If you like cyberpunk then try the Takeshi Kovacs series by Richard K. Morgan
it starts with Altered Carbon
(from
wiki)
In the novel's somewhat
dystopian world, human personalities can be stored digitally and downloaded into new bodies, called sleeves. Most people have cortical stacks in their spinal columns that store their memories. If their body dies, their stack can be stored indefinitely. Catholics have arranged that they will not be resleeved as they believe that the soul goes to Heaven when they die, and so would not pass on to the new sleeve. This makes Catholics targets for murder, since killers know their victim will not be resleeved to testify. A UN resolution to alter this legal position forms one strand of the novel's plot, to allow the authorities to sleeve a deceased Catholic woman temporarily to testify in a murder trial.
While most people can afford to get resleeved at the end of their lives, they are unable to update their bodies and most go through the full ageing process each time which discourages most from resleeving more than once or twice. So while normal people can live indefinitely in theory, most choose not to. Only the wealthy are able to acquire replacement bodies on a continual basis. The long-lived are called Meths, a reference to the Biblical figure
Methuselah. The very rich are also able to keep copies of their minds in remote storage, which they update regularly. This ensures that even if their stack is destroyed, they can be resleeved.
The Subterrene War series by TC McCarthy is good too
it starts with Germline but peaks at the third book Chimera
(from Amazon)
Germline (n.) the genetic material contained in a cellular lineage which can be passed to the next generation.
Also: secret military program to develop genetically engineered super-soldiers (
slang).
War is Oscar Wendell's ticket to greatness. A reporter for
The Stars and Stripes, he has the only one way pass to the front lines of a brutal war over natural resources buried underneath the icy, mineral rich mountains of Kazakhstan.
But war is nothing like he expected. Heavily armored soldiers battle genetically engineered troops hundreds of meters below the surface. The genetics-the germline soldiers-are the key to winning this war, but some inventions can't be un-done. Some technologies can't be put back in the box.
Kaz will change everything, not least Oscar himself. Hooked on a dangerous cocktail of adrenaline and drugs, Oscar doesn't find the war, the war finds him.
If you want something with a more Trekkie vibe you can try The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell
Starts with Dauntless:
(from wiki)
he Alliance has been fighting the Syndicate Worlds (a union of planets under a tyrannical, corporate-like government) for a century. The Alliance, however, has obtained a "
hypernet key" from a Syndic traitor, allowing them to send a large fleet through a hypernet gate to directly attack the Syndic homeworld. This turns out to be a trap and the remnants of the Alliance fleet find themselves at the mercy of overwhelming Syndic forces.
During the approach to the Syndic homeworld, the fleet had discovered the escape pod of
Captain John Geary in an abandoned star system. Known as "Black Jack" in the present, his legendary exploits are taught to every schoolchild and he is revered for his heroic last stand in the early days of the war. The Black Jack Geary legend includes the expectation that one day he will return from the dead to lead the Alliance fleet to victory. Awakened from hibernation, the posthumously-promoted survivor still sees himself as a regular and all-too fallible naval officer, one who could not possibly live up to his flawlessly heroic legend. After an act of Syndic treachery during surrender negotiations, Geary, as the most senior captain, is left as the
de facto fleet commander and with great reluctance takes it upon himself to lead the fleet to the safety of Alliance space. Geary does this in the knowledge that the survival of the hypernet key, the fleet, and of the Alliance itself, all depend on him.
NOTE: It's not as well written as the first two but it's a good read, and really explores how battleships battles in space (using ships that are capable of FTL travel).
