Fantasy fiction is best known for its giant, door-stopping series that come in trilogies or longer. Of course, not everyone wants to embark on a ten-book project. And even if you love series, sometimes it’s nice to read a standalone story that provides a satisfying resolution within a single book. With that in mind, I’ve set out to provide a list of ten fantasy stories that have all the thrills of a series but stand alone as a single volume.
The first thing I should note is that this list is for novel-length works only, although there are tons of great fantasy novellas out there. I also decided that I was only going to list one book by each individual author, which meant making some tough decisions (especially when it comes to Neil Gaiman’s writing). Finally, I wanted each of these books to be a true standalone with no sequel on the way. That means no Goblin Emperor or Elantris! Even with those limitations, I found plenty of standalone fantasy stories I love—enough that I struggled to cap this list at ten. Shout out to some stories that almost made it on here: The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay, Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Roses and Rot by Kat Howard, and The Steel Seraglio by Linda, Louise, and Mike Carey.
Some of the entries on this list are well-known bestsellers; others, not as much. I hope that everyone who reads this will find at least one book that’s new to them.
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
When I set out to create this list, I knew The Last Unicorn had to be on it—it is my favorite of all classic fantasy novels. With its lyrical writing, The Last Unicorn sweeps me away into its timeless story of a unicorn who fears she may be the last of her kind and sets out on a journey to find others. While Peter S. Beagle has returned to this world with some short stories and a novelette, The Last Unicorn remains a standalone novel.
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The Last Unicorn
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a modern-day classic—one that’s even received an adaptation from the BBC. The story follows two Regency-era magicians who are prophesized to bring magic back to England. The two start out as mentor and student but are soon at odds, and their rivalry threatens to destroy them. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a huge tome of a novel, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Clarke writes in the style of nineteenth-century authors such as Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and her narration brims with sly humor. The use of footnotes is simply delightful, with asides that range from commentary on the characters and events to stories-within-stories. It’s a fiendishly clever novel that fully deserves its high renown.
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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
The Devourers by Indra Das
I nearly quit reading The Devourers early on, but I’m so glad I didn’t. In modern-day Kolkata, India, Alok encounters a man who claims to be half werewolf and who has a set of mysterious texts he needs transcribed. From these texts arises the dark story of shapeshifters in Mughal India. The Devourers centers around the rape of a human woman by a male shapeshifter, and the brutality of that section had me struggling with the story. But then the narration is handed squarely to the woman, Cyrah, whose anger and determination make her voice unforgettable. The Devourers is a story about monsters and the monstrous ways we can treat each other, but it’s also a story that insists on holding its characters accountable for their actions. Finally, The Devourers happens to be one of the queerest stories I’ve ever read, embracing fluidity of gender and sexuality.
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The Devourers
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman are both fantastic authors whose work sparkles with humor and humanity. I’m sure most people reading this are familiar with both Gaiman and Pratchett, and I have no doubt that Gaiman’s American Gods makes many people’s list of best standalone fantasy novels. But the authorial team-up of Gaiman and Pratchett is a match made in literary heaven, and as a result, I’ve read Good Omens more times than I can count. The end of the world is nigh, and someone’s misplaced the Antichrist. Can you imagine a more hilarious take on the end of the world? I sure can’t.
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Good Omens
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip
Sadly, I had never read this fantasy classic until last year. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld tells the tale of Sybel, an isolated wizard who lives alone with her menagerie of powerful and magical creatures. Then Sybel finds herself raising the secret son of a king, and her quiet life collides with the world of powerful men. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld explores themes of forgiveness, revenge, love, and power. It’s also exquisitely written and has the feel of an original fairy tale, with all the emotional strength of the very best fables and legends.
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The Forgotten Beasts of Eld
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
Sunshine is one of my all-time favorite books, and I go back to it whenever I need a comfort read. Sunshine needs a break from working at the family bakery and heads out to her grandma’s cabin in the woods. Alone. At night. Which is unwise in a world where humans are barely hanging on in the fight against vampires… I don’t know what I love most about Sunshine, because there’s just so much about it that’s great. McKinley writes Sunshine’s narration in the first person, unleashing a stream of consciousness that’s both hilarious and deeply personal. Perhaps because of that, we see the world she creates only in glimpses, but you know there’s plenty more going on beneath the surface. Sunshine herself is a heroine both flawed and courageous who’s only beginning to learn the extent of her own power.
