[jrjarrett]

Musk was re using ships from Iain Banks’ Culture series where ships are sentient.

Voice Of The Whirlwind is from The Expanse series, where a human colony finds ancient aliens tech and builds a class of warship called the Magnetar-class shops. They use an intense magnetic weapon to literally dissociate an Earth station as a show of force.

[jquery]

I've read one book in that series, "Surface Detail", and really enjoyed it. I tried reading the first one in the series and got bored... any others in the series you can strongly recommend? Player of Games maybe?

[exhilaration]

My opinion: The Player of Games was kind of lousy. It sounds like you haven't read Consider Phlebas, which is the first book in the series (at least according to Audible). That was pretty good.

[KSteffensen]

Depends on what you like. I remember Consider Phlebas as a series of vignettes, while Player of Games is a coherent story. I like the coherent stories and also think Excession is quite good.

[KineticLensman]

Yes , consider Phlebas is more like a series of episodes with a connecting arc. The goals are stated at the beginning

[jquery]

I'll give consider phlebas another shot. Thanks.

[ridgeguy]

You might try Use of Weapons. If nothing else, it might change your views on a certain class of furniture.

[WJW]

Excession is also really nice.