Best modern military-related fiction (NO Tom Clancy here!)
Discover the best modern military fiction books beyond Tom Clancy! Explore gripping, action-packed novels with elite soldiers, covert ops, and high-stakes combat in our curated list of top picks.
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Storming Intrepid
by Payne Harrison
"A stunning success...A literally out-of-this-world chess game of nuclear proportions." THE BALTIMORE SUN What begins as a routine voyage of a space shuttle carrying Star Wars technology, turns into a harrowing nightmare in outer space when a Russian agent siezes command of the vehicle. The President is prepared to use everything from stealth bombers and SR-71 Blackbirds to untested space fighters, as this precendent-shattering confrontation hurtles toward its tension-crackling climax. "Harrison has created a most believable scenario, with an amazing series of twists and turns....Run, do not walk, to the bookstore." UPI
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Thunder of Erebus
by Payne Harrison
While the United States and the Soviet Confederation come together on a mission that symbolizes their newly forged trust and cooperation, a force of nature resting below volcanic Mount Erebus threatens to destroy world peace.
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The TEN THOUSAND
by Harold Coyle
In four consecutive New York Times bestsellers, including Trial by Fire, Coyle has established himself as a master of international suspense. Now he delivers an epic story about a U.S. Army corps trapped by a nuclear-armed Germany. "An extraordinary, stunning peek at the new dark age".--Stephen Coonts.
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War in 2020
by Ralph Peters
As the Soviet Union crumbles, Colonel George Taylor leads the Seventh Cavalry, America's experimental airborne regiment in a battle featuring ECM systems and laser guided projectiles.
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Arc Light
by Eric L. Harry
A political thriller by a military expert with extensive first-hand knowledge of the Russian military describes an accidental nuclear holocaust that erupts between Russia and the United States. Reprint. NYT.
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The Day Before Midnight
by Stephen Hunter
“A breathtaking, fascinating look at what could happen—given the possibility of an atomic ‘given.’ A wrap-up you'll never forget.”—Robert Ludlum The countdown begins when welder Jack Hummel is abducted from his suburban Maryland home ans whisked to the South Mountain MX missile site—a top-secret nuclear complex now taken over by paramilitary terrorists. All that stands between the Uzi-armed commandos and the launch button is a half-ton titanium block. They want Jack Hummel to cut through it—so they can unleash a devastatingly brilliant plot that threatens global disaster. Now a Delta Force veteran and a think-tank defense wizard must get inside South Mountain—by defeating their own super-security systems and a darkly ingenious enemy leader . . . . . . while Jack Hummel's torch burns closer and closer to the launch key . . . while the clock ticks closer to midnight—and Armageddon. Praise for The Day Before Midnight “Rockets toward a shattering climax like an incoming missile.”—Stephen Coonts, author of Flight of the Intruder and Final Flight “Nonstop action and mounting tension.”—The New York Times Book Review “Slam-bang action and relentless suspense.”—The Washington Post “The novel crackles and jolts.”—Chicago Tribune “The one to beat this year in the nail-biter class . . . an edge-of-the-seat doomsday countdown thriller.”—Daily News, New York
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Point of Impact
by Stephen Hunter
“A harsh, visceral, novel of conspiracy and betrayal . . . a distrubing mix that plays on our sense of history while at the same time it appeals to our darkest fantasies of rough justice.”—Chicago Tribune The inspiration for the USA Network series Shooter He was one the best Marine snipers in Vietnam. Today, twenty years later, disgruntled hero of an unheroic war, all Bob Lee Swagger wants to be left alone and to leave the killing behind. But with consummate psychological skill, a shadowy military organization seduces Bob into leaving his beloved Arkansas hills for one last mission for his country, unaware until too late that the game is rigged. The assassination plot is executed to perfection—until Bob Lee Swagger, alleged lone gunman, comes out of the operation alive, the target of a nationwide manhunt, his only allies a woman he just met and a discredited FBI agent. Now Bob Lee Swagger is on the run, using his lethal skills once more—but this time to track down the men who set him up and to break a dark conspiracy aimed at the very heart of America.
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By the Rivers of Babylon
by Nelson DeMille
Lod Airport, Israel: Two Concorde jets take off for a U.N. conference that will finally bring peace to the Middle East. Covered by F-14 fighters, accompanied by security men, the planes carry warriors, pacifists, lovers, enemies, dignitaries -- and a bomb planted by a terrorist mastermind. Suddenly they're forced to crash-land at an ancient desert site. Here, with only a handful of weapons, the men and women of the peace mission must make a desperate stand against an army of crack Palestinian commandos -- while the Israeli authorities desperately attempt a rescue mission. In a land of blood and tears, in a windswept place called Babylon, it will be a battle of bullets and courage, and a war to the last death.