One Hit Wonders (SFF Authors that are noted for just one story)

[gully_foyle]

Tevis is hardly relevant - he wrote two sf novels, the second of which, Mockingbird, is in the Gollancz SF Masterworks series. He also wrote The Hustler and The Color of Money, which are better known.

Interesting. Perhaps a spin off thread could be "Mainstream Authors with SFF One (or Two) Hit Wonders".
Thinking:
Margaret Atwood
PD James
Kate Wilhelm

 

[iansales]

Interesting. Perhaps a spin off thread could be "Mainstream Authors with SFF One (or Two) Hit Wonders".
Thinking:
Margaret Atwood
PD James
Kate Wilhelm

Also:
Jeanette Winterson (The Stone Gods)
Maggie Gee (The Ice People)
Bernard Beckett (Genesis)
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
George Orwell (1984)
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
Toby Litt (Journey into Space)
Cormac McCarthy (The Road)
John Fowles (A Maggot)
Lawrence Durrell (Tunc & Nunquam - AKA The Revolt of Aphrodite)
Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange, The Wanting Seed)
Philip Kerr (The Second Angel)
Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go)
Michel Houellebecq (Atomised)
Michel Faber (Under The Skin)
Michael Cunningham (Specimen Days)

Oh, and Wilhelm is probably best known as a sf writer.

 

[gully_foyle]

Oh, and Wilhelm is probably best known as a sf writer.

Unless you're into crime/courtroom novels.

 

[GOLLUM]

Also:
Jeanette Winterson (The Stone Gods)
Maggie Gee (The Ice People)
Bernard Beckett (Genesis)
David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas)
George Orwell (1984)
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
Toby Litt (Journey into Space)
Cormac McCarthy (The Road)
John Fowles (A Maggot)
Lawrence Durrell (Tunc & Nunquam - AKA The Revolt of Aphrodite)
Anthony Burgess (A Clockwork Orange, The Wanting Seed)
Philip Kerr (The Second Angel)
Kazuo Ishiguro (Never Let Me Go)
Michel Houellebecq (Atomised)
Michel Faber (Under The Skin)
Michael Cunningham (Specimen Days)

Oh, and Wilhelm is probably best known as a sf writer.

EDIT: Ah I see 2 hit wonders...well more likely but still can't completely agree although I'm probably including non-SF here too.

Is your point Ian that these are the novel(s) the author is best known for?...

I only ask because several of those are highly regarded authors who have written several other well known works incl. Orwell, Winterston, Fowles, Ishiguro and McCrathy for starters.. At least they're well known for other works In Australia and all are readily in print and readily available.

 

[iansales]

Unless you're into crime/courtroom novels.

But couldn't you say the same of Jack Vance or Leigh Brackett?

 

[GOLLUM]

NEVER HEARD OF THE COLD EQUATIONS?

'fraid so....then again I also had to admit to Knivesout that I've never owned or read (soon to be amended) Dick's Man In A High Castle....

 

[iansales]

EDIT: Ah I see 2 hit wonders...well more likely but still can't completely agree although I'm probably including non-SF here too.

Is your point Ian that these are the novel(s) the author is best known for?...

I only ask because several of those are highly regarded authors who have written several other well known works incl. Orwell, Winterston, Fowles, Ishiguro and McCrathy for starters.. At least they're well known for other works In Australia and all are readily in print and readily available.

Ah no - I was responding to Gully's suggestion of mainstream authors who have written one or two sf novels. I took it as read (no pun intended) they were well known as mainstream writers. Besides, a mainstream author who's only known for their one sf novel would be... really sad.

 

[iansales]

'fraid so....then again I also had to admit to Knivesout that I've never owned or read (soon to be amended) Dick's Man In A High Castle....

And, in a happy coincidence, it is now available as the latest book in the SF Masterworks series.

 

[GOLLUM]

And, in a happy coincidence, it is now available as the latest book in the SF Masterworks series.

Yes that's actually what I was referring to in the SF Masterwork thread I recently posted. It should hopefully arrive here in the next month or so.

On the other point of authors publishing SF as one-offs I realised my error after posting..sorry.

Cheers....

 

[iansales]

On the other point of authors publishing SF as one-offs I realised my error after posting..sorry.

np.

A couple more:-
Len Deighton (SS-GB)
Carl Gibeily (Blueprint for a Prophet - which might be one of those sad cases I mentioned in a previous post - his one published novel is sf, but was published as mainstream... it's also very good)
Kingsley Amis (The Alteration)
Peter Høeg (Smilla's Feeling for Snow (and variant titles))
Hergé (Destination Moon, Explorers on the Moon, Flight 714)
Nicholas Monsarrat (The Time Before This)

 

[Connavar]

By Mainstream authors do you mean non-genre authors or mainstream authors of other genres like crime too ?

