AAAARRGGGHHH!!! (Or "Enough with the trilogies already!!!")

[Phaedrus]

Hypersmurf... call me crazy, but Druss is my least favorite Gemmell character! Waylander and Tenaka Khan come before Druss. And Connavar, and Bane, and Decado, and...

I REALLY like Gemmell's books!

 

[Fenris]

Anything by Elizabeth Boyer. They are out of print and hard to find but well worth it. Most book are set in similar settings, but are completely independant.

And while technically Sci-Fi, I always love to go back down Glory Road by Robert Heinlein as a fantasy novel.

 

[diaglo]

The Hobbit.

You can ignore that one-book sequel that they divided in six.

fixxed it 4 j00

 

[David Howery]

couple of nitpicks...
the GH novel Nightwatch was Robin Wayne Bailey, not Rose Estes. Avoid anything written by Estes (bad bad stuff).
The Stephen Gould novel is Wildside, not Wildland... and it's one of my favorites too...

 

[Desdichado]

Not even "Oh, it's part of a series but it stands alone enough that you don't have to read the whole thing."

See, I don't mind that too much.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

So, please, help me out...

Ya know, I really think this thread would work best if divided into three parts of equal length but increasingly complexity and drama.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Sorry about the double post – server errors.

 

[jester47]

The Hobbit
The Last Unicorn
The Inkeeper's Song
Dune (originally a stand alone)
Ender's Game (originally a stand alone)
Starship Troopers
Neuromancer (the two followups seem forced)
The Neverending Story
Dragonworld

Perdido Street Station
The Scar
American Gods
The Iron Council

There's a lot, you just have to dig.

Aaron.

 

[TemplarSaint]

I think it's easier to come up with stand-alone titles on the Sci-Fi side than the fantasy side, but even on the sci-fi side the pickings are slim.

Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay, as already mentioned, is a great fantasy novel.
Grass by Sheri Tepper is a great sci-fi novel.
Armor, by John Steakly is a fun (but certainly not well-written) sci-fi action novel.
Tower of Fear, a fantasy by Glen Cook (also mentioned already)
Michale Stackpole has several stand alone fantasy novels, unrelated to his works in established universes. Once a Hero is the best of these, and Talion is the only other one I can remember.
Nightfall, classic sci-fi by Isaac Asimov
There is No Darkness, sci-fi by Jack and Joe Haldeman
Buying Time, sci-fi by Joe Haldeman
I was going to add Forever War, sci-fi, by Joe Haldeman, but I see he actually wrote a sequel 20 or so years after it. How odd.

 

[Blue Sky]

The Mis-enchanted Sword by Lawrence Wyatt-Evans is one of my favorite books. It's technically set in a series, but doesn't really reference other books.

Otherwise, all my other recommendations have been said.