Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Can you come up with an example of a series with standalone books? And can you prove they really are standalone?
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Do you read SF&F?
It is common for writers to maintain a unified universe were a bunch of books are standalones scattered along a single timelone, usually with different protagonists for different eras.
Heinlein, Niven, Pournelle, Zimmer-Bradley, Asimov, Drake, Bujold, are just a few.
In older historical fiction there's the Aubrey-Maturin and Hornblower series, though those do feature the same protagonists. Each is a standalone episode.
The way you can tell is that the books can be read in any order or even individually without reading any "earlier" book in the timeline. Each book has a distinct focus with a beginning, middle, and end.
Bujold's Vorkossigan saga is a good example where the book publishing order is not the series' chronological order.
Zimmer-Bradley's Darkover is another example, where the earliest written books (from the early 60's) take place near the end of the timeline, the earliest in the late 70's, and the last published ones take place fairly early. None requires reading the others. It helps but that's a reader choice.
Even older book series were built off totally standalone stories. Perry Mason, Tarzan, Ed McBain's 87th Precinct, etc.
The advantage is that readers can jump in at any point in the timeline with no need to dig up earlier books. This was a lot more valuable in the olden days when most books received only one print run or went out of print for years on end.
Today, with ebooks and POD enabling an "eternal" backlist it isn't mandatory but it's still useful. It isn't uncommon for a successful series to spawn independent prequels, sequels, and side-quels.
David Weber's HONORVERSE series has spawned collateral series that can be read independently but do contribute to the main series narrative and two fully independent prequel trilogies that don't.
Similarly, the shared universe 163x/Grantville Saga includes multiple parallel sub-series that share the same setting but can be read independently of rsch other. You don't have to read the stories set in Rusdia to enjoy the stories of the BARBIE CONSORTIUM or the MISSION TO THE MUGHALS.
Finally, readers have a choice.
They can read the series in publishing order to see how the author's skill evolves, in internal chronology order, or only the favorites.
Rereaders can do all three.
