Mar 03 2008
One-Hit Lit
Over at Whateveresque, they’re having a conversation on literary “One Hit Wonders” — folks who had one interesting/impressive book, and then just sort of dropped off the face of the earth. I myself offered up as an example Barry Hughart, who wrote the absolutely wonderful and World Fantasy Award-winning Bridge of Birds, but then had bad luck on the next two books in the series and then more or less dropped out of publishing, as far as I can tell. My paperback copy of Bridge of Birds went missing long ago, but I bought the omnibus edition of the series when it came out, which I suspect is now out of print, which is a shame. I hope one day Hughart is able to get back to the writing; I’d like to read more of his stuff.
If you’re a Whateveresque member, you can add your own favorite “one-hit lit” pick there; if you’re not, share in this thread the authors who you think wrote too little, and should write more.
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I’d second Hughart. The fact that he dropped out of writing into complete obscurity after such a sterling debut, while guys like Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan went on to become the standard bearers of American fantasy, makes me weep for humanity.
Another one-hit wonder I can think of would be the great Walter M. Miller, Jr. Admittedly he had much impressive short fiction, but A Canticle for Leibowitz will always be what defines him as a storyteller. (Its sequel was published long after his death and was finished out by Terry Bisson.) Also, there’s Tom Godwin, whose stature will always rest upon “The Cold Equations.”
Going outside the genre, the obvious name is Harper Lee.
Yes, we need not confine ourselves to the SF/F genre.
I enjoyed the Hughart books, too. I, too, have a copy of the omnibus, with the nifty Kaja Foglio cover. The other two books in the trilogy go in and out of print (at Amazon, it looks like Eight Skilled Gentlemen is available, but The Story of the Stone is not). To be honest, though, I didn’t think the second two books were nearly as good as Bridge of Birds. Anyway, I see the omnibus edition available in used bookstores from time to time, so anyone interested in it can probably find a copy with just a little diligence.
The big one-hit wonder in my “favorite books” list is Ken Grimwood, whose Replay is a fantastic novel, but I’ve only ever so much as seen a single one of his other books (of which he wrote 4 or 5). Replay is reprinted every few years, though.
Seconding the Harper Lee remark. To Kill a Mockingbird was a masterpiece, and it’s a damned shame that nothing ever followed it up.
Dan Bailey:
I’m betting that when Harper Lee dies, they find twenty or thirty completed novels that she never bothered to have published, because why? It’s not like she needed the money.
Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man is the other famous American one-hit wonder. Story goes that he was completely paralyzed by the success of The Invisible Man (instant classic and all that) and was never able to really finish anything else.
I’d say Stephen R. Boyett, who did two good books — Ariel and The Architect of Sleep — and then disappeared. The latter pissed off a great deal many people, because it was the first of a series, that never continued. (I happen to think that the book does tell how the series would have ended, although it was tacked on at the end.)
His story about the publication of Architect is quite interesting; he used to send it out to readers who wrote him letters asking “What happened to the rest of the books?!?!?”
I read Bridge of Birds a few years ago because it had “World Fantasy Award Winner” in big letters on the cover, and I was simply astonished at how wonderful the story was. I sought out the other two, and did enjoy them as well, but not as much.
–One of the times the World Fantasy Awards got it right, thank God. What were they smoking when they gave the award to Thraxas back in 2000, anyway?
Sean Eric Fagan:
Steve Boyett’s Web site, incidentally. I sent him a fan letter once.
Gotta say John Steakley.
He wrote “Armor” “Vampire$” and a smattering of short stories many years go. Nothing since.
I loved both those novels. It kills me that he hasn’t written anything more.
I have completely lost my stupid login information for Whateveresque and cannot comment there at the moment.
However, whatever happened to Louise Lawrence, the British author? She wrote some absolutely wonderful YA science fiction, and then nothing for what seems like years.
I met Christopher Moore at a booksigning last winter, and we ended up talking about Bridge of Birds. Apparently Peter S. Beagle once sent Christopher Moore an e-mail to say that one of Moore’s books was the most delightful thing he’d read since ‘Bridge of Birds’, which Moore considered wonderfully high praise. Bridge of Birds is a simply wonderful book.
Bridge of Birds is truly what fantasy should be—full of wonder. I have the omnibus edition from the SFF book club, with a wonderful blue cover:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c1/c6201.jpg
… which really did not scan well over there apparently. Ah well.
I rather liked The Story of the Stone, but it certainly isn’t anywhere near the transcendence of Bridge of Birds. Miller (Canticle…) was my immediate second thought, followed by Stanley G Weinbaum (author of “A Martian Odyssey” and little else that most people will have heard of, much less read).
