Short Series/one off novels

[emimonster]

Ok so I'm new to this forum but I did read the massive reccomendations threads and found that they didn't really say too much about the novels they reccomended other than that, well, somebody liked them.

I am not at all well read in fantasy as I was a humanities major in college and so I read "classic" novels every day and didn't have time to read anything... good. So I need some help.

I don't want to get into some huge saga with more than, say, 7 books. That's probably my limit. I've started Robert Jordan and that may have been too much. Weiss/Hickman's Death Gate Cycle was longer than I wanted to read but I managed it, so I know I could get 7 books in again. The 4 books from the Hobbit to Return of the King is more like what I would prefer. The problem is, any time I find a series that looks like it's short, alas, there are 3 other series the same length that go along with it about the same world and the same thing. I don't want that! I want to finish it and think "that was a good ending." Maybe the ending left questions, or didn't sum up everything and left the reader to guess, but that's fine, that can still be a good ending. It's still.. the END.

I'm a house wife at the moment, so yes, I enjoy some romance in there, but I don't like frivolous sexual encounters. The Rowan? Hated it. Like... reeeeally hated it. Cute little 1 chapter encounters like the steward of Gondor and Eowyn? Loved that. Was gigggling like a school girl over it. Long drawn out angst like there was over Egwene in the Wheel of Time? That's cool with me, as well.

So that's what I'm like. I would truly appreciate it if some people who are much better versed in fantasy could help me out. Thanks so much.

[Jen526]

Yay! This gives me a chance to rec. two of my favorite authors that I don't think get enough exposure.

Martha Wells
She has four standalone books and one trilogy to date. A couple of the standalones take place in the same world as the trilogy, but you don't need to have read any of them to enjoy the others, and the standalones really do stand alone.

Romance isn't the major player in her books, but I've been very impressed with how she lets her characters be *adults* with regards to relationships. So many authors only seem able to write a developing romance like the participants are all 13 years old and crushing on a boy (or girl) for the first time, but what romance Wells includes is much more natural and evolves out of shared experiences. I can't say enough about her characters, overall. She has a real gift for making them seem real and human.

Try Death of the Necromancer (a standalone) first. If that one hits, you should enjoy her other stuff.

Oh, I should mention that her work is not usually set in traditional fantasy-land. (DotN is set in a fantasy-land version of Sherlock Holmes-ish London, for example.) If you're mainly interested in the traditional epic-fantasy setting with the knights and rogues etc, that might be a turn-off.


Carol Berg
Another author who meets your criteria and who I recommend whenever I get the chance, because when I first discovered her, she'd been writing for a while and I liked it so much I couldn't believe there wasn't more buzz about her. Her work so far includes a trilogy, a standalone, and a four-book series, all of which are unrelated to each other.

The Rai-Kirah trilogy (starts with Transformation) was the one that wow'd me the most, but the romance in it doesn't really ramp up until later in the series, as the first book focuses primarily on the evolution of a friendship between two men. The "Bridge of D'Arnath" series, though, should definitely fit the bill in the romance area (starts with Son of Avonar).

[rune]

Any of the books by Robin Hobb, you cant go wrong with those

[nixie]

If your looking for some decent stand alones you can't go far wrong with Guy Gavriel Kaye

[GOLLUM]

Most of the SF and Fantasy Masterwork series are standalones or at worst 2 voulme compilations. Mind you some of these books are more collections of short stories, others standard novel length works.

[ScottSF]

I will second the recomendation of Guy Gavriel Kay. Specifically Tiganna: an epic story in a single volume. Things I liked about it. All the Heroes, and villians are very human. It is very unpredictable. I don't know how else to say this but it is a very 'personal' story. I guess it's another way of saying that while I read Tiganna, I felt great empathy for many of the characters; moreso than any fantasy I had read up until that point. He has other greater single books stories as well.

[Cloud]

I highly recommend Nina Kiriki Hoffman's books, "The Thread that Binds the Bones" and "A Fistful of Sky." Standalone books built in a common, or related modern universe of magic (along with "Silent Strength of Stones" which is also very good), they are complete, short, and very wonderful.

[Daeruin]

I'm somewhat new to the forums, as well. Welcome, from another newcomer! I also wish people here would talk a little bit more about why they like things. I finally joined the forum because so many people seemed to like the same things as I do--presumably for the same reasons.

I recommend anything by Parke Godwin and Tad Williams. Tad Williams's longest series so far has only four books. He tends to be a little long-winded despite that (his books are really long), but if you stick with him, his stories can be very rewarding. I have thoroughly enjoyed every one of his books (except for his first novel, which I still haven't read). The Dragonbone Chair is a good starter, a fairly standard epic fantasy trilogy. His other books are less standard.

Godwin's Firelord is an amazing novel. My wife was also a humanities major who read a lot of classic works. She has never read much fantasy, but Firelord is now one of her favorite books of all time. Firelord does have the disadvantage of being yet another King Arthur book, but if you are somewhat new to the fantasy genre, that shouldn't bother you (yet). Its sequel, Belove Exile, is a fantastic follow-up, and the related story The Last Rainbow is just as excellent (it's one of the few books that has made me actually break down and cry).

I also second the recommendation for Hobb.

[littlemissattitude]

One of my favorite stand-alone fantasies is Enchantment, by Orson Scott Card. It is a modern retelling of Sleeping Beauty that includes some time travel. Another stand-alone of Card's that I like a lot, but that is more science fiction, is Pastwatch, which also concerns time travel, but from a very different angle.

Another stand-alone fantasy that I like a lot is Declare, by Tim Powers. You'd like this one if you like your fantasy mixed with history.

One series that blends time-travel, immortality, comedy, and social comment is the Company series by Kage Baker. The first book, In the Garden of Iden, reads as much like a romance novel as science fiction, but in a good way.

A good fantasy-based but more mainstream novel is The Time Traveler's Wife.

[Ash]

The Barbed Coil by J V Jones is a nice, thick stand-alone fantasy novel with an epic feel to it. I'm not going to champion it as a classic, but it's got some interesting and original ideas and some enjoyable characters, particularly the main (female) protagonist. I'm pretty sure there was a bit of romance in there too, it's been a while since I read it.

[ravenus]

Michael Moorcock's Elric books, although 5-6 in number are each quite short (~200 pages paperback) and self-contained, so you're not obliged to read them in any order, and I believe there are compilations of them.


China Mieville's novels are also self-contained and recommended provided you don't mind that they can contain disturbing kinds of violence and hurt to the main characters (but the story demands them).

[bruno-1012]

You could try the 'Ship who Sang' This is a book, self contained by Anne McCaffery.

Others have added to the universe but always sef contained novels without much reference to the others.

'The Ship Who Searched' I found to be moving.

Also try Dennis McKiernan - a number of his books have brought a lump as I'm reading them.

[Nesacat]

Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast Trilogy is a very good read and there's nothing else to follow along in that world. In fact there's probably nothing else truly like it.

There's also Vellum and it's sequel Ink, a duology by Hal Duncan.

The Earthsea books, four in total by Ursula K LeGuin.

[elvet]

For stand alone books, War of the Flowers is realy good. I'll also mention Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana, Song for Arbonne, Lions of Al-Rassan - are all great reads.