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Sunshine
Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng
What happens when Christian missionaries go to fairyland to convert the fae? It could be the start of a comedy, but in the highly capable hands of Jeannette Ng, it becomes a haunting Gothic fantasy tale. Catherine Helston pursues her missionary brother to the fairy realm of Arcadia and encounters a world where everything she takes for granted, from physics to faith, is questioned. Under the Pendulum Sun is a disconcerting read, with Catherine constantly in peril of falling under the sway of Arcadia’s insanity. Intricate and thoughtful, Under the Pendulum Sun is a book whose depths I’ve yet to fully explore.
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Under the Pendulum Sun
Ariah by B.R. Sanders
After reading Foz Meadows’ glowing review, I rushed to find a copy of Ariah, a coming-of-age story that’s a spiritual sibling to The Goblin Emperor. Ariah did not disappoint. I immediately fell under the spell of this immersive story about home, love, identity, and family. In this intensely character-focused novel, the young elf Ariah is a shaper, with the ability to feel others’ emotions…but Ariah often gets so lost in the feelings of others that he loses himself. Over the course of the story, Ariah struggles with himself, his place in society, and his growing knowledge of both the complexity and injustice of the world he lives in.
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Ariah
Iron Cast by Destiny Soria
I’ve read quite a few books where magic is tied to artistic creation, but the young adult novel Iron Cast outshines all the rest. This Prohibition era-inspired fantasy imagines a world where certain people can use the arts to cast magic but all acts of magic are banned. Best friends Ada and Corinne perform at an illegal club, a sort of magical speakeasy, but also run cons to make ends meet. When Ada gets arrested and confined to an asylum, it’s only the beginning of the duo’s troubles. Iron Cast presents a luscious setting and an emotionally-laden plot that kept me on the edge of my seat. Perhaps most of all, I adore Iron Cast’s focus on female friendship, something which can be all too scarce in fantasy novels.
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Iron Cast
City of Bones by Martha Wells
Martha Wells has recently entered the spotlight with her delightful, award-winning science fiction novella All Systems Red, but she’s also got a fabulous backlist. City of Bones wars with Death of the Necromancer for my favorite Martha Wells novel, but City of Bones undoubtedly wins the place of “Best Standalone by Martha Wells.” The post-apocalyptic fantasy world displays the author’s characteristic imagination, and the plot never fails to keep me gripped to the page. Khat, our protagonist, works as a relics trader and treasure hunter to keep himself afloat in a city where he’s a non-citizen. When an expedition hires him on as a guide, he finds himself involved in a search for a relic of unprecedented power.
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City of Bones
Originally published in December 2018.
Sarah Waites has been reading science fiction and fantasy for as long as she can remember. Her book blog, The Illustrated Page, reviews SFF books through a queer feminist lens. You can follow her on Twitter.
I would include Gloriana by Michael Moorcock.
Other than the Fionavar trilogy and the Sarantium duology, all of Guy Gavriel Kay’s books are stand-alones.
There’s also Tad Williams’s The War of the Flowers and Tailchaser’s Song.
This is an incredible list.
I absolutely love every one of these books that I’ve read, among my top favorites, and I’m clearly going to have to seek out Iron Cast and Ariah, the only two that I haven’t read.
Second all the references to Guy Kay.
The Raven’s Tower by Leckie is a newer book that, I believe, is intended to be standalone. Strange but compelling book narrated by one of many gods of this particular fantasy world.
The Spirit Ring by Bujold
Most of Neal Stephenson.
I’m in love with Michael Shea’s In Yana, the Touch of Undying. Not many people seem to know that one which is a shame!
The NIght Circus by Erin Morgenstern. A lovely, magical story.
The Dragon Waiting by John M Ford.
I’d add The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, although she does have super vague plans for a prequel, for now, the story stands alone. It’s got massive amounts of world-building and follows multiple points of view, three of whom are people of color and two of whom are LGBT. It’s got dragons and different religions and kinds of magic and really anything you could have ever possibly asked for in a fantasy novel.
The Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
When we’re talking about standalone classic fantasies, I think Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees never gets the respect it deserves. Self-satisfied, respectable, sedate Nathaniel Chanticleer leads quiet, happy life in Lud-in-the-Mist, a self-satisfied, respectable, sedate merchant city. Then he finds that his son has been eating fairy fruit and has run off to the neighboring Faerie land and Nathaniel goes after him. He is forced to look behind all the self-satisfied, respectable, sedate lives and people he meets.
