Favorite Stand-Alone Sci-fi list

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

I thought, since a lot of sci-fi tends to be found in series or trilogies that I'd grab a list of sci-fi works that can be read alone.

[Jim]

Lord of Light, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny & The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany can go on both your SF & Fantasy list, although they fall more here.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is actually a bunch (8?) connected of short stories, so I don't know if it fits.

There's a lot more, of course, but those came to mind first.

[Mark]

how about the martian chronicles by ray bradbury for your list.

[Diana]

BELLWEATHER by Connie Willis is the first to come to my mind. Also Star Troopers By Robert Heinlein.

[Kevin]

Jim wrote: "Lord of Light, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny & The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany can go on both your SF & Fantasy list, although they fall more here.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I, Robot b..."

When I think of a stand along novel, it usually means a book that is not part of a series.

[Jonathan , Reader of the fantastic]

Kevin wrote: "Jim wrote: "Lord of Light, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny & The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany can go on both your SF & Fantasy list, although they fall more here.

Dune by Frank Herbert..."

That's kind of what I'm aiming for! Yeah. But if a book can stand on its own then that works too...

[Stefan]

A couple of Sci-Fi additions:

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

The War of the Worlds

[David]

Einstein Intersection is an amazing book. Delany's Dhalgren, Nova and Babel-17 are all great stand alone novels too.
Pretty much anything by Philip K. Dick, but Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and The Man In The High Castle are must reads.

It's amazing how many books I think of as stand alone novels (like Rendezvous With Rama) now have sequels and maybe don't fit this description any more, but when they were written, a sequel was pretty unthinkable.

Michael Swanwick's Stations of the Tide
LeGuin's The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness
To get more obscure: R. A. Lafferty's Fourth Mansions

I could go on and on.

[[deleted user]]

Unlike the fantasy sub-genre, excellent stand-alone science fiction novels are just way too easy to list:

Frankenstein
A Journey To The Center Of The Earth
The Time Machine
R.U.R.
1984
Brave New World
Childhood's End
Starship Troopers
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Stranger in a Strange Land
Slaughterhouse-Five
Rite of Passage
Earth Abides
Tau Zero
A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Choice of Gods
The Mote in God's Eye
Snow Crash
The Difference Engine
Timescape
Contact
The Speed of Dark
The Windup Girl

Edit: adding...
I Am Legend
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The Man Who Folded Himself
Non-Stop
Roadside Picnic
Who Goes There?
When Harlie Was One

....This game is way too easy.

And if you allow novels that began as singletons but later picked up sequels, the list explodes (2001: A Space Odyssey, Rendezvous With Rama, Gateway, Ringworld, The Forever War, Doomsday Book, Old Man's War, Darwin's Radio, Boneshaker, Neuromancer, Saturn's Children...)

[David]

I think of sf being dominated by series books as a rather newish development. When I started reading it, I mostly avoided series books because the top of the line stuff was always the stand alone novels. There were exceptions, of course, like Foundation and Dune. But even with Dune, I never made it past, Children of Dune. It was the original that was the real classic. I think what most of us were looking for in SF back then was something totally new and alien with each new read. What brought me back to a writer's work was writing style, not necessarily characters and settings.

[[deleted user]]

David wrote: "I think of sf being dominated by series books as a rather newish development.... The top of the line stuff was always the stand alone novels...."

An interesting point. Certainly stand-alone science fiction is much more common than fantasy (especially the heroic fantasy/sword and sorcery sub-sub-genre).

Even in the case of "Dune", I think the first book was written stand-alone, and simply picked up sequels after it became incredibly popular. That was just commercial pressure, sales potential neither Herbert nor his publisher could ignore.

Still, sci-fi series have a distinguished history: E. E. "Doc" Smith had three series: Skylark, Lensman, Family d'Alembert. Lewis had his "Space Trilogy" in addition to Narnia.

While sequels and series involving recurring characters or "universes" are present in science fiction, actual "trilogies" that require reading more than one book to complete the story, such as "Foundation", seem pretty rare in sci-fi. Campbell's "Lost Fleet" comes to mind, Moon's Vatta's War, E. Bear's Jenny Casey trilogy, and maybe KSR's "Mars" trilogy.

