Okay, so today we are going to be doing a recommendation video for standalone
sci-fi and fantasy books. I have a lot of favorite books that are standalones,
but most of them are not within these genres mostly because these genres typically favor
(especially fantasy) favors series. Sci-fi can go either way i suppose. If you want recommendations
for standalones outside of these genres i'll have linked a couple of videos in the description
where i recommend those types of books. But sometimes you are craving a sci-fi or fantasy
world/ story, but you're not ready to start another series. I got you. First recommendation
under the fantasy category is going to be an author instead of a book and that's going to be
Neil Gaiman. He writes primarily standalones and he writes these uh more realistic worlds
that have magic in them. Usually. He actually has a lot of different things he writes. He's...
he has a good range of work. I almost always love what i read from Neil Gaiman because he
has this gorgeous writing style that in my opinion the words on the page are magical in and
of themselves and then the worlds he creates are so immersive and whimsical and fantastic. He also
happens to be one of those authors that everything he writes feels incredibly intentional and usually
all comes together in such a complex yet simple and beautiful and perfect way! Oh, i love Neil
Gaiman's work! If you're looking for a more whimsical (usually sort of. I mean, like i said,
he writes a lot of different stuff) but if you're looking for that kind of style of fantasy in a
standalone and usually in short books... Neil Gaiman, man. One of one of the most immersive,
beautiful, incredible authors, in my opinion. Sci-fi. Another author. Michael Crichton is an
author that i am currently exploring his works. I've recently found him. I found him through
Jurassic Park which couldn't... right there. Right there. Which couldn't make it into this
video because technically it has a sequel (even though he didn't ever want to write the sequel)
and now i've read Timeline and next month i have (you can't see it) on my TBR for next month i
plan on reading Sphere. So working my way through this author; he is such a fantastic sci-fi author!
I think that he has some of the most, again, immersive writing. He does such a great job
of having a very slow build beginning where he really takes his time to establish the science
and the ideas that we're going to be exploring in this book, but not in info-dumpy ways. In very
immersive, interesting ways and i always... when i read his books i never feel like things are really
being explained to me. I more feel like i'm having a conversation with someone who really believes
what they're writing and i love that about this author. I'm still fairly new to his work. With
Nneil Gaiman i've read five or six of his books. With Crichton i've only read two, but i plan on
fixing that very soon and already i recommend him. Next up: fantasy. An old favorite that
still is fantastic, An Unkindness of Magicians. Oh my goodness i loved this book the first time
(and second time) i read. It's been so long, it might be challenging for me to summarize this one.
Imagine a... i technically i think it's called... i think it's urban fantasy because it takes place
in London i think, but then there's the unseen world which is where all the magicians happen to
be. So this is a society of people that are broken up into different houses (not harry potter style)
just the different magical groups. So within these houses, every so many years there is a
a war, a battle between the houses where they have to have these
magical battles in order to decide who's going to be the next leading house. The one in charge
of the magical world. This is very relevant because this leading house is going to set
all the rules around magic and around their society and it is a brutal society and it's
a story that is very very interesting from the start, but as you un cover layers of the world...
it's really good. Our main character, i think her name is Sydney, i'm pretty sure;
she is such a great character to follow. She has a different reason for entering this,
uh this battle that's coming up. This tournament that's coming up. She has a different reason
and her motivations, her reasonings are uncovered through along the way and she's so easy to love.
She's so easy to root for and follow. This is a world with consequences, this is a world...
that's so good. Ah! It's so hard to describe because it's a very slow beginning so i don't
want to reveal very much that goes on in the second half. I enjoyed this book so much. My
one big complaint about it is that the ending was way too fast. I really needed another 50 pages,
but other than that... oh my goodness have i loved this book! Sci-Fi! An oldie, but a goodie:
Frankenstein. I won't say too much about this because you know the story,
but one of the things that i really love about this book is the conversations that are had
within it. The conversations about humanity, about morality, about
a lot of things. I think that is a really interesting story. I know it's very slow.
I know when i had first read it a lot of people came back and said, "Wow. That was boring." And
that's fine. Um i really enjoyed it. I really love slower pacing when it's very intentional, when
there's a purpose behind it and i definitely think that there was in this one. And I love classics
for the fact that it's more than just a great story it's also so much conversation happening and
this book did such a great job in that. There's not a lot to say. It's a classic. You've heard
of it, but if you haven't read it, please give it a go because it's such a great book. And i know
there have been a lot of adaptations, but a lot of adaptations do it really differently from the book
(not that i've watched any of them because i'm not a movie person, but i've heard about them).
Read this book. Warbreaker! Technically Elantris is also a standalone by Sanderson so you can check
that one out too. I liked Warbreaker much better. Brandon Sanderson happens to be a pretty big name
within the fantasy genre. He doesn't write a lot of Standalones. Warbreaker is technically not a
standalone. It's a prequel to the Stormlight Archive series and it will eventually become
a series according to Sanderson, but it won't for a long time so it's currently viewed as a
standalone. Okay, Warbreaker. Again, i read this a really really long time ago so, oof.
It's gonna be hard to describe. We follow multiple perspectives. One of the perspectives, i would say
one of the main perspectives... i think her name is Siri; a girl who is married off to "the god
king" and we get a lot of information about the world and politics through her perspectives,
but then we also follow the gods of the world and there is this impending war i believe that they're
preparing against and planning against. This is a... it's an adult fantasy that has
a lot of standard (especially young adult) fantasy tropes and it kind of
turns them in another direction. This is a book that has a lot of mixed feedback. Some
people love it, some people don't. I fell into the "love it" category. I thought the magic in
this world which is largely focused around colors; um i thought that it was so interesting. I loved
the dynamics between the gods in this world and i was really really happy with how it all
ended, so i recommend it. I don't remember the finer details of the plot years down the road,
but i did really really love reading it when i read it. And when Sanderson continues the
series i will definitely be re-reading it. The last standalone fantasy i'll be recommending
is Peter Pan. If you like fairy tales, if you want to give classic fairy tales a try...
highly recommend! It is whimsical and beautiful. A really fun adventure with characters that,
oh my goodness, i am attached to. And a beautiful, beautiful message to it. It's my favorite book
of all time. I have a lot of feelings about it. I've talked about it in a lot of videos
so i'll keep it pretty simple. I love this story. It is silly and whimsical and beautiful, but also
so much depth to it too. I love it so much. I hope you'll give it a try. And the final Sci-fi
that i'll recommend is another novella and it's a recent read. This is about two warring
spies attached to warring agencies and they are traveling time and space and end up starting to
leave letters for each other along the way. And they find them out of order a lot of times.
The different worlds we get to encounter, the different creatures, the different societies
that we get just little snippets of, little moments of are so interesting. And trying to
piece together the timeline and their individual stories was so much fun to me. This is written...
wow! Really flowery. So you have to go in being ready to dissect sentences and read very slowly.
It's a story that gives you pieces and you get to sort them together in this really beautiful
beautiful story and beautiful, yet "purple" writing. It's a story i didn't... when i read the
first 20 pages, i expected to hate this book and i came out of it wanting to re-read it. So, give it
a go if that sounds like something you're willing to try. It definitely won't be for everybody, but
i was surprised at how much i ended up enjoying it. So there you go, there's a list of standalone
fantasies and sci-fi's. I hope you found something on this list that looks good to you. They will
all be linked in the description of this video. Be sure to chat with me more about this in the
comments. I post videos every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. I'll see you guys again
soon. Bye.