I often stop and contemplate the song from the book:
Depends on what, exactly, constitutes a standalone novel. Does it count as standalone if the author writes in the same world again but with different characters? Is it standalone as long as there is not a direct continuation?
City of Bones is probably my favorite Martha Wells novel as well. I’m glad to see it listed.
Under the Pendulum Sun sounds amazing.
“Hannah Green and her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence” by Michael Marshall Smith, a delightful comic novel about a young girl whose family are literally servants of Satan, and “The Face in the Frost” by John Bellairs, his only “adult” novel, but still a comfy, charming fantasy about quarelling wizards.
Iron Cast sounds cool and I enjoy female friendships simply because books on genuine friendships that don’t blossom to romance are so interesting.
Engine Summer and Little, Big.
@1 Good call, except maybe it’s hard to classify anything by Moorcock as quite “stand alone.”
Its an older book so might be hard to find, but I love love The Labyrinth Gate by Alis Rasmussen (Kate Elliot). Modern newly-wed couple gets a special deck of cards that sends them to alternate Victorian-style setting.
So glad to see The Last Unicorn starting your list; it was the first novel that came to mind when I read your title. I’ve enjoyed several other of your choices as well— so I’ll have to check out the rest!
Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October.
Also Roadmarks.
Everyone loves his short stories or the Amber books (and well they should) but those two standalones are my favorites of his work.
I think Graham Joyce’s novels are all stand-alone
The prevalence of trilogies and series is one of the main reasons that I read little modern fantasy, preferring the kind of classics that Ballantine put out in the Adult Fantasy Series. I need more variety in my reading and am unwilling to make heavy commitments.
One of which, David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus, is a book that try to reread about once a year.
Standalone fantasy fiction really does seem to be a rarity. Naomi Novik’s Uprooted was fantastic. I really love Robert Jackson Bennett’s American Elsewhere as well as The Troupe.
In 1975 The Forgotten Beasts of Eld won the very first World Fantasy Award for Novel.
Stealing the Elf King’s Roses by Diane Duane – a human teams up with an elf to investigate the murder of another elf in a world where humans and elves live in uneasy diplomatic relations. I was always sad that this one was a stand alone as it would have been an interesting stand alone. Though perhaps the best stand alones are maybe that way.
The Song of the Beast by Carol Berg is another good one. It’s protagonist is a man who was imprisoned for reasons no one ever told him and now he seeks answers. Carol Berg (who has a new book at as Cate Glass) writes fantastic characters and turns her plots in interesting ways.
Most of Tim Powers, especially Declare (and The Drawing of the Dark. And On Stranger Tides. And Medusa’s Web…).
Alice in Wonderland (unless you consider it to be a duology with Through the Looking Glass.
The Phantom Tollbooth (Best. Book. Ever)
American Gods, Neverwhere, and Stardust
Perdido Street Station (if you consider it a standalone); also Un Lun Dun.
Clive Barker’s Weaveworld
Dandelion Wine
Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword, and Three Hearts and Three Lions
Zelazny’s Jack of Shadows
I second Guy Gavriel Kay’s Tigana, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and, of course, The Last Unicorn.
wlewisiii at 7 is quite correct: any list of this type that omits The Dragon Waiting is objectively wrong.
While it might seem that standalone fantasy fiction is a rarity, I don’t think it really is.
There are plenty of fantasy standalone books out there but for some reason they don’t get as much attention as series. Many fantasy fans will have heard of Brust’s Taltos novels but who’s heard of To Reign in Hell? Many fantasy fans will have heard of Glen Cook’s Black Company novels but who’s heard of his standalones of which there are several? People know of Martin’s ASoIaF novels but not of Fevre Dream*. People know of Raymond Feist’s Riftwar novels but not of Faerie Tale. People know Pratchett’s Discworld novels but have they heard of The Carpet People or Dodger? When people hear the name Piers Anthony they will think “Xanth” unaware of his many other, often stronger, works, among which are quite a few fantasy standalones. I could go on.
Some more novels, well worth reading:
– Beagle’s A Fine and Private Place (beautiful)
– Clive Barker’s Imajica
– Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story
Also the (standalone) works of Paul Kearney, Dave Duncan, Tanith Lee, Janny Wurts.
