Books like 'Starquake'
Readers who enjoyed Starquake by Robert L. Forward also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
sc-fi hard sci-fi space space-opera first-contact
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The Saints of Salvation by Peter F. Hamilton
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsHumanity is struggling to hold out against a hostile takeover by an alien race that claims to be on a religious mission to bring all sentient life to its God at the End of Time. But while things may look grim in the immediate aftermath of the attack, mankind is busy playing an even longer game than the aliens may have expected... -
Messinants by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsPyre is a volatile planet. Its surface belches heat and noxious gases, forcing downsiders to inhabit domes. But Pyre’s instability isn’t limited to its geology. The colonists, who were marooned in the system hundreds of years ago, have endured a tumultuous history.Exploring Triton, Pyre’s third moon, spacers inadvertently activate an alien dome... -
Redemption by Joshua Dalzelle
Rated: 4.41 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsThere is a fine line between right and wrong, good and evil. For years Jason Burke has straddled that line as best he can, always convinced that despite the violence carried out by him and his team they were firmly on the right side of that line. But as he reflects on his time with Omega Force, he begins to have his doubts... -
Visitor by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.48 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsThe seventeenth novel in Cherryh’s Foreigner space opera series, a groundbreaking tale of first contact and its consequences…The human and atevi inhabitants of Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, have picked up a signal from an alien kyo ship telling them that the ship is inbound toward Alpha... -
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Secret of the Phoenix by Joshua Dalzelle
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsCaptain Jason Burke has begun to suspect that the random attacks on his ship and crew over the last couple of years may not be so random after all. Evidence is mounting that there is something on the Phoenix ... something that powerful factions will stop at nothing to get their hands on... -
Quantum Space by Douglas Phillips
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 30 ratingsThis is an alternate Cover Edition for ASIN: B06ZY9T5Y5.If you liked the authenticity of The Martian, the page-turning pace of Da Vinci Code, and the inspirational world view of Arthur C. Clarke, you'll love Quantum Space.High above the windswept plains of Kazakhstan, three astronauts on board a Russian Soyuz capsule begin their reentry... -
Return of the Archon by Joshua Dalzelle
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsListening length: 9 hoursEach member of Omega Force carries his own baggage. Most of them are running from their pasts or simply trying to forget them. One member of the small mercenary crew is not who he claims to be, however. When his former life collides with his current one, the team is drawn into a conflict that could have profound consequences for the future of an entire species... -
The Long Voyage of the Little Fleet by Mackey Chandler
Rated: 4.40 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsIn the first book of this series "Family Law", Lee's parents and their business partner Gordon found a class A habitable planet. They thought their quest as explorers was over and they'd live a life of ease. But before they could return and register their claim Lee's parents died doing a survey of the surface... -
The Sins of Our Fathers by James S.A. Corey
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsThrough one of the gates, a colony stands alone. Their supplies are low. Their defenses, weak. The leadership is uncertain, and the community fragile. Huge alien beasts threaten the little they have left.But the worst monsters are human, and the greatest dangers are the past they brought... -
Omnia by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsAlex Racine, who led an elite group of humans and SADEs (self-ware digital entities), left the newly discovered planet of Celus-5 under difficult circumstances. Few of the Harakens with Alex thought there was little he could do to bring peace to the embroiled planet... -
Allora by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsUntil the Confederation created Allora, it had produced SADEs (self-aware digital entities) for hundreds of years with enormous consistency and harnessed their capabilities to power the society. But this particular, young SADE was disturbed by her confinement... -
Celus-5 by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsFor the Sojourn’s initial mission, the Haraken explorer ship undertakes the investigation of Celus-5, a world identified by Willem, a SADE (self-aware digital entity), and his team of scientists, as the best prospect for a new colony.What should be a routine survey mission becomes a disaster. To the Harakens’ surprise, they discover, not one, but two alien species engaged in conflict... -
