Strong character-based science fiction series
Discover the best strong character-based science fiction series with our curated list of top books. Explore immersive stories with deep character development and thrilling sci-fi plots.
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Cordelia's Honor
by Lois McMaster Bujold
When Enemies Become More than Friends -- THEY WIN In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan -- he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr" -- and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his. Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar -- and the target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn would play in Barrayari's bloody legacy.
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The Lost Fleet: Dauntless
by Jack Campbell
The first novel in the New York Times bestselling Lost Fleet series! The Alliance has been fighting the Syndics for a century—and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is a man who's emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief.... Captain John “Black Jack” Geary’s exploits are known to every schoolchild. Revered for his heroic “last stand” in the early days of the war, he was presumed dead. But a century later, Geary miraculously returns and reluctantly takes command of the Alliance Fleet as it faces annihilation by the Syndics. Appalled by the hero-worship around him, Geary is nevertheless a man who will do his duty. And he knows that bringing the stolen Syndic hypernet key safely home is the Alliance’s one chance to win the war. But to do that, Geary will have to live up to the impossibly heroic “Black Jack” legend....
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Gabriel's Ghost
by Linnea Sinclair
Award-winning author Linnea Sinclair brings her special sizzle to science fiction with this action-packed blend of otherworldly adventure and sexy stellar romance. . . . After a decade of piloting interstellar patrol ships, former captain Chasidah Bergren, onetime pride of the Sixth Fleet, finds herself court-martialed for a crime she didn’ t commit–and shipped off to a remote prison planet from which no one ever escapes. But when she kills a brutal guard in an act of self-defense, someone even more dangerous emerges from the shadows. Gabriel Sullivan—alpha mercenary, smuggler, and rogue—is supposed to be dead. Yet now this seductive ghost from Chaz’s past is offering her a ticket to freedom—for a price. Someone in the Empire is secretly breeding jukors: vicious and uncontrollable killing machines that have long been outlawed. Gabriel needs Chaz to help him stop the practice before it decimates Imperial space. The mission means putting their lives on the line—but the tensions that heat up between them may be the riskiest part of all.
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Grimspace
by Ann Aguirre
When he is accused of murder, Jax's job as a jumper for the Corp seems in jeopardy until March offers her an escape from prison in exchange for establishing a new kind of jumper and ending the Corp's monopoly on outer space travel.
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On Basilisk Station
by David Weber
by David Webber Honor Harrington is in trouble. Having made him look the fool, she's been exiled to Basilisk Station in disgrace and set up for ruin by a superior who hates her. Her demoralized crew blames her for their ship's humiliating posting to an out-of-the-way picket station. The star-conquering, so-called Republic of Haven is up to something; and Honor Harrington has a single, over-age light cruiser with an armament that doesn't work to police the entire star system. But the people out to get her have made one mistake. They've made her mad!
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Hunting Party
by Elizabeth Moon
Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen, Language: English, Serbo-Croatian Subtitles: English, Spanish, Number of discs: 1,Run Time: 101 minutes.
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Ender's Game
by Orson Scott Card
From New York Times bestselling author Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game—adapted to film in 2013 starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford—is the classic Hugo and Nebula award-winning science fiction novel of a young boy's recruitment into the midst of an interstellar war. In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut—young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training. Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister. Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives. Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is the winner of the 1985 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1986 Hugo Award for Best Novel. THE ENDER UNIVERSE Ender series Ender’s Game / Ender in Exile / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind Ender’s Shadow series Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight Children of the Fleet The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston) The Swarm /The Hive Ender novellas A War of Gifts /First Meetings
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A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born
by Harry Harrison
A chronicle of the life and times of the Stainless Steel Rat traces the rise of "Slippery Jim" diGriz from his humble origins as a shoplifter, through his schooling in arts of crime with the Bishop, to the heights of crime as an intergalactic con-man
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Starship: Mutiny
by Mike Resnick
The starship Theodore Roosevelt is fighting on the far outskirts of a galactic war, its crew made up of retreads and raw recruits. A new first officer reports, Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding his orders (but getting results). He's been banished to the Teddy R. for his actions, but once there he again ignores his orders. ... This is the first of five novels about the starship Theodore Roosevelt. The next four will be, in order, Pirate, Mercenary, Rebel, and Flagship.