I've been loving getting back into reading and would love your recs! What are your top standalone Sci-fi/Fantasy books?
Titles I've loved:
American Gods
Chain Gang All-Stars
The Hike
Hail Mary
Sword of Kaigen
Looking forward to hearing your faves!!
by TallDadCA
29 Comments
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. I embarrassingly never read the description very closely and put it off for a long time because I thought it was a mythology retelling based on the cover and I wasn’t feeling that. It is absolutely not a mythology retelling 😂 It is fabulous and don’t read anything beyond the official synopsis if you want to avoid spoilers.
*The Anubis Gates* by Tim Powers. I’ve re-read it at least 7 times. I don’t get how it’s not better known. The plot is at once Byzantine and easy to follow with every development fitting coherently into the whole. A joy to read.
*A Canticle for Leibowitz* by Walter Miller. A post-apocalyptic work of genius.
*The Lathe of Heaven* by Ursula LeGuin. Some of her books are slow and take effort. Not this one. It hooks you in and keeps you turning pages with no way to guess what’s coming next.
*Something Wicked This Way Comes* by Ray Bradbury. Lyrically written. Worth diving into for the style alone. This is the kind of prose Stephen King seems at times to strive for, but he never gets there.
*A Wrinkle in Time* by Madeleine L’Engle. Don’t let the YA label keep you from reading this classic if you haven’t already. Deep and menacing and joyous.
*The Hero from Otherwhere* by Jay Williams. Another YA classic that can be read at any age.
Samuel Delany – Nova
Philip Dick – Ubik
Clive Barker – Weaveworld
Dark Matter and Recursion by Blake Crouch
The Will of the Many by James Islington
David Brin’s “Existence”, a realistic and positive take on our future with a first contact story thrown in
Watership Down, Library at Mount Char, the last unicorn, Lions of Al Rassan, Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky, the Dosadi experiment, Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
The Library at Mount Char
A thousand steps into night, the deep sky, light from uncommon stars, kaikeyi
Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Technically the first in a duo-logy but you can happily read only the first book and be none the worse off for it. Think Canterbury tales in space where on the eve of galactic war seven pilgrims make a quasi-religious journey to the titular planet where their shared stalker, the shrike, resides. The story is framed in seven short stories with the actual journey to their destination tying them together. Great characters. Fantastic world building you only catch glimpses of and if you want more of that the next one Fall of Hyperion expands on it.
Empress of Forever
Kiln People by David Brin
**Sci-fi:**
*The Future of Another Timeline* by Annalee Newitz
*The Windup Girl* by Paolo Bacigalupi
*The Martian* by Andy Weir
**Fantasy:**
*Spinning Silver* and *Uprooted* by Naomi Novik
11/22/63 by Stephen King
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
**Sci Fi**:
Iain M Banks’ *Culture* novels are 100% standalone IMHO so therefore, **The Player of Games** and **Use of Weapons** would be on my list.
Also there would be **The Great North Road** by Peter Hamilton.
**Fantasy**:
Nothing beats **Weaveworld** or **Imajica** by Clive Barker.
Flowers For Algernon
Maybe The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. It was a bit of a slog at first but once all the plot is set up its really worth it i think
Project Hail Mary!
* Flowers for Algernon (thought-provoking sci-fi about an experimental surgery that enhances intelligence) (Daniel Keyes, 1966)
* Something Wicked This Way Comes (a creepy traveling carnival in a sleepy Midwest town) (Ray Bradbury, 1962)
* The Night Circus (both a wizards’ duel and a beautiful, beautiful traveling circus) (Erin Morgenstern, 2011)
* Jurassic Park (DINOSAURS) (disclosure: this has sequels, but the first stands alone) (Michael Crichton, 1990)
* Neuromancer (foundational cyberpunk, beautifully written) (William Gibson, 1984)
* Stardust (short, romantic, with striking characters) (Neil Gaiman, 1999)
* This Is How You Lose the Time War (sapphic epistolary spy/counterspy) (Amal el-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, 2019)
* The Lathe of Heaven (an Ursula K. Le Guin nod to Philip K. Dick, also a really interesting counterpart to Le Guin’s translation of the Tao Te Ching) (Ursula K. Le Guin, 1971)
* One Hundred Years of Solitude (a hauntingly beautiful tangle of magical realism, dreamlike in its confusion) (Gabriel García Márquez, tr. Gregory Rabassa, 1967)
The gone world by Tom Sweterlitsch. Terrifying and exciting, like nothing I ever read before.
Replay by Ken Grimwood
I recently read and loved Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the start of a great trilogy.
I’d also second the recommendation for Iain M Banks, they’re all great but I’d also add Excession to the two already suggested.
For something a bit different, you could try the Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemsin.
[Edit – just re-read your question and saw standalone book, I’d recommend Children of Time, even if you just read that one!]
I recently listened to Kitty Cat Kill Sat by Argus, and it’s way more of a punch to the feels than it sounds like it should be. It instantly went near the top of my Must Recommend list.
The premise is that an uplifted (hyper intelligent) housecat is the sole occupant of an orbiting space station in the far future. From there, she protects the remnants of humanity from various threats, mainly through the use of orbital bombardment of said threats. The station was not built with cats in mind.
Library at Mount Char feels similar to American Gods
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
The Institute and 11/22/63 by Stephen King
Most of Blake Crouch’s and Peter Clines’ novels are interesting
Just realized that Most of the sci-fi I love is in series. Always have to recommend Red Rising even if that doesn’t qualify as standalone.
Any of the Strugatsky brothers books are interesting; Faerie Tale by Raymond Feist; American Gods; Good Omens; S by Doug Dorst (and JJ Abrams) – this last one not really sci fi not really fantasy, kind of defies classification in some ways.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clark. It’s a story about two magicians in 19th century England who have a rivalry/friendship. It’s long but the writing is phenomenal.
Tigana by Guy Gabriel kay
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Great North Road by Peter Hamilton.
The Power by Naomi Alderman! Incredible social commentary and world building- i really couldn’t put it down. A power to conjure and control electricity is awakened in every girl and woman on earth (any afab person) and it goes through what happens after politically, socially, etc, almost like it’s a historical retelling of these events. HUGE content warnings though for SA, CSA, violence.