Conspirator by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsFirst in a brand-new "Foreigner" trilogy from Hugo Award winning author C. J. Cherryh. Cajeiri is the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association-and he has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first "ateva" youth to have lived in a human environment...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book female-author -
Haraken by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsNine years of tranquility came to an abrupt end when a Méridien starship entered the Hellébore system, sounding a dire warning for Alex Racine, the Haraken president. Unwanted visitors had arrived again. But this time, they’re not alien; they’re human... -
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The Life of the Mind by John Scalzi
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsPart one of the four parts of the full-length novel, The End of All Things.A down-on-his-luck Colonial Union starship pilot finds himself pressed into serving a harsh master-in a mission against the CU. But his kidnappers may have underestimated his knowledge of the ship that they have, quite literally, bound him to piloting... -
By Other Means by Evan Currie
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe Hayden War has ended and now SOLCOM and the Alliance are face to face in talks, but neither side has the slightest idea what happened in the ultimate battle of the war... -
Sol by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.35 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsSol’s warships paid the ultimate price for threatening the Haraken and New Terran worlds. Now, Haraken President Alex Racine and his Méridien partner, Renée de Guirnon, are engaged in a desperate gamble to stop a war between their worlds and United Earth’s (UE) massive forces before it starts... -
Wherever Seeds May Fall by Peter Cawdron
Rated: 4.32 of 5 stars · 25 ratingsAstronomers from around the world watch in awe as an extrasolar comet approaches Saturn, being drawn in by its immense gravity. When the comet grazes the planet rather than plunging beneath the clouds, speculation is rife... -
Hell's Reach by David VanDyke, B.V. Larson
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsUSA Today bestseller B.V. Larson and Dragon award finalist David VanDyke have released book six in their epic military space opera! The Breakers find a new home among the stars: Utopia. An engineered planet that is vast beyond comprehension with plenty of room to grow. They set up trade routes and work as mercenaries for their supplies… but trouble lurks. Pirates strike their merchant lanes... -
Protector by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsIt's coming up on Cajeiri's birthday. The boy has been promised he can have the young human children he knew from his voyage sent down from the space station for a two week stay. But there's far a darker business going on in the background--a major split compromising the Assassins' Guild, which furnishes security and law enforcement to the whole continent...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book female-author -
Explorer by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsIt has been nearly ten years since the starship Phoenix returned to Alpha, the station orbiting the world of the atevi, which had been abandoned following a rift between a faction of the station's inhabitants and the spacers' Pilot's Guild... -
Tracker by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsTracker is the sixteenth installment of CJ Cherryh's acclaimed Foreigner series.It’s been a year of upheaval, since Bren Cameron’s return from space—a year when he and the aiji-dowager, one of his most powerful atevi allies, returned home from their two-year interstellar mission to find the government overthrown and their world in chaos... -
Peacemaker by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.36 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsAt last—Cajeiri has his young guests from the starship, three young folk entranced by weather and trees and creatures with minds of their own. It’s all he dreamed of.. -
The Long-Range War by Christopher G. Nuttall
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe gloves have finally come off ... The Tokomak, the unquestioned masters of the galaxy, have dispatched a massive fleet to crush the Solar Union - and the fledgling Galactic Alliance - before the human race and its alien allies can tear the galactic order asunder. Hundreds of thousands of starships under the command of an alien tactical genius, bent on exterminating the entire human race .. -
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Intruder by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe civil war among the alien atevi has ended. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri his son and heir, and his human paidhi, Bren Cameron, have returned to the Bujavid, their seat of power.But factions that remain loyal to the opposition are still present, and the danger these rebels pose is far from over...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book female-author -
Déjà Vu by Peter Cawdron
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsJessica Rowe is an astrobiologist onboard the starship Intrepid, bound for the star system Procyon Alpha A. As much as she tries to quell her nerves, she can't shake the feeling she's going to die. She feels as though she's never going to leave the Intrepid alive—and she's right... -
