A ReadOrbit guide

Standalone science fiction

A large universe does not have to mean six sequels. These picks deliver a complete journey in one volume.

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Cover of Cloud Cuckoo Land

2021

Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Anthony Doerr

3.8

"From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of perhaps the most bestselling and beloved literary fiction of our time comes a triumph of imagination and compassion, a soaring novel about children on the cusp of adulthood in a broken world, who find resilience, hope, and story. The her…

Cover of At the table of wolves

2017

At the table of wolves

by Kay Kenyon

4.0

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy meets X-Men in a classic British espionage story. A young woman must go undercover and use her superpowers to discover a secret Nazi plat and stop an invasion of England. In 1936, there are paranormal abilities that have slowly seeped into the world, br…

Cover of Three years with the rat

2017

Three years with the rat

by Jay Hosking

"Three Years with the Rat is a mind-warping thriller that will make you question reality as you conceive of it. One of the most assured and haunting debuts I've read in recent memory." --Blake Crouch, author of Dark Matter After several years of drifting between school and go-now…

Cover of Dark Victory

2016

Dark Victory

by Brendan DuBois

*A decade ago, the alien Creepers came to Earth, dropping asteroids to drown our coastal cities, detonating nuclear weapons overhead to destroy our communications, power and computer systems, and to set up their network of killer stealth satellites to kill anything on our planet…

Cover of Fight Club 2

2016

Fight Club 2

by Chuck Palahniuk, Cameron Stewart, David W. Mack

2.8

"Fight Club 2 is available exclusively as a Graphic Novel! Some imaginary friends never go away. Ten years after starting Project Mayhem, he lives a mundane life. A kid, a wife. Pills to keep his destiny at bay. But it won't last long, the wife has seen to that. He's back where h…

Cover of The Next Step

2014

The Next Step

by Toby Whaymand

Susan Atkins, Captain of Starship NOVA, is on a special mission to transport prisoner CX589 to the planet Troidon. It is Earth Year 2288, and she and her crew must ride a wormhole in order to propel themselves into the future to reach Troidon. While time travel is impossible, The…

Cover of Greg Egan

2014

Greg Egan

by Karen Burnham

"Greg Egan (1961- ) publishes works that challenge readers with rigorous, deeply-informed scientific speculation. He unapologetically delves into mathematics, physics, and other disciplines in his prose, putting him in the vanguard of the hard science fiction renaissance of the 1…

Cover of Shadow Of Freedom

2013

Shadow Of Freedom

by David Weber

4.0

Wrong number? There are two sides to any quarrel . . . unless there are more. Queen Elizabeth of Manticore's first cousin and Honor Harrington's best friend, Michelle Henke, has just handed the "invincible" Solarian League Navy the most humiliating, one sided defeat in its entire…

Cover of Sins of the Father

2012

Sins of the Father

by RJ Palmer

Bowen is an orphaned child in feudal England whose first appearance in this novel is having been bound hands and feet and whipped mercilessly by the monks in a monastery in an excess of bloodlust. He’s realistically of an indeterminate age but no more than about seven years old a…

Cover of Slave to Six Worlds

2012

Slave to Six Worlds

by Olivia M. Ravensworth

Released at the end of 2012 by Pink Flamingo Publications http://www.pinkflamingo.com/brands/Olivia-Ravensworth.html , Slave to Six Worlds is a tale of the future as imagined from the Golden Age of science fiction of the 1930s—a colorful, bawdy, brawling time of atomic-powered ro…

Cover of For the Win

2010

For the Win

by Cory Doctorow

3.7

Young adult science fiction set in the present or near future. The characters are "gold farmers" extracting virtual resources from online games and selling them to richer players. Their exploitation leads them to unionize, which leads to violence and trickery. In the virtual futu…

Cover of Blackout

2010

Blackout

by Connie Willis

3.8

In her first novel since 2002, Nebula and Hugo award-winning author Connie Willis returns with a stunning, enormously entertaining novel of time travel, war, and the deeds--great and small--of ordinary people who shape history. In the hands of this acclaimed storyteller, the past…

