I picked this book up on a $0.99 Kindle sale a few weeks ago. Just thought I'd throw out a recommendation for it, if you're interested in "realistic" sci-fi.

It's not the best book I've ever read (many parts of the plot really need a lot more development IMO), but I think its depiction of space combat is absolutely fantastic, and very likely will be a pretty accurate portrayal of what battles in space ultimately look like. We're so used to seeing space combat depicted as just dogfighting and close range slug fests. This book was absolutely fascinating to me, because battles start off more like submarine warfare - hours and hours spent maneuvering and trying to detect your enemies without being detected, ships engaging at ranges of tens of millions of kilometers, with the speed of light being the real limiting factor on sensors and determining who/what you can target.

Great read!

Interesting, thanks!

By far the best depictions of space combat I've yet read were in Iain M. Banks novels.

Loved The Algebraist, particularly (especially the bits describing combat at near-light speeds).

"Leviathan Wakes" also had very accurate depictions of ships fighting (and moving in general) in Newtonian space. No hyperdrives, no acceleration compensators, just ships that use gravity the way NASA probes do, and people who have to deal with the debilitating effect of several G of acceleration for days at a time.

"The Mote in God's Eye" also had pretty in-depth description of realistic space travel including G-effects on the crew