Beyond the Aquila Rift: The Best of Alastair Reynolds by Alastair Reynolds
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsLibrarian's Note: an alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here.The very best of Alastair Reynolds’ more than sixty published short stories are gathered in this anthology, a sweeping 250,000 word career retrospective spanning more than fifteen years... -
First Strike by Raymond L. Weil
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe cryosleep chambers are beginning to fail. Surveillance of Hocklyn space has revealed that the Hocklyns are thirty years ahead of their projected schedule and will soon reach human occupied space. War could break out any day if something isn't done... -
Deep Black (Infinite Sky #1) by Samuel Best
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsTwo crews return to Titan. Who will survive?Titan. Sixth moon of Saturn. A deadly enigma harboring the greatest secret in the history of humankind.In the wake of the first mission, two companies with very different goals plot a return to that distant moon. Their ships are safer, their technology has improved…and they want answers... -
The Quantum War by Derek Künsken
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsThe eagerly awaited third volume in the number one bestselling Quantum Evolution series. An all-new, ground-breaking, action-packed new science fiction adventure set in the universe of The Quantum Magician and The Quantum Garden... -
Méridien by S.H. Jucha
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThe Méridiens are fleeing to their far colonies—and they have reason to run. Over the course of decades, they have lost hundreds of ships, billions of people, and seven Confederation colonies to an alien enemy: an advancing swarm of silver ships transported in the bowels of a gigantic, spherical vessel... -
Prelude to Extinction by Andreas Karpf
Rated: 4.21 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsEarth's first interstellar mission -- An alien colony in ruins -- Their fight for survival has only just begun.When Jack Harrison climbed down the short ladder from the airlock and stepped onto the debris covered soil, the ground crackled with the sound of dried leaves and twigs... -
Invaders by Laurence E. Dahners
Rated: 4.42 of 5 stars · 15 ratings“Invaders” is about events that occur several years after those in the novel “Disc.” GSI (Gettnor Space Industries) is beginning to investigate our solar system and mine the asteroids. Aircraft and automobile companies are beginning to switch over to thrusters from their more traditional products. New uses for thrusters are popping up in the healthcare and sports industries...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure aliens book disability fiction hard-sci-fi -
Deceiver by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 23 ratings"One of the best long-running SF series in existence" (Publishers Weekly) continues with the second novel in a brand-new Foreigner sequence. The civil war among the alien Atevi has ended. Tabini-aiji, powerful ruler of the Western Association, along with Cajeiri, his son and heir, has returned to the Bujavid, his seat of power...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book female-author -
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Chanur's Homecoming by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe epic conclusion to the Hugo Award-nominated saga begins as alien entities called "humans" send their first exploration ship into Compact space, disrupting the seven Compact races' alliance. Pyanfar Chanur and her feline hani crew give shelter to the only surviving human from the ship, pitching them into the center of a galactic maelstrom which could cause interstellar war... -
March to the Stars by David Weber, John Ringo
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsStranded on Marduk with his Royal Marine protectors, spoiled prince Roger MacClintock experiences a change in attitude during a long journey back to civilization across a sea filled with dangerous monsters and well-armed enemies... -
Howling Dark by Christopher Ruocchio
Rated: 4.26 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsThe second novel of the galaxy-spanning Sun Eater series merges the best of space opera and epic fantasy, as Hadrian Marlowe continues down a path that can only end in fire.Hadrian Marlowe is lost. For half a century, he has searched the farther suns for the lost planet of Vorgossos, hoping to find a way to contact the elusive alien Cielcin... -
Soldiers of Fortune by Joshua Dalzelle
Rated: 4.23 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsAfter the daring rescue of a political dissident, Omega Force is contracted to investigate a rash of violent attacks on civilian shipping lanes within a group of star systems known as the Concordian Cluster... -
Emergence by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.34 of 5 stars · 17 ratingsThe nineteenth book in C.J. Cherryh's beloved Foreigner space opera series begins a new era for diplomat Bren Cameron, as he navigates the tenuous peace he has struck between human refugees and the alien atevi.Alpha Station, orbiting the world of the atevi, has taken aboard five thousand human refugees from a destroyed station in a distant sector of space... -
