Books like 'The Best We Can'
Readers who enjoyed The Best We Can by Carrie Vaughn also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi space military, war & conflict aliens first-contact technology politics friendship drama
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Tiamat's Wrath by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.57 of 5 stars · 48 ratingsThirteen hundred gates have opened to solar systems around the galaxy. But as humanity builds its interstellar empire in the alien ruins, the mysteries and threats grow deeper... -
![The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, Eisso Post]()
The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin, Eisso Post
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 68 ratingsThis is the second novel in "Remembrance of Earth’s Past", the near-future trilogy written by the China's multiple-award-winning science fiction author, Cixin Liu. In The Dark Forest, Earth is reeling from the revelation of a coming alien invasion — four centuries in the future...Categorized as:
aliens drama first-contact invasion politics technology 21st-century action-adventure -
![Death's End by Liu Cixin, Ken Liu]()
Death's End by Liu Cixin, Ken Liu
Rated: 4.39 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsWith The Three-Body Problem, English-speaking readers got their first chance to experience the multiple-award-winning and bestselling Three-Body Trilogy by China's most beloved science fiction author, Cixin Liu. Three-Body was released to great acclaim including coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact invasion politics 21st-century action-adventure adult apocalyptic -
![Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey]()
Caliban's War by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsWe are not alone.On Ganymede, breadbasket of the outer planets, a Martian marine watches as her platoon is slaughtered by a monstrous supersoldier. On Earth, a high-level politician struggles to prevent interplanetary war from reigniting. And on Venus, an alien protomolecule has overrun the planet, wreaking massive, mysterious changes and threatening to spread out into the solar system... -
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![Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey]()
Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 53 ratingsIn the thousand-sun network of humanity's expansion, new colony worlds are struggling to find their way. Every new planet lives on a knife edge between collapse and wonder, and the crew of the aging gunship Rocinante have their hands more than full keeping the fragile peace... -
![Hero by Anna Hackett]()
Hero by Anna Hackett
Rated: 4.53 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsFighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim… Raised from birth to be a soldier, Kace Tameron is a disciplined, military-trained gladiator. He is on contract to the Kor Magna Arena to hone his fighting skills on the blood-soaked arena sand and then return to the military. He lives for one thing: to protect his planet, and on his world, love is forbidden... -
![A Bright Shore: The Eden Chronicles-Book One by S.M. Anderson]()
A Bright Shore: The Eden Chronicles-Book One by S.M. Anderson
Rated: 4.43 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsA military Sci-Fi political thriller set a short decade from now. In 2031, holding to the concept of Individual Liberty can get you killed. Western Civilization is in collapse, a process led and driven by the world's leading supposed democracies, our own included...Categorized as:
first-contact politics action-adventure adult alternate-universe book colonization conspiracies -
![Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey]()
Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 79 ratingsHumanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted... -
![Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey]()
Abaddon's Gate by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 71 ratingsAbaddon's Gate is the third book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. For generations, the solar system - Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt - was humanity's great frontier. Until now. The alien artefact working through its program under the clouds of Venus has emerged to build a massive structure outside the orbit of Uranus: a gate that leads into a starless dark...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact politics technology 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin]()
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 67 ratingsFrom the brilliant and award-winning author Ursula K. Le Guin comes a classic tale of two planets torn apart by conflict and mistrust — and the man who risks everything to reunite them.A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth... -
![Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey]()
Babylon's Ashes by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 57 ratingsThe sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series. NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets... -
![Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card]()
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 66 ratingsAndrew "Ender" Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. The result of genetic experimentation, Ender may be the military genius Earth desperately needs in a war against an alien enemy seeking to destroy all human life... -
![Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky]()
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 59 ratingsA race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars... -
