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.
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.
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.
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.
Hiroshi SakurazakaStandalone (translated from Japanese)
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.
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.
Kevin IkenberryStart with The Buzzer War, book 1 (six books)
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.
Recommended by
YouTube: Burn Enough (reviewer Jim Chapman's top 10), Burn Enough (Jim Chapman's best of 2025)
David DrakeStart with Hammer's Slammers (linked stories)
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.
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.
Lois McMaster BujoldStart with Shards of Honor or Barrayar
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.
C. J. CherryhStart with Downbelow Station (Alliance-Union universe)
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.
Larry Niven and Jerry PournelleStart with 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 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.
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.
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.
Yoon Ha LeeStart with Machineries of Empire, book 1
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Recommended by
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller encouraged all Marines to read it (Military.com); an Army officer's review in Foreign Policy says every Army officer should read it
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.
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.
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.
B. V. LarsonStart with Undying Mercenaries, book 1 (19+ books)
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.
Recommended by
YouTube: Burn Enough (reviewer Jim Chapman's top 10)
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
Recommendations: the YouTube videos, Instagram post and reviews linked on each card; the Goodreads "Readers who enjoyed Red Rising also enjoyed" list.