Inheritor by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsThe first book in C.J.Cherryh's eponymous series, Foreigner, begins an epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient alien race...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult aliens audiobook book female-author -
Unreconciled by W. Michael Gear
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNow in paperback, the fourth book in the thrilling Donovan sci-fi series returns to a treacherous alien planet where corporate threats and dangerous creatures imperil the lives of the colonists.Where does one put a messianic cult of practicing cannibals? That becomes the question when Ashanti appears in Donovan's skies. She was designed for no more than four years in space. It's taken ten...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera action-adventure adult audiobook book colonization exploration -
Tactics of Conquest by David VanDyke
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsArmed with alien technology and a complete refit, Henrich Absen captains Conquest on a voyage to take back what humanity has lost. Along the way he must confront a new form of life as well as his own demons in this shocking episode of the Plague Wars/Stellar Conquest saga... -
The Legacy of a Conqueror by Saxon Andrew
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom the International Bestselling Author, Saxon Andrew, comes the fourth book in the Escape to Earth Series-The Legacy of a Conqueror. The Combined Fleets have pushed back the invasion fleet from the giant galaxy, M-87. However, another player has entered the game and has attacked M-87 with a vengeance...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera aliens book fiction galactic-empire genetic-engineering hard-sci-fi -
Gregor's Run: The Universe is too Small to Hide by Saxon Andrew
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA young human male orphaned by the death of his adopted father struggles to survive in a universe that offers little more than despair. He’s forced to scrub booster tubes on commercial starships to make enough coins to feed his alcohol addiction in his dirty day-to-day existence. The future looks dark and is getting darker... -
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Effie by C.J. Williams
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsEffie didn’t intend to bring death and destruction to Earth. But with Enforcers in hot pursuit, Special Agent EAFY584 can only escape by crashing her stolen starship out of hyperspace into an uncharted solar system. Fortunately for her, the planet called Earth has a human population. Unfortunately for them, standard Enforcer procedure is to sterilize any planet where a spy might be hiding...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera aliens book colonization female-mc fiction galactic-empire -
Conquest of Earth by David VanDyke
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsPoised to reconquer humanity's home, Captain Absen and Conquest are confronted with a new enemy that upsets the balance of power and changes everything EarthFleet expected. Their struggle to free Earth becomes instead a desperate battle for sheer survival as they contemplate the unthinkable... -
Conquest and Empire by David VanDyke
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBook 5, the final book in the Stellar Conquest series! Over 300 pages packed with your favorite hard-hitting military science fiction adventure.After barely fending off the insectoid Scourge, Admiral Absen frantically prepares for another attack while dealing with politics and treachery from within, even as Spectre pursues his own hidden agenda... -
Mike's War by Saxon Andrew
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHumans have been forced by Aliens to live in peace for fifteen years and things are not going well on the planet. Conditions have not improved and the Elected Leaders are doing little more than lining their own pockets with exorbitant taxes. The crazies are killing people, who no longer have a way to defend themselves and technology has stagnated...Categorized as:
first-contact space-opera aliens book fiction galactic-empire genetic-engineering hard-sci-fi -
Resurgence by C.J. Cherryh
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe twentieth book in the beloved Foreigner saga returns to the trials of diplomat Bren Cameron, as he navigates the tenuous peace he has struck between human refugees and the alien atevi.Bren Cameron, diplomat in residence, usually represents the ruler of the atevi state... -
Revelation: Ascendancy: Book 1 by D. Ward Cornell
Rated: 4.20 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFirst Contact, told from the alien's perspective. Newly edited and released. Michael Baker is a 35 year old, natural born, American citizen from Texas, a successful entrepreneur and amateur astronomer. The scientific community mocks him when he publishes the time and coordinates where a supernova will occur. When it occurs, people start wondering who Michael is...
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