![Witch Of The Federation II by Michael Anderle]()
Witch Of The Federation II by Michael Anderle
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsThe World has a New Witch. The Federation Navy wants her. But she has to decide if she wants the Federation Navy.Stephanie Morgana comes from a long line of Morganas, much longer than she ever realized. The Artificial Intelligence which runs the Virtual World has decided that it needs to break a few rules in order to follow its prime directives... -
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![Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks]()
Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 41 ratingsIt begins in the realm of the Real, where matter still matters.It begins with a murder.And it will not end until the Culture has gone to war with death itself.Lededje Y'breq is one of the Intagliated, her marked body bearing witness to a family shame, her life belonging to a man whose lust for power is without limit... -
![Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey]()
Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 72 ratingsThe fourth novel in James S.A. Corey’s New York Times bestselling Expanse seriesThe gates have opened the way to thousands of habitable planets, and the land rush has begun. Settlers stream out from humanity's home planets in a vast, poorly controlled flood, landing on a new world... -
![Treyvon by M.K. Eidem]()
Treyvon by M.K. Eidem
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsGeneral Treyvon Rayner is the Supreme Commander of the Kaliszian Defenses. He is the cousin and trusted friend of the Kaliszian Emperor, Emperor Liron Kalinin, in spite of Treyvon’s ancestor being one of the causes of the Great Infection so many centuries ago. It is never far from Treyvon's mind, and he vowed he'd spend his entire life trying to make things right... -
![Countdown by Michael Atamanov]()
Countdown by Michael Atamanov
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsAt long last, an extraterrestrial civilization reached out and made the First Contact. However, no one on Earth took their communique for the genuine article. In a similar vein, very few people appreciated just how little time our new suzerains had promised to keep our planet safe.Regardless, the end of their message showed humankind how to access a mysterious game... -
![Web of Worlds by Michael Atamanov]()
Web of Worlds by Michael Atamanov
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsCeasefires have one big downside: they eventually come to an end. And when they do, once again game nodes are set ablaze, and platoons of Dark Faction soldiers threaten our customary world with destruction. The enemy has grown stronger and more numerous. To make matters worse, they also got their hands on even deadlier weaponry...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact invasion politics action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook -
![Between Worlds by J.L. Williams]()
Between Worlds by J.L. Williams
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsInspired by the likes of James Galloway's Subjugation and John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Between Worlds is a thrilling military sci-fi set in a strange new universe...Jason had thought about punching a Shil’vati... -
![Old Man's War by John Scalzi]()
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 50 ratingsJohn Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army.The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate... -
![The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness]()
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 62 ratingsWe were in the square, in the square where I'd run, holding her, carrying her, telling her to stay alive, stay alive till we got safe, till we got to Haven so I could save her - But there weren't no safety, no safety at all, there was just him and his men...Fleeing before a relentless army, Todd has carried a desperately wounded Viola right into the hands of their worst enemy, Mayor Prentiss...Categorized as:
aliens friendship action-adventure apocalyptic audiobook book children coming-of-age -
![Her Alien Farmhand: Blind Date with an Alien by Honey Phillips]()
Her Alien Farmhand: Blind Date with an Alien by Honey Phillips
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsCan a desperate woman and a lonely alien shifter work together to defeat an unknown enemy?A new year should be a time for new hope, but this year, Meg finds it hard to be optimistic. Betrayal and bad luck threaten everything she has worked for. And although she would never admit it, she’s lonely on her isolated farm... -
![Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie]()
Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 43 ratingsAncillary Mercy is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy that began with Ancillary Justice, the only novel ever to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Awards.For a moment, things seemed to be under control for Breq, the soldier who used to be a warship... -
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![Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric S. Nylund]()
Halo: The Fall of Reach by Eric S. Nylund
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsAs the bloody Human-Covenant War rages on Halo, the fate of humankind may rest with one warrior, the lone SPARTAN survivor of another legendary battle... the desperate, take-no-prisoners struggle that led humanity to Halo--the fall of the planet Reach. Now, brought to life for the first time, here is the full story of that glorious, doomed conflict... -
![Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold]()
Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsCordelia and Arol Vorkosigan's plans for a peaceful married life (after all the bloodshed and trials recounted in SHARDS OF HONOR) are soon shattered by the polital tumult on Barrayar. Resisting enormous pressure, they struggle to keep their family alive while while protecting the child Emperor from enemies who would murder him and assume absolute power over all of Barrayar... -
![Columbus Day by Craig Alanson]()
Columbus Day by Craig Alanson
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsWe were fighting on the wrong side, of a war we couldn't win. And that was the good news. The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other... -
![Polity Agent by Neal Asher]()
Polity Agent by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom eight hundred years in the future, a runcible gate is opened into the Polity and those coming through it have been sent specially to take the alien maker back to its home civilization in the Small Magellanic cloud. Once these refugees are safely through, the gate itself is rapidly shut downbecause something alien is pursuing them. The gate is then dumped into a nearby sun... -
![Witch Of The Federation IV by Michael Anderle]()
Witch Of The Federation IV by Michael Anderle
Rated: 4.59 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe Telorans have arrived, and people in the Federation are going to die. Vishlog is working to understand the Morgana group, and just what he has “volunteered” to be part of.Hopefully, he won't die before he learns. The Witch of the Federation has matured, and she has learned how to be a bit more aggressive. She chooses to use this new strength...to go on a date... -
![To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers]()
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 45 ratingsIn her new novella, Sunday Times best-selling author Becky Chambers imagines a future in which, instead of terraforming planets to sustain human life, explorers of the solar system instead transform themselves. Ariadne is one such explorer. As an astronaut on an extrasolar research vessel, she and her fellow crewmates sleep between worlds and wake up each time with different features...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact friendship invasion 21st-century action-adventure adult audiobook -
![External Threat by Michael Atamanov]()
External Threat by Michael Atamanov
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe countdown timer continues to tick, but Earth is still not ready to repel an invasion from space. Gnat is on his voyage with the Shiamiru, all the while trying to find backup for humanity among the great spacefaring races. After all, based on what he’s already seen, he knows not to count on the good sense of his own kind... -
![Native by Stacy Jones]()
Native by Stacy Jones
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHe was destined to die. Until she changed his fate.Atuk is doomed to die a slow death with his harem brothers, pining for the lost female he didn’t love and who had never wanted him. And then he meets her.Being named a healer gives Lily a place among the tribe and provides protection for herself, her mates—Frrar, Tor, Arruk, and Drrak—and the two shevari children they’ve adopted... -
![Protector by Anna Hackett]()
Protector by Anna Hackett
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsFighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim… Cool and driven Madeline Cochran made a successful career for herself as civilian commander of a space station orbiting Jupiter…until the day it was attacked and she was abducted by alien slavers... -
![Losing Mars by Peter Cawdron]()
Losing Mars by Peter Cawdron
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsDisaster strikes in orbit around Mars. A Chinese spacecraft is disabled, stranded near Phobos. Well over a hundred million miles from Earth, their only hope for rescue comes from the American base on the edge of the Vallis Marineris on the surface of Mars... -
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![Game Changer by Michael Atamanov]()
Game Changer by Michael Atamanov
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsOur galaxy is at war! Great alien races have just clashed in desperate combat and its aftershocks are echoing even in our backwater. The Geckho - protectors and overlords of planet Earth - join the global conflict too. Is it a good thing for humanity? Hard to say. On one hand, the Geckho are too busy to defend our planet which doesn’t sound too good...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact invasion action-adventure adult alternate-history audiobook book -
![Tansy's Titan by S.E. Smith]()
Tansy's Titan by S.E. Smith
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsTansy Bell, is the middle daughter of the three Bell sisters. She has always been a little different, even for a Bell. A chameleon, she can change her appearance and personality to blend in almost anywhere. She uses this talent to bring some of the worse criminals in the world to justice.Mak ‘Tag Krell Manok is the wild one of his four brothers...Categorized as:
aliens first-contact invasion action-adventure adult alpha-mc alternate-history audiobook -
![Brass Man by Neal Asher]()
Brass Man by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsIan Cormac, a legendary Earth Central Security agent, the James Bond of a wealthy future, is hunting an interstellar dragon, little knowing that, far away, his competition has resurrected an horrific killing machine named "Mr. Crane" to assist in a similar hunt, ecompassing whole star systems. Mr... -
![Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric S. Nylund]()
Halo: Ghosts of Onyx by Eric S. Nylund
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsContinuing the saga of the award-winning Xbox(TM) game!The Spartan-II program has gone public. Tales of super-soldiers fending off thousands of Covenant attacks have become the stuff of legend... -
![Winter World by A.G. Riddle]()
Winter World by A.G. Riddle
Rated: 4.11 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsA new ice age... and a shocking discovery...will change humanity forever.In the near future, a new ice age has begun.Humanity stands on the brink of extinction.Desperate for answers, scientists send probes into the solar system to take readings. Near Mars, a probe spots a mysterious object drifting toward the Sun... -
![Beth's Stable by Amanda Milo]()
Beth's Stable by Amanda Milo
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 23 ratingsThey say that in space, no one can hear you... (Yeah, you know what I'm quoting.) But there are lots of places you can still scream and be heard. Especially if you suddenly find yourself on a ship traveling through space. I’ve been abducted by aliens and auctioned to an alien pirate. My epic love of movies sort of comes in handy, what with all the sci-fi suddenly in my face... -
![Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke]()
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 42 ratingsAn all-time science fiction classic, Rendezvous with Rama is also one of Clarke's best novels--it won the Campbell, Hugo, Jupiter, and Nebula Awards. A huge, mysterious, cylindrical object appears in space, swooping in toward the sun. The citizens of the solar system send a ship to investigate before the enigmatic craft, called Rama, disappears... -
![Jo's Journey by S.E. Smith]()
Jo's Journey by S.E. Smith
Rated: 4.24 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsJo Strauss was committed to two things in her life – her family and her life as an acrobat/high-wire performer. She takes both very serious. Her life was orderly, in control, and she was finally settling down in one place so she could spend more time with her parents instead of moving all over the world every few weeks... -
![Mated by V.K. Ludwig]()
Mated by V.K. Ludwig
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsYou know your Gaia link is broken when your match is 93.While every Vetusian around me is expecting the arrival of the first hybrids, my mate is living out her final days in a nursing home.With true love unattainable, I concentrate on busting the crime ring responsible for the supply of human females forced into prostitution at the Odheim brothels... -
![Alien Paladin's Woman by Vi Voxley]()
Alien Paladin's Woman by Vi Voxley
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSometimes, what the galaxy needs is a hero no one's ever heard of. Tieran, the Commander of the Palian paladins, has never been allowed to have anything of his own, other than the blade in his hands and the honor he serves with. But a feisty, curvy, and utterly impossible human woman is about to change all that... -
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![Taken by Harmony Raines]()
Taken by Harmony Raines
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsChrissi always dreamed of being an astronaut, just like her dad, devoting her whole life to Operation Saviour, the human race’s last ditch attempt to find a new home. But days before her first launch, the project was cancelled, leaving her to pick up the pieces of her life. All thanks to the arrival of the Karal... -
![Warrior by Anna Hackett]()
Warrior by Anna Hackett
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsFighting for love, honor, and freedom on the galaxy’s lawless outer rim… It was supposed to be an exciting job on a space station, but instead, scientist Dr. Regan Forrest finds herself fighting for her life when she’s kidnapped by alien slavers... -
![Between Worlds Two (The Occupation Saga Book 2) by J.L. Williams]()
Between Worlds Two (The Occupation Saga Book 2) by J.L. Williams
Rated: 4.63 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsInspired by the likes of James Galloway's Subjugation and John Scalzi's Old Man's War, Between Worlds is a thrilling military sci-fi set in a strange new universe.. -
![Barbarian's Redemption by Ruby Dixon]()
Barbarian's Redemption by Ruby Dixon
Rated: 4.16 of 5 stars · 35 ratingsFor seasons, I have waited for her - my perfect mate. In a tribe full of happy couples, I am alone. But I am not content to remain this way. There are no eligible unmated females left, so I will do whatever it takes to bring females back to our tribe...even if it means doing something wrong. Even if it means I must purchase my mate on the intergalactic black market... -
![Viper's Defiant Mate by S.E. Smith]()
Viper's Defiant Mate by S.E. Smith
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPrince Viper d’Rojah, a warrior from the Sarafin cat shifter species, is not happy when he is sent on a special mission by his older brother Vox, King of the Sarafin. The mission is to deliver important documents to the human authorities before kidnapping the sister and grandmother of Vox’s mate, Riley... -
![Dagger's Hope by S.E. Smith]()
Dagger's Hope by S.E. Smith
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDagger is a Trivator warrior. He is known for his dark and dangerous edge, making him the perfect warrior for impossible missions. He fears nothing, until he meets a young, delicate human female who wakens his heart. Her gentle touch, soft voice, and her shy sense of humor touch him in a way he never thought could happen...
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