Except, these days, trilogies seem all the rage in YA dystopian sci-fi: "The Hunger Games", "Uglies", "Divergent", "The Maze Runner", "Leviathan".

There are lots of SF series that have individual books that are pretty much self-contained, just recurring characters & universes. Some are old: Asimov's robot stories, Anderson's "Dominic Flandry", Norton's "Moonsinger", Niven's "Known Space" novels and short stories, Laumer's "Reteif", Dickson's Dorsai, Pohl's Heechee, Weber's Honor Harrington, Bujold's Vorkosigan, Card's "Ender's Game", Moon's Serrano-Suiza, Scalzi's "Old Man's War", Huff's "Confederation", KKR's "Diving", etc. Stross currently has three series going (each with two self-contained books, so far!)

Sorry, this kind of rambled...

[David]

Of course, if you go back before Lord of the Rings, Fantasy was mostly stand alone novels too. And even Lord Of the Rings was intended as one long novel, but it was long enough it was broken into three books. Trilogies and series are about marketing and satisfying a fan base. Today writers can be and are in touch with their fan base on a daily basis. Fifty or sixty years ago that wasn't possible and a writer's contact with the fans was mostly conventions and letters. They didn't have to play so much to their demands. Now it makes sense to keep writing what your fans like, at least part of the time. I think readers didn't think as much about demanding things of writers back then either. It was more a curiosity about what the writer would do next. Now we demand more of the same.

[David]

Ender's Game wasn't intended to be a series, initially. In fact, Speaker For The Dead wasn't going to be an Ender novel when Card first wrote it. He changed it after the breakthrough success of Ender's Game because he knew he had to give people more Ender. I don't think that would have happened even 10 years before.

[Jim]

David wrote: "...I think readers didn't think as much about demanding things of writers back then either..."

I seem to recall one writer complaining about what his fans demanded way back when. Might have been Heinlein who began replying with a form letter. Seems he had people writing to him that they'd be in town & expected to meet him or drop by. It was incredibly rude, as I recall, but it's been a lot of years, so the details are hazy.

[Jim]

David wrote: "Ender's Game wasn't intended to be a series, initially. In fact, Speaker For The Dead wasn't going to be an Ender novel when Card first wrote it. He changed it after the breakthrough success of End..."

Good point. Zelazny wrote Nine Princes in Amber as a stand alone. He left it wide open for another book, but it was years before he was talked into it. Then he whipped out 4 to bring the story to a decent end. It had been so long since the first that he wound up getting some of the details wrong, though.

I wonder how much depended on the editor? When Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) first wrote The Hunter, he intended for it to be a stand alone. The editor had him change it some & it became the Parker series, about 2 dozen books & very popular with the pulp, mystery, & thriller crowds.

Sorry, I know those examples aren't in the genre, but they're two that came to mind.

[Stef]

Solaris As I know there are no sequels for it.

[Stef]

David wrote: "Of course, if you go back before Lord of the Rings, Fantasy was mostly stand alone novels too. And even Lord Of the Rings was intended as one long novel, but it was long enough it was broken into t..."

Lord of the Rings can be considered both stand alone and part of Middle Earth series: The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales

[Deborah]

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin is a classic stand alone and WELL worth the read.

Amazon describes it as 'groundbreaking feminist SF', but I'd just class it as excellent SF.

[David]

Today what happened to Heinlein might be considered stalking. But I was thinking more in terms of demands on what he wrote than entertaining fans at his home. You didn't have to sell as many copies of your book back then to be successful either. Today it makes sense to build a following on a continuing series to sell more books because it takes a lot of sales to be successful and keep book deals coming.

[Pickle]

The Stars My Destination is a cracking book but i tend to love lots of the 50/60s sci-fi.

[David]

Alfred Bester is awesome. In my opinion his books age well. The Demolished Man was great too.

[[deleted user]]

For fannish history I recomend:

The Immortal Storm
The Futurians
The Way the Future Was
Brave New Words
The Fancyclopedia vol. 1 & 2

all, sadly out of print, but you can find the Fancyclopedias for free on-line, just google.