Cover of M.D.(Morgue of the Dead)

2010

M.D.(Morgue of the Dead)

by L.A.TAYLOR

A SYNOPSIS OF M.D. (MORGUE OF THE DEAD) BY L.A. TAYLOR WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF THE TOWN YOU LIVED IN WAS OVERTAKEN BY FLESH-EATING ZOMBIES? WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF A LOVED ONE TURNED INTO ONE OF THEM? The town of Clifton Falls had recently put aside the terrible bank robbery from a few…

Cover of Pathfinder

2010

Pathfinder

by Orson Scott Card

3.9

The book begins with Rigg, a boy that has the strange ability to see the path of any living being, no matter how long ago it existed. He spends his time hunting with his father in the mountains, trapping for valuable pelts. His father is his mentor, and so he has taught Rigg ever…

Cover of Birthright

2010

Birthright

by RJ Palmer

In 1969 a woman is admitted into the hospital in critical condition after having been the victim of a drunken driving accident. It was only after having undergone extensive testing including several x-rays to determine the nature and scope of her injuries that her pregnancy was d…

Cover of The Philip K. Dick Collection

2009

The Philip K. Dick Collection

by Philip K. Dick

[v. 1] Four novels of the 1960s: The great accomplishment of Philip K. Dick, in the words of editor Jonathan Lethem, was "to turn the materials of American pulp-style science fiction into a vocabulary for a remarkably personal vision of paranoia and dislocation." These four novel…

Cover of Anathem

2008

Anathem

by Neal Stephenson

4.3

Anathem, the latest invention by the New York Times bestselling author of Cryptonomicon and The Baroque Cycle, is a magnificent creation: a work of great scope, intelligence, and imagination that ushers readers into a recognizable — yet strangely inverted — world.Fraa Erasmas is…

Cover of The Last Oracle

2008

The Last Oracle

by James Rollins

3.5

What if you could bioengineer the next great world prophet: scientifically produce the next Buddha, the next Muhammad, or the next Jesus? Would it mark the Second Coming or initiate a chain reaction with disastrous consequences?A master at combining historical and religious intri…

Cover of Star Trek Mirror Universe - Obsidian Alliances

2007

Star Trek Mirror Universe - Obsidian Alliances

by Peter David

Some say the line between good and evil is narrower than we imagine – a divide as subtle as a mirror, and perhaps just as deep. To peer into its black, reflective glass is to know the dark potential we each possess, and we cross that obsidian boundary at our peril… into a world w…

Cover of Death's Head

2007

Death's Head

by David Gunn

4.0

Set in a chillingly realistic far-future world, and featuring a gritty antihero even more frightening than the evil empire he serves as soldier and assassin, Death's Head is sure to be one of the most talked-about novels of the year. David Gunn is loaded--and he shoots to kill.At…

Cover of Star Wars - Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

2006

Star Wars - Legacy of the Force - Betrayal

by Aaron Allston

4.0

This is the era of Luke Skywalker's legacy: the Jedi Master has unified the order into a cohesive group of powerful Jedi Knights. But as the new era begins, planetary interests threaten to disrupt this time of relative peace, and Luke is plagued with visions of an approaching dar…

Cover of The Road

2006

The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

3.9

Cormac McCarthy's tenth novel, The Road, is his most harrowing yet deeply personal work. Some unnamed catastrophe has scourged the world to a burnt-out cinder, inhabited by the last remnants of mankind and a very few surviving dogs and fungi. The sky is perpetually shrouded by du…

Cover of Map of bones

2006

Map of bones

by James Rollins

4.0

The bestselling master of astonishing adventure James Rollins delivers his most relentlessly exciting page-turner to date -- a gripping and explosive novel of an ancient conspiracy to create a terrifying new world order out of the ashes of modern civilization.The crime is inhuman…