* arguably more horror than fantasy, but little known nonetheless
If you’re going to cite Steven Brust, Brokedown Palace is my choice. It’s set in the same world as the Vlad Taltos novels, but has no direct connection that I’m aware of. For Zelazny, Jack of Shadows is a great standalone.
Separately, I’ll offer Terry Bisson’s Talking Man as a little-known but brilliant and original fantasy.
@27 On a side and somewhat off topic note – Re Piers Anthony standalones, don’t forget Macroscope – very hard sci-fi that was nominated for a Hugo.
Several people are insisting on books that are part of a series. The author explicitly rejected them as not standalone by excluding Elantris, which has no sequel but is part of the author’s larger universe. This eliminates Gloriana and all of Kay’s fantasy (all connected).
Brokedown Palace is explicitly part of the Vlad sequence. His wife’s family was founded in that story, and IIRC one of his supporting characters actually appears.
I’m surprised to see Mr. Norrell here. Despite the evidence, I keep expecting everyone else to have the reaction I and my friends have to that book: it is literally unreadably boring. Two people other than myself have stalled out trying to plow through it. It’s just so unrewarding and pointless and dull.
@16, Moorcock wrote about 20 standalone novels. Personally I count my favorite, The Warhound and the World’s Pain, as one of them. He later wrote sequels which I always skip because they’re not needed, to be polite.
Pratchett’s best standalone is indubitably Nation.
Janny Wurts’ Hell’s Chasm is one of the better stand alones I’ve read.
Have I somehow missed a sequel to The Goblin Emperor, one of my favorite books? I was disappointed that her second book under the Addison name was about Kit Marlowe.
@34: No, you haven’t missed a book. Yet. The Witness for the Dead, the sequel to The Goblin Emperor, has been announced back in 2018 but hasn’t been published yet.
That’s why it was mentioned alongside Elantris when the author of this article said she’d focus on “true standalone[s] with no sequel on the way”.
Add Beagle’s The Folk of the Air, a book I love as much as Little, Big, for many of the same reasons.
@30:
Not sure what you mean, big guy. I read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, all 800+ pages of it, out loud to my wife, and we both loved it. So did lots of other people. That hardly seems like an “unreadably boring” book.
In response to my own post @25, I accidentally overlooked one of the very best standalone fantasies, The Phoenix and the Mirror by Avram Davidson.
And to all the John M. Ford The Dragon Waiting fans, pace; it’s in my TBR pile.
Tom Reamy’s Blind Voices is a stand alone. It is set in a Kansas farming town, in the early thirties. A freak show comes to town, Haverstock’s Traveling Curiosus and Wondershow. Three teenage girls encounter real magic and a ruthless ringmaster.
Writing about Blind Voices called to mind one of Reamy’s inspirations; Charles Finney’s The Circus of Dr. Lao.
One of the few books that was actually improved in the movie version.
Patricia K McKillip has written so many wonderful standalones in addition to The Forgotten Beasts of Eld: Ombria in Shadow, The Bell at Sealey Head, Alphabet of Thorn, The Book of Atrix Wolfe, Od Magic and more…
I’m not sure whether it’s quite long enough to count as a novel, but Peter Beagle’s In Calabria is spectacularly good. It’s about a Sicilian farmer with a quiet, fairly isolated life who sees a unicorn. To say more would be spoilers.
I thought that Susanna Clarke was working on a sequel to Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell? (Not the ladies of Grace Adieu), although I know her health has impacted her ability to write it.
Additionally, and though unfortunately it never happened, PTerry used to talk about a potential sequel to Good Omens, 668: The neighbour of the beast. Neil Gaiman has discussed it since Terry passed away so it may still happen.
If they’re ever released (and I hope they are) the list might need to be updated!
@30 – to clarify, just being part of the broader Sanderson Cosmere shouldn’t be disqualifying if the book stands on its own. What is disqualifying is that Sanderson has announced a planned sequel to Elantris to be executed not to far into the distant future. (Ditto re Warbreaker, by the way.) Thus, Elantris is outside of the article’s scope. .
The Kay ones are an interesting case study. They seem to be part of a consistent alternative world but I wasn’t aware they were expressly described by Kay as part of a unified series. Also, at least some of his standalones are not part of that world – such as Ysabel.
Too many of these aren’t available on Audiobook. :-/
Just saw @RobMRobM’s message months late. Actually two characters from Kay’s Fionavar Tapestry appear in Ysabel in supporting roles.