[Xdyj]

There are also some possibly less known, but imho interesting sf:
The Yiddish Policemen's Union
China Mountain Zhang
Schild's Ladder
The Years of Rice and Salt
Brown Girl in the Ring
Divine Endurance
Bone Dance
I also think The Time Traveler's Wife is quite good as a sf novel.

[Bobby]

Pickle wrote: "The Stars My Destination is a cracking book but i tend to love lots of the 50/60s sci-fi."

So do I!

[Bobby]

Kevin wrote: "Jim wrote: "Lord of Light, This Immortal by Roger Zelazny & The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany can go on both your SF & Fantasy list, although they fall more here.

Dune by Frank Herbert..."

Hmmm...Dune is part of a series but man, it definitely can stand alone. I have no problem with it being included.

[[deleted user]]

Bobby wrote: "Dune is part of a series but man, it definitely can stand alone. I have no problem with it being included."

There are plenty of excellent science fiction books that stand alone (and were written to be that way) that subsequently picked up sequels. E,g,: 2001, Rendezvous With Rama, Gateway, Ringworld, The Forever War, Dragon's Egg, Doomsday Book, Old Man's War, Darwin's Radio, Altered Carbon, Boneshaker, Neuromancer, Saturn's Children, Halting State.

For me, when one divides speculative fiction into sci-fi and fantasy, I put Dune on the fantasy list. Hokey religions, strange mental powers, ancient prophecies. To me, it's always seemed sword and sorcery with a few spaceships that are pretty much inconsequential to the story.

[Bobby]

G33z3r wrote: "Bobby wrote: "Dune is part of a series but man, it definitely can stand alone. I have no problem with it being included."

There are plenty of excellent science fiction books that stand alone (and ..."

I hear you. I get that. But then, so is STAR WARS, Lord of Light or Stranger in a Strange Land (hokey religion, strange mental powers, etc.) you know what I'm saying? The reason we tend to talk about the two together (sci-fi and fantasy) so often is because the lines between them are often blurred. You look at say, The Martian Chronicles or even Asimov's Foundation and with a few changes, either might be seen as a "fantasy" book. Labels, you know.

[[deleted user]]

Bobby wrote: "I get that. But then, so is STAR WARS, Lord of Light or Stranger in a Strange Land (hokey religion, strange mental powers, etc.) you know what I'm saying? The reason we tend to talk about the two together (sci-fi and fantasy) so often is because the lines between them are often blurred."

Okay.

At one time there was a trend to just call SF "Speculative Fiction", and for the most part I'd rather not waste a lot of time trying to drop things into nice clean categories. (Although tags, labels, keywords or bookshelves or whatever can be useful for tracking down or recommending books of similar style.)

A lot of far-future sci-fi might as well be fantasy (you have to hand-wave furiously to justify FTL, but without it you really can't put together many space operas or alien contact stories.)

[[deleted user]]

i once read that SF has rivits and fantasy has trees. also read SF has science and fantasy has magic. the problem with the last is Clark's law in which case you really cant tell the dif between SF and Fantasy.

[Xdyj]

G33z3r wrote: "Bobby wrote: "I get that. But then, so is STAR WARS, Lord of Light or Stranger in a Strange Land (hokey religion, strange mental powers, etc.) you know what I'm saying? The reason we tend to talk a..."

There are space operas w/o ftl, though in that case hand waving is still required to make interstellar travel possible & make sure that the protagonists can live long enough for the plot.

[David]

And then there's Michael Swanwick's experiments writing a fantasy novel using SF tropes and an SF novel using fantasy tropes. In The Iron Dragon's Daughter, the dragons are metal like spaceships and Stations of the Tide really operates more like a fantasy but is Science Fiction.

I've always felt Science Fiction is a subset of fantasy where you use what we know about the real world in science as the rules the fictional world runs on, whereas in fantasy, you make up your own rules. But I know that drives your hardcore Science Fiction fans absolutely bonkers.

[Jim]

I agree with G33z3r in that pigeon-holing books into genres is fairly futile. My favorite books defy it, anyway. One of the things I like about the computer age is we can easily put books on multiple shelves, unlike in the physical world.

[Diana]

It is getting harder and harder to divide the genres. Not just Science Fiction and fantasy but also Mystery, horror and romance. I've read books classified as Mysteries where the detective is a Vampire or are narrated by a cat and romances that involve time travel or Space aliens. In some ways this is good because it takes away from the rigid formulas that so many of the genre books used to have.