I know legendary crime writers like Donald.E Westlake, John.D MacDonald wrote SF stories,novels. When they were new it was apparently not unusual to submit stories to SF papers,publishers.

Not that those sf stories of theirs are really known today.

 

[iansales]

I'd forgotten John D MacDonald and his one and only sf novel. Read it years and years ago, but can't remember anything about it.

I suppose by "mainstream" I meant non-sf, rather than mainstream per se - so, yes, including crime, western, historical, etc. But not fantasy or horror, as there's a lot blurring between those two genres and sf; and each other, of course.

 

[Connavar]

I'd forgotten John D MacDonald and his one and only sf novel. Read it years and years ago, but can't remember anything about it.

I suppose by "mainstream" I meant non-sf, rather than mainstream per se - so, yes, including crime, western, historical, etc. But not fantasy or horror, as there's a lot blurring between those two genres and sf; and each other, of course.

The thread is called SFF Author that are.... so i wouldnt include fantasy.

But i dont really see horror as part of SFF, i have grown up seeing Horror being so big and different,its own field. You expect very different things from horror than what you see in contemporary fantasy.

Its not like classic,19th century era or Pulp days where Horror was an important element of fantasy.

Sure there are few books that are F/Horror or SF/horror.

 

[dask]

'fraid so....then again I also had to admit to Knivesout that I've never owned or read (soon to be amended) Dick's Man In A High Castle....

Actually I was a little rude, sorry. It wasn't until today at work I realized I should have said: "Never heard of 'The Cold Equations'? Get off this ship at once!"

It would have been less blunt. Being slow is the bane of my existence.

 

[K. Riehl]

Hugo Gernsback? Ralph 124C 41+ and then? I know he was a major editor but still, wouldn't you expect the father of SF to have written a little more of substance?

In general fiction I would have to say. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest by Kesey would rank as an all time one hit wonder.

 

[j d worthington]

Sure there are few books that are F/Horror or SF/horror.

Actually, Connavar, there's one hell of a lot....

When you think of it, Mary Shelley is in this category, really -- Frankenstein is the only novel for which she is generally noted, at least; most people (including most readers) don't even realize she ever penned anything else, let alone the several novels and rather large selection of short stories (amongst other matter) she did.... Matthew Gregory Lewis is in the same position, with The Monk, even though he also wrote a fair amount of other material (some of it rather good). And so on....

 

[Omphalos]

np.

A couple more:-
Len Deighton (SS-GB)
Carl Gibeily (Blueprint for a Prophet - which might be one of those sad cases I mentioned in a previous post - his one published novel is sf, but was published as mainstream... it's also very good)
Kingsley Amis (The Alteration)
Peter Høeg (Smilla's Feeling for Snow (and variant titles))
Hergé (Destination Moon, Explorers on the Moon, Flight 714)
Nicholas Monsarrat (The Time Before This)

Amis also wrote Russian Hide and Seek, a future war book, and a bunch of genre SF short stories. John D. MacDonald wrote a few short stories too, I think. Cordwainer Smith probably falls into this category too.

I recently finished SF/F books by Gore Vidal, Upton Sinclair, EM Forster, Jack London and a few others. Here are some from my list (these are tagged as "mainstream authors"):

Omphalos' Book Reviews: Tag Search Results

 

[iansales]

Cordwainer Smith was a sf author. His other works were non-fiction, and published under his real name. (AFAIK)

Vonnegut and Atwood have written a number of sf novels, although both are known as mainstream novelists.

A couple more examples:
Owen Sheers (Resistance)
Sarah Hall (The Carhullan Army)

 

[Connavar]

Actually, Connavar, there's one hell of a lot....

When you think of it, Mary Shelley is in this category, really -- Frankenstein is the only novel for which she is generally noted, at least; most people (including most readers) don't even realize she ever penned anything else, let alone the several novels and rather large selection of short stories (amongst other matter) she did.... Matthew Gregory Lewis is in the same position, with The Monk, even though he also wrote a fair amount of other material (some of it rather good). And so on....

I meant it today, i did say the genres were connected more in 1800s and early last century.

Horror today is way too big,different to be a subgenre of fantasy.

 

[dask]

I read somewhere sf is a sub-genre of fantasy and it's way bigger than horror. If that's true why can't horror be a sub-genre too? Actually, John Clute in his Encyclopedia Of Fantasy draws a distinction between horror that fits in fantasy and horror that does not, at least with respect to being included in his book, but I can't remember what it is (and I don't remember where I put that floppy paperbound tome).