There’s also Robert Pirsig, who wrote the awesome Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and never approached that level again.
I also loved Bridge of Birds. My in-genre vote would go to Robert Blum, author of “The Girl from the Emeraline Island.” That was one of the books I never owned as a kid/teen, but checked out repeatedly from the library to re-read. I ran across it in a used bookstore in 1995 and snapped it up, and looked up the author to figure out what else he’d written. And found nothing. It’s possible he writes under a pen name; anyone know?
Out of the genre, Harper E. Lee pretty much walks away with it. My theory is that she’s been writing secretly under a pen name ever since, because there was nothing she could write under her own name that wouldn’t be compared unfavorably to Mockingbird. When you write one of the greatest American novels of all time as your debut novel, it’s going to be hard to come up with a good second act.
My regret is that Denise Lopes Heald only wrote “Mistwalker”, which was published as part of the Del Rey Discovery program. Every few years, I look her up to see if she has any new work out. “Mistwalker” was an inventive, intense story, with great world-building and characters. I re-read it every few years, after which is probably when I think to look her up again.
Yves Meynard. His The Book of Knights is excellent, but he hasn’t published anything else except a fairly small number of stories – which would be fine except he doesn’t appear to have published any since 2002.
Weinbaum gave us at least–one? two?–novels before he died as well as a good collection’s worth of short works.
Miller has a pretty good body of short works. I think the Bisson collaboration has some background on why he did not write more (if it isn’t there, it was in a Locus interview or article around the same time, pretty sad stuff). I re-read “Canticle” every couple of years.
My vote goes to C.M. Kornbluth, another talent struck down too young.
I remember reading Bridge Of Birds in junior high or high school, and I remember liking it a great deal, and that’s all I can remember–characters and plot escape me now, and I’d mostly forgotten about it until now. and i had no idea there were sequels.
Maybe I need to dig up a copy.
Thank you for reminding me of this one.
Let’s see. Just from SF…
T.J. Bass, who found a more lucrative career as Doctor Thomas Bassler. He wrote two novels set on an Earth with nearly two trillion people.
Karl Hansen. I have no idea what happened to him but while I have to agree with Paul Knorr’s 1982 comment about Hansen’s War Games that
“It’s about soldiers. They fight, then they have sex, then they do drugs, then they fight some more.”
I wouldn’t have minded more installments. Everyone should have their favourite indefensibly flawed series that they nevertheless love and this is mine.
Tom Reamy, whose career was cut short by death.
Richard McKenna, ditto.
My vote would be for Bruce Bethke, who wrote the delightful cyberpunk parody novel “Head Crash”, and who afterward made the mistake of taking a spec contract to do the novelization of the Will Smith “Wild Wild West” movie and was basically never heard from again: a cautionary tale for would-be SF professionals everywhere.
Nothing much to add in terms of SF/F authors names (although I will second Steakley – I’ve been recommending both of those for years) but there was an attempt a decade ago by a man named Raymond Saunders (sic) to create an American Flashman with the name of Fenwick Travers. They were highly enjoyable – taking place in the Canal Zone, the Phillipines and the American Southwest IIRC – but my occasional and feeble attempts to find out what happened to the author have been for naught. Were the books unpopular? Is he blocked or dead? Dunno – but would love to find out.
21-Doc
speaking of novelizations, somehow they roped James Rollins into doing the book for the new Indiana Jones flick.
@John Re: #5. Dear God, I hope you’re right.
That said, I know your rules about writing having read this and …Coffee Shop…, but how many novels are you squirreling away to give to your estate? :-D
Alexander Jablokov, beyond a doubt. His debut, Carve the Sky, was totally amazing. Sad to say that the four books he wrote afterwards didn’t make the same splash (even though the book set on Mars was particularly good). Hopefully he can write some more someday.
Regarding Barry Hughart, I loved all three. I think occasional poster here Alice Bentley of the late “Stars Our Destination” bookstore may have cornered the print run on the omnibus at one point (Alice, have you got any left?).
Another that I wish would have written more:
Wilhelmina Baird: This may be a pseudonym, but the four novels (CrashCourse, ClipJoint, PsyKosis and the loosely related Chaos Come Again) just touched at a deep well of cyberpunk, biopunk and Rudy Rucker-ish weird.
There are the occasional back-from-beyonds, such as my wife’s fave P.C. Hodgell.
I won’t veer off into “Why didn’t they stop with book 1?” authors, (*cough*PJFarmer*cough*) but that might be a good thread over at Whateveresque.
Yves has had other stories since 02, although they’re mostly in Canadian markets, and probably some are in French.
