The Sword and Laser discussion

I love me some Sci-fi that is full of pitched space battles and laser fights. Something along the lines Of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica where colonial vipers are chasing down cylon Raiders or The Trench run in New Hope. I love Small groups infiltrating enemy bases in full on laser pistol battles, great geeky over-the-top action scenes.
Ive done my quota of Hard Sci-fi for a bit and just want some fun...any suggestions from the Sword and Laser Community? Pew pew :)

P.S. Also love horror Sci-fi Ridley Scott's Alien and Prometheus is amazing to me so if you have anything like that to suggest TRUE Horror Sci-FI throw it to me please :)
Thanks again

The Honor Harrington series might work for you starting with On Basilisk Station. if you really want to go back in time check out The Stainless Steel Rat. Lots of books in this series.

I started a series recently that I absolutely loved that started with Quarter Share.

The Serrano Legacy series by Elizabeth Moon (first one , or first omnibus Heris Serrano) has some great space battles & laser fights over the course of the series.

Space Battles: Full Throttle Space Tales #6, part of a series of anthologies done by a small press in CO.

Ian Douglas seems like that. I read Earth Strike, which has several space battles.

How about some John Carter or perhaps Vorkorsigan novels?

The Deathstalker series by Simon R. Green sounds perfect for you.

Thanks guys :)

For a real comedic take on the military SF action hero, try Phule's Company.

Genuine popcorn sci-fi? Hmm...

The Sten novels by Allan Cole and Chris Bunch.


Sten
The Wolf Worlds
The Court of a Thousand Suns
Fleet of the Damned
Revenge of the Damned
The Return of the Emperor
Vortex
Empire's End

The Man-Kzin Wars books are about a popcorn-y as you get.


The Man-Kzin Wars
I believe there are 13 books of short story collections in this series, along with Destiny's Forge, a novel.

It's not outer space, but the Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson is genuine widescreen epic fun that starts off with World War II naval battles then goes to an alternate Earth where dinosaurs never went extinct... and the story manages to get bigger and bigger.


Into the Storm
Crusade
Maelstrom
Distant Thunders
Rising Tides
Firestorm
Iron Gray Sea

And of course the Old Man's War series by John Scalzi.


Old Man's War
The Ghost Brigades
The Last Colony
Zoe's Tale
The Human Division (currently being serialized in ebook format)

You might like John Ringo. His books have action a plenty.

A Hymn Before Battle is troop based military SF (it's also available in eBook for free from Baen).
Live Free or Die is space opera style military SF.

Both of these are the first books in a series.

Live Free or Die was mostly Big Dumb Object construction I thought.

Lensman?

Empire of man quartet by David Weber and John Ringo
Starts with March Upcountry March Upcountry
Has space battles, laser battles, hoards of 4 armed aliens with axes and pikes, Espionage, and more lol

Trike wrote: "The Man-Kzin Wars books are about a popcorn-y as you get.


The Man-Kzin Wars
I believe there are 13 books of short story collections in this series, along with..."

HAve The Old mans war books (read first one)
Have The Destroyermen books but havent got there yet (picked them up at Borders going out of Busines sale)
I Heard The Man-Kzin books were pretty bad.
Never Heard of Sten

I just finished Weird Space: The Devil's Nebula - that's leans towards the Horror Sci-Fi genre I'd think.

The Kassa Gambit is good, fun sci-fi.
The ABACUS Protocol was fun.

The Mecha Wars novels are really great popcorn sci-fi. Written by Brett Patton.

@Carlos, you mean E. E. Doc Smith?

Triplanetary
First Lensman
Galactic Patrol
Gray Lensman
Second Stage Lensmen
The Vortex Blaster
Children of the Lens

I would categorize superheroes as popcorn sci-fi. So for those who may be interested, I will plug my little book here which features, mechs, nanosuits, futuristic armies, and a kick ass superheroine.


The Silver Ninja

The website is the book title with a dot com at the end. Enjoy if you get a chance to check it out!

Travis wrote: "Empire of man quartet by David Weber and John Ringo
Starts with March Upcountry March Upcountry
Has space battles, laser battles, hoards of 4 armed aliens with axes and pikes, Espionage, and more lol"

Wow, Ringo and Weber.. the body count in those must be off the charts :)

Paul wrote: "HAve The Old mans war books (read first one)
Have The Destroyermen books but havent got there yet (picked them up at Borders going out of Busines sale)
I Heard The Man-Kzin books were pretty bad.
Never Heard of Sten"

Like any long-running series, the quality of the man-Kzin stories goes up and down. The first couple Man-Kzin books are brilliant, especially the Dean Ing story in the first one. I recently read the 13th volume and it was a genuine return to form -- fun, funny and bloody, just the way Known Space should be.

The Sten series is quite fun. Cole and Bunch are (well, in Bunch's case, "was") ex-Vietnam vets who became screenwriters, so their writing is pretty lean and each book takes its inspiration from a classic film. Sten himself has a cool weapon, too: a knife that can cut through nearly everything that he keeps inside his forearm.

Noah wrote: "The Deathstalker series by Simon R. Green sounds perfect for you."

Very good series. Tons of action and fun characters. The Starfist series is pretty good military scifi also.

Trike wrote: "The Sten series is quite fun. Cole and Bunch are (well, in Bunch's case, "was") ex-Vietnam vets who became screenwriters, so their writing is pretty lean ..."

I know Bunch from some of his fantasy books. Most of those contain some explicit sex. As you are recommending them here I assume the Sten books do not?

*adds Bunch to his to-read list.*

AndrewP wrote: "Trike wrote: "The Sten series is quite fun. Cole and Bunch are (well, in Bunch's case, "was") ex-Vietnam vets who became screenwriters, so their writing is pretty lean ..."

I know Bunch from some of his fantasy books. Most of those contain some explicit sex. As you are recommending them here I assume the Sten books do not?"

There are a couple sex scenes, but my memory is insisting they are no more than PG-13, if that.

Brad T. wrote: "I started a series recently that I absolutely loved that started with Quarter Share..."

Quarter Share doesn't have much popcorn, but it has the best coffee scene I've ever read.

I don't think anyone has mentioned the "The Lost Fleet" series yet. It's big military, not small group, but it is full of action, fast reading, and about as popcorny as it gets. My only big annoyance with the series is that he rehashes a lot of what has gone on before in each new novel.