Sometimes it seems like scientific discipline fiction , and specially fantasy , are literary genre that lend themselves exclusively to trilogies and long - run serial . But some of the capital author in speculative fiction have only write standalone novels , not series or trilogy .
Top image : Cover art for Philip K. Dick ’s The Crack in Space by Chris Moore
Alfred Bester
The author of The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination only wrote half a twelve or so novels , and most of them were serialize in magazines prior to being published in book form . And as far as we ’re cognisant , he never returned to any of his corporate - dominated , dystopian , space - faring or telepath - master futures for more than one script .
Bruce Sterling
He ’s the great image breaker of scientific discipline fable , so it ’s not surprising that Sterling has resisted the enticement to revisit his earth — mess of people expect a sequel to Schismatrix , for exemplar . ( Although Schismatrix , itself , was a follow - up to a collection of brusk fib , Crystal Express , so that ’s an edge causa . ) In the afterword to The Difference Engine , he and collaborator William Gibson write , “ We did n’t countermand a fingerbreadth to make a steampunk view happen ; we never wrote a sequel , nor will we . ”
H.G. Wells
With novels like The Invisible Man , War of the Worlds and The Time Machine , Wells manufacture much of the bedrock of skill fable — and even though he was amazingly fertile well into the 20th century , Wells never felt the pauperism to revisit his previous characters or stories . He never wrote a follow - up to The Time Machine or the story of a second Martian invasion . Science fable ’s great conceiver kept set out originals , throughout his life .
George Orwell
Arguably speculative most famous political novelist , Orwell mostly write semi - autobiographic novels , and only turn to inquisitive fiction at the very end of his career . And we ’re likely all good off that he never suffer around to save Nineteen Eighty Five before he give out in 1950 .
Philip K. Dick
One of the most acclaimed — and fertile — science fable author of all time , Dick returned to sealed motif of alienation , surveillance and madness over and over again . But he never returned to the same characters or setting for more than one book — although Dick did work on a subsequence to his acclaimed novel The Man in the High Castle , and a few chapters were included in the 1995 account book The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick . top art by Sparth .
Maureen F. McHugh
She ’s only published four novel and a number of short stories to escort , but she ’s one of the most acclaimed authors out there . She ’s the master of create unusual circumstance , like China Mountain Zhang ’s China - dominated 22nd one C , or Half the Day is Night ’s submerge city of Julia . But as far as we screw , she ’s never pass to one of those mise en scene for a second flavour .
Max Barry
One of our favorite raw writers , Barry often spell about the same preoccupations , including corporatocracy and out - of - control engineering science . But thus far , his four novel have n’t cross in any meaningful manner , and he ’s add up up with fresh dystopia to drive us to distraction .
Theodore Sturgeon
The homo who give usSturgeon ’s Lawwas far from prolific , but all of his novel ( and his many short report ) remain a atrocious look into sovereign bizarreness . His book include More Than Human , a distressing look at post - world , and The Dreaming Jewels and The Cosmic Rape , which include truly exotic life forms follow to Earth . Sturgeon ’s books each stay one of a kind , which helped him achieve a much better winner pace than his eponymic police force would indicate .
Clifford D. Simak
Speaking of weird foreign lifespan forms … this is the humans who present us the eldritch bowling balls that come down and start buying up our major planet , in They Walked Like Men . Simak write a ton of unearthly novel from the late forties through the other 1980s , but we ’re reasonably indisputable he never went back to the same well doubly . or else , he deepened his themes of robot consciousness , time traveling , and unusual explorations .
Karel Capek
Best known for giving us the word “ robot ” in Rossum ’s Universal Robots , this Czech dramatist and satirist also save The War With The Newts , whichwe celebrated recently . Like Orwell , he used science fabrication to illuminate the troubling topic of his time , and he forecast weapons of aggregate wipeout as well as our hyper - consumerist club . But he never write more than one study about the same imaginary future .
https://gizmodo.com/10-satirical-novels-that-could-teach-you-to-survive-the-5867637
J.G. Ballard
This bastion of the New Wave wrote a slew of hard - to - categorize novels , include Crash and The Concrete Island . But apart from one collection of link myopic floor , he never wrote twice about the same setting or character . ( Thanks for the prompting , Tim ! )
Ben Elton
The writer of The Young Ones and Blackadder write a whole bunch of satiric novels in the 1990s , most of which were science fiction , and we ’ve praised his work before . In each novel , Elton takes on another off - kelter thought experiment , plays with it , and then jactitate it aside to find another odd premise .
Fredric Brown
The prolific author of mysteries and mainstream fable also write five well - received science fiction novel , including Martians Go Home — but he never compose a shared - universe serial or a sequel to any of his record book .
Additional reporting by Marykate Jasper and Gordon M. Jackson .
1984BooksBruce SterlingGeorge OrwellH.G. Wells
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