Action/Adventure Aficionados discussion

Name says it all. What are the best action scenes ever to grace a science fiction novel? Here are some of my choices:

The climactic showdown in Player of Games.

Emperor Gregor's ship saving Miles in The Vor Game

The Klendathu Battle from Starship Troopers

The Martian War Machines vs. the Thunder Child in War of the Worlds

The Soldiers tale from Hyperion

The Surprise Attack on the Barracks from All You Need Is Kill

The Battles in the Hells from Surface Deatil (probably my favorite of the Culture Novels)

What are your favorites?

probably 'Dune', (although there's action throughout the whole of the book) the final attack scene is a doozey

This Immortal by Roger Zelazny has some great ones. When Conrad fights the golem, Hassan fights the Dead Man, & the final action scene where they both fight the Thessaly. Zelazny paid a lot of attention to his fight scenes. He even learned fencing just so he could write sword fighting scenes better.

David Webber's HonorHarington series.Its practically all battle all the time.

Altered Carbon has some really intense action scenes. Pretty in your face.

Starship Troopers would get my vote for that every time. Starship Troopers

I liked all the scenes in Old Man's War, it was solid from start to finish!

It's interesting to read Starship Troopers (1959) by Robert A. Heinlein & then Joe Haldeman's rebuttal 15 years later, The Forever War (1974). They had totally different military service & experiences.

A decade later, John Steakley wrote Armor (1984) which is another take on man versus bug in a war for survival while wearing armored war suits.
Old Man's War (2005) by John Scalzi is yet another take on the infantry of the future, again in armored suits.

There are a lot of similarities, but it's the differences in the books & the societies they represent that I find interesting.