it’s the perfect palate cleanser between weightier tomes.
With that said the latest offering from StoryBundle is right up my, and hopefully your, alley. The Military SF Megabundle, curated by best-selling author Kevin J. Anderson (The Saga of the Seven Suns, Star Wars EU novels, Dune prequels, and more), has a whole whack of bullets, lasers and explosions for your reading pleasure from some of the genre’s more prolific authors; including the likes of Anderson, Robert Asprin, Michael Z. Williamson and John Ringo. Oh, John Ringo.
As usual for StoryBundle the bundle has two tiers, and all novels come in both .epub and .mobi formats. The first tier will set you back $5 and includes the following six titles:
- Empire’s Rift by Steven Rzasa
- Five by Five 2: No Surrender edited by Kevin J. Anderson
- Comrades in Arms by Kevin J. Anderson
- Assault on Alpha Base by Doug Beason
- Lights in the Deep by Brad R. Torgersen
- Better to Beg Forgiveness by Michael Z. Williamson
Chip in a further $10, making a grand total of $15, you’ll receive the following nine titles in addition to those above:
- Phule’s Company by Robert Asprin
- Strong Arm Tactics by Jody Lynn Nye
- The Golden Queen by David Farland
- March or Die by Andrew Keith and William H. Keith, Jr.
- Triorion: Awakening (Book One) by L.J. Hachmeister
- Sniper by Jonathan P. Brazee
- Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo
- The Year’s Best Military & Adventure SF 2015 by David Afsharirad
- One Day on Mars by Travis S. Taylor
There we have it. While I’ve read works by some of these authors before (namely Anderson, Williamson, Keith and Ringo – whose female characters are amazing for all the wrong reasons), I’ve never read any of these novels so I’m quite keen to pick this up.
How about you?
Last Updated: May 22, 2017
miaau
May 22, 2017 at 10:22
for me, stories like Knights of the Black Earth (Mag Force series), by Weiss and Perrin are super cheesy military, sort of, Sci-fi.
They are sort of like mills & boons romance novels for the Sci-fi geeks. Read fast, process quickly, enjoy in the moment and move on. Sort of a guilty pleasure, you think you should be reading Sci-fi that is more, intellectual, sophisticated.
And the The Saga of the Seven Suns is one or two books too many, but still a load of fun. He must have had A0 papers printed out on all his walls for him to keep track of ALL the characters and their story arcs.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 10:59
Mills & Boon? Why…why do you even make reference to that trash? And here, in THIS PLACE, you say those hateful words?
miaau
May 22, 2017 at 11:03
It is a reference to the many, many middle aged housewife’s who supposedly make up the market for such books. They too regard reading them as a guilty pleasure.
Poor quality, never going to win the Booker prize or a Hugo or Nebula awards, but somehow so bad it keeps you reading it AND uses almost no brainpower to do so.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 11:05
Sadly, my mum, the person who got me into reading in the first place, is one of those (no longer middle-aged) women.
Despite my every attempt, she still continues to read trashy romance novels. And ONLY trashy romance novels.
The kind that made Fabio famous.
miaau
May 22, 2017 at 11:08
Haha
“Sadly, my mum, the person who got me into reading in the first place, is one of those (no longer middle-aged) women.
Despite my every attempt, she still continues to read trashy romance novels.”
Edit* my mother, now into reading on her tablet, says Google Play directed her to romance novels that were WAAAAAAYYYYYYY worse than Mills & Boon. She says these authors will never be published in standard means, so they tried writing for only e-book releases, free first book, that sort of thing.
But my mother also reads some light detective novels and books by Noel Barber (big scope, normally historical, but people stories over many years).
So, almost the same.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 11:14
I don’t think my mum will ever go the Google Play route. She still struggles with the TV remote, so do something THAT technologically advanced is somewhat beyond her.
Alien Emperor Trevor
May 22, 2017 at 11:49
What’s wrong with Mills & Boon? 😛
Alien Emperor Trevor
May 22, 2017 at 11:54
Yeah I enjoyed Seven Suns, not particularly deep, but a fun read overall.
As long as someone enjoys what they’re reading I’m happy. I’d rather someone read a “bad” book than not read at all because there’s always the chance that next time they might pick a “good” book. I read for enjoyment, and I have a broad range I find enjoyable, and it’s constantly shifting depending on mood.
miaau
May 22, 2017 at 11:56
And that is the beauty of reading, surely.
Saga of the Seven Suns got a bit long, I read it ALL on holiday in December 2014 (Langebaan) and by book 5 I was getting a bit stale, but I still ploughed through and enjoyed it all. I just think a bit too much was done with minor charcters.
But a very interesting universe and concept he wrote, I enjoyed the simplicity of the elemental idea and then I REALLY enjoyed how he did not focus on it at all, just let the story flow..
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 10:58
“whose female characters are amazing for all the wrong reasons”.
Having never read works by those authors, I’m rather curious about this statement. Care to elaborate a bit, Trev?
Alien Emperor Trevor
May 22, 2017 at 11:25
They’re just so bad. They’re strong independent women who make sammiches and babies when not out kicking men’s asses for daring suggest they make a sammich or baby. And they can take care of themselves damn it, don’t need a man… except for the right man, who is the hero of the story, after they meet him.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 11:30
Ugh, okay, so total caricatures of a real persona. Always sad when a writer does that to opposite sex characters.
Women are people, too!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8e4526fb0dada6c8b89a48717a0d15533633de40332f522177aa1e149c11b0f9.jpg
Alien Emperor Trevor
May 22, 2017 at 11:36
All his characters are basically caricatures, although I’m not sure if he realises that, but the action is fun and the good guys win in the end.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 11:42
That to me is the sign of a writer that doesn’t actually know their own characters. The assign roles to names that they’ve come up with and have a notion that “this character must do this thing”, but they never really have a sense of WHO that person is.
It translates well to action pieces, but in the flesh of the story, it always feels lacking.
miaau
May 22, 2017 at 12:01
My grandmother, who wrote 6 detective novels in the 50’s, said that you need to understand your character and make the character a real person, no matter the setting. if NO NONE can relate to your character, then it is a single piece cardboard, has dimensions but no real depth or reality.
THEN, write a novel.
Original Heretic
May 22, 2017 at 13:23
Yeah, that’s exactly it. It’s so awesome to read a novel where the character jumps off the page, when it feels like a real person that you’re just being told about.