[[deleted user]]

as Charles Fort said "the compartments spill"

[Ben]

Glad to see someone mentioning the great Karl Copek although RUR is a play his War with the Newts is a classic SF novel that is massively under read.

[Hillary]

Since I added a few to the stand-alone fantasy list, .

Although I prefer Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. LeGuin's The Dispossessed is also a classic.

Elizabeth Bear has a couple of sci-fi trilogies, but I really enjoyed the stand-alone Carnival.

I don't see any Sheri Tepper on the list -- Grass is a stand-alone standout.

And it seems to me a lot of Kay Kenyon's works are stand-alone -- The Seeds of Time, Maximum Ice, Braided World.

Probably cheating is Richard Paul Russo's future-urban-detective Carlucci 3-in-1 trilogy, though there's now an omnibus edition.

Scalzi's already been mentioned, but for fairly light reading, I enjoyed his Redshirts.

[Baelor]

Wow. I cannot believe no one has mentioned Cat's Cradle or The Gods Themselves.

[Michele]

What about Michael Crichton? Jurassic Park, Andromeda Strain, Sphere, Timeline are all stand alone, and I'd call them scifi, even though they usually are classified as techno-thriller or action or something.

The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton is a great stand alone.

Scalzi's Redshirts, Robert J. Sawyer's Flashforward, Reamde and other stuff by Neal Stephenson, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (sp?), William Gibson's stuff.

[Leif]

For stand alones I'm missing

Glory Season by David Brin

For independent series novels I think both David Brin and Vernor Vinge has made novels that stand alone yet emphasize the distance to the sequel by having stark opposite settings.

Brin: Startide Rising / Uplift War - Waterwold / desertworld
Vinge: A Fire upon the Deep /A Deepness in the Sky - High tech / lowe tech

For you labelling fans:

Clan of the Cave Bear, where will you put it.
It fits in with Hard Science Fiction. (It defines and explores a set of conjectures and technology, but there are no rivets.)

[Tim]

I just finished "Oryx and Crake," Margaret Atwood, and I was disappointed that there was a cliffhanger ending. It's the first of a trilogy, and I knew that beforehand; but they were written fairly far apart, and with different characters, so I'd hoped there would be more closure. I have to say I usually prefer the one-and-done.

[V.W.]

Christopher Rowley's "The Vang: The Military Form" in a fun and different treatment of alien invasion that is part of a series but stands well alone.

[Mary]

David wrote: "Of course, if you go back before Lord of the Rings, Fantasy was mostly stand alone novels too. And even Lord Of the Rings was intended as one long novel, but it was long enough it was broken into t..."

If you go back before The Lord of the Rings you find only trivial amounts of fantasy.

[Mary]

These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman
A Brother's Price by Wen Spencer
Tower of Dreams by Jamil Nasir
Limbo System by Rick Cook
Dread Companion by Andre Norton
Catseye by Andre Norton
The Ice Crown by Andre Norton
After Doomsday by Poul Anderson

[V.W.]

I liked "After Doomsday" a lot. A very interesting take on space adventure.

[Bryan]

I really loved Asimov's The gods themselves and The end of eternity, but like G33zer said, SF stand alone books are a lot more common than fantasy so the list could be huge. Also it seems to me more and more SF authors have been writing trilogies in recent years

[Pickle]

iev really enjoyed Alastair Reynolds stand alone stuff.

[Michael]

Spooky1947 wrote: "i once read that SF has rivits and fantasy has trees. "
But then we run into Niven's The Integral Trees, which revolves around trees, but is undoubtedly SF, or books like Big Iron: Iron Kingdoms Chronicles, which feature lots of fantasy like swords, monsters, and big rivets on robots powered by magic.

[Leo]

"Ready Player One" is probably my favorite stand-alone Sci-Fi novel - couldn't put it down. Plus, it's pretty relevant to the direction technology is going. And also, what's not to love about the 80's pop culture?

[Mary]

The true definition of SF vs. fantasy is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8873...

[James]

Some my favorite stand alone in science fiction are Childhood's End, Fahrenheit 451, and The Martian Chronicles. I hope that these suggestions help you out Jonathan.