Filed under Sci-fi
The best military sci-fi audiobooks, from my own listening
This is my list of the best military sci-fi audiobooks, from my own listening rather than a round-up of other people's. I keep a rating out of six for every series I finish, and the list below is in that order, with the narrator and the length from Audible US as I checked them on 1 November 2026. The big names I haven't heard yet are at the end, labelled as such, because any search for the best military sci fi audiobooks (on Reddit especially) turns them up and you should know where I stand.
Titles link to Audible. If you buy through those links, the site gets a small cut at no extra cost to you.
The ones I've finished
Old Man's War
John Scalzi. Narrated by William Dufris. 9 hours 55 minutes. Six books in the main series.
My rating: six out of six for the series, and a five for every single book in it, which no other series on this site manages. John Perry joins the Colonial Defense Forces on his seventy-fifth birthday, and what follows is funny, fast and surprisingly sad. William Dufris reads the whole run bar one book and his dry delivery is exactly right for Scalzi. If you only try one series from this page, this is it.
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force, Book 1)
Craig Alanson. Narrated by R.C. Bray. 16 hours 23 minutes. Sixteen books and counting.
My rating: four and a half for Columbus Day and a four for the series as a whole, which is honest rather than faint: I have listened to more than a hundred hours of Expeditionary Force this year alone, so it clearly works on me. A sergeant, an alien beer can with a god complex, and a very long war. R.C. Bray as Skippy is one of the great narrator performances; the middle books repeat themselves, and I kept going anyway.
Red Rising
Pierce Brown. Narrated by Tim Gerard Reynolds. 16 hours 12 minutes. Seven books so far.
My rating: six out of six. Not strictly military sci-fi in the first book, which is a school and a game, but from Golden Son on it is a war story, and the best one on this list. I listened to the Graphic Audio full-cast edition, which splits each book in two and adds music and effects; the Tim Gerard Reynolds narration is the one most people mean when they recommend it, and I link both.
Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse, Book 1)
James S. A. Corey. Narrated by Jefferson Mays. 19 hours 9 minutes. Nine books, complete.
My rating: five out of six, and one of the few I have marked as loved. Space opera with a navy in it rather than a soldier's-eye story, but the Martian and Earth fleets, the boarding actions and the politics put it on any military sci-fi list. Jefferson Mays carries nine long books without a wobble.
Ironbound
Andrew Givler. Narrated by Ralph Lister. 21 hours 14 minutes. Released October 2025; book two is out.
My rating: four and a half. The newest thing on this list and the one I filed under military sci-fi without hesitating. Ralph Lister, who reads Malazan, gives it more weight than a new series usually gets. I'm partway into the second book.
Dauntless (The Lost Fleet, Book 1)
Jack Campbell. Narrated by Christian Rummel. 9 hours 55 minutes. Six books in the first series, many more after.
My rating: three out of six. A legendary captain wakes from a century of cold sleep to find a fleet that has forgotten how to fight. Everyone who likes fleet tactics loves this series, and I can see why, but it didn't grab me and I stopped after one. It is here because the question "what did you think of The Lost Fleet" comes up every time.
In progress
Horus Rising (The Horus Heresy, Book 1)
Dan Abnett. Narrated by Toby Longworth. 12 hours 14 minutes. The first of a very, very long series.
No rating yet; I'm a few hours in. Warhammer 40,000's origin story, and the usual advice is that Abnett's opening trilogy is the place to start whether or not you know the game. Toby Longworth has read dozens of these and it shows.
The big names I haven't heard yet
These come up in every thread on the best military science fiction audiobooks. I haven't listened to them, so what follows is the facts, not a verdict.
Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines, Book 1)
Marko Kloos. Narrated by Luke Daniels. 9 hours 36 minutes.
Not heard yet. The one most often recommended beside Old Man's War, and Luke Daniels is a narrator I already rate from Magic 2.0.
Steel World (Undying Mercenaries, Book 1)
B. V. Larson. Narrated by Mark Boyett. 12 hours 7 minutes. Over twenty books.
Not heard yet. Legionnaires who die and are revived, book after book; the series people binge the way I binged Expeditionary Force. I own Larson's Red Company and haven't started that either, so this is on me.
On Basilisk Station (Honor Harrington, Book 1)
David Weber. Narrated by Allyson Johnson. 15 hours 36 minutes. Fourteen main books.
Not heard yet. The naval end of the genre, Hornblower in space, and the series most often named as the definitive one.
Savage Wars (Galaxy's Edge)
Jason Anspach and Nick Cole. Narrated by Stephen Lang. 12 hours 35 minutes.
On my shelf, not started. Galaxy's Edge is the big modern name I keep meaning to get to; Savage Wars is the prequel trilogy and the recommended way in, read by Stephen Lang.
Ender's Game and Starship Troopers
Orson Scott Card, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and Harlan Ellison, 11 hours 57 minutes. Robert A. Heinlein, narrated by R.C. Bray, 8 hours 14 minutes.
The two classics every list starts with. I read both long before I listened to audiobooks, so I can't speak to the recordings, but the Starship Troopers one is new (2024) and read by R.C. Bray, which is reason enough to go back.
Not military, but
If what you liked about Expeditionary Force was the humour and the one-man-and-an-AI setup, the Bobiverse (Dennis E. Taylor, read by Ray Porter) is a six out of six from me and the closest thing to it. More sci-fi is on the best sci-fi audiobooks page.