I’d suggest Jeremy Clarke, who wrote Necrotivia vs. Skull which I haven’t read, and one that I have, God is Love (Get it in Writing). Cool book. Also, Katherine Dunn, because it has been a long time since Geek Love (although I hear she has a new one coming in the fall).
Speaking of which, whatever happened to the rumoured Geek Love movie that Tim Burton was going to do?
D
John Kennedy Toole’s “Confederacy of Dunces”, followed by suicide of author. A damned shame, that.
I’d like to model my career after Harper Lee just to have conversations like this -
Random Person “What do you do for work?”
Me “I wrote a book.”
RP “just one book?”
Me “Well, it was a really good book.”
#10: Steakley still pops up at cons here and there reading chapters from his perpetually-in-progress Armor II. But mostly you see him hanging out at the bar. I wonder if it’s just one of those books that’s a difficult birth, or that he doesn’t really give a shit, or both.
I second T.J. Bass – Half Past Human and The Godwhale are pretty interesting.
I’ll mention Daniel Keyes Moran, due to the gnashing of teeth his slim output caused amongst SF fans when I was doing the Bookstore gig.
Finally, Ken Grimwood, who died too young. Replay is a terrific time travel novel and really worth reading.
Barry Hughart and David Palmer would be my genre choices.
Outside the genre, Edgar Lee Masters (Spoon River Anthology) comes to mind.
Skar,
I have to agree. I was also going to say John Steakley. However, I’ve heard in the past year that he is working on a sequel to Armor (supposedly appropriately named “Armor 2.”)
Does suicided-after-success count? John O’Brien, Leaving Las Vegas.
I’ve browsed several of Ken Grimwood’s other books at Powell’s. To my surprise, they were uniformly awful – they were all like the dolphin mysticism film one of the Replay characters makes, presented seriously. Replay may have been one of those books where the author transcended the limits that one time.
Rob @ 25, Jablokov has been writing short fiction recently, with appearances in F&SF and Asimov’s, and he reports on his web site site that he’s drafted a new novel, Remembering Muriel.
And yeah, Bridge of Birds is wonderful.
Cathy@32: Ah, somebody did eventually come up with David Palmer. I think he’s one of the most clearcut cases. There was a second book, starting a series, and then nothing (and having read the book I kinda approve). The first book is something of a personal favorite, and got a lot of attention, though (that’s _Emergence_).
There are lots of people who didn’t write *enough*, but the true one-hit wonder, where the first book is great and there are no more good ones after that and few published at all, is rarer.
Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind) is the other really famous example that comes to mind.
Steakley has been working on Armor II for years now…and I’m perfectly willing to wait until it comes out.
I’d also second the Daniel Keys Moran, but his blog keeps me involved with whats going on, and he has some of his works available for free as e-books.
I like the Lyda Morehouse books, RUMINT says theres a prequel in the works…
I loved Replay by Grimwood, a good idea, a good read. Horrible movie though…
Brian Fair Berkey, who wrote the heartbreakingly good The Keys to Tulsa and died. The ending is just a hair over the top, but he drew the Tulsa I know perfectly.
The only other writing I’ve ever been able to find by him are some pieces on woodworking.
Tom Reamy and Richard McKenna occurred to me, too.
I’d say David R. Bunch, for his truly weird Moderan stories.
Not really a “one hit wonder” as much as a “didn’t write nearly enough”, but the late Janet Kagan comes to mind, with Uhura’s Song, Hellspark, and Mirabile.
Grant Callin. _Saturnalia_ and _A Lion on Tharthee_ were both great fun, but nothing came after that, unfortunately.
Happily, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller are back among the actively published. About 10 years ago, they’d have been on this list too…
Anybody else familiar with The Butterfly Kid by Chester Anderson?
I’ll put up Jocelin Foxe, two women who wrote 2 books for Eos in the early ’90’s. They weren’t great literature, but they were a lot of fun and I would have liked to have seen the end of the series.
I loved Eight Skilled Gentlemen too.
Lis Riba @44: Yes. It’s wonderful. Have you read the sequels? One is The Unicorn Girl by Michael Kurland (who appears as a character in TBK); the other (which follows in sequence) is The Probability Pad by T.A. Waters. But since they weren’t written by CA, they don’t count against him in this thread.
Marcel Proust.
He wrote a bunch of short pieces that were collected in a book and published as “Les Plaisirs et les Jours”. He had one novel published posthumously (in 1954) from an unfinished manuscript. He also translated a couple of novels into french.
And he published “À la recherche du temps perdu”; mostly in his lifetime. You may have heard of it; probably never read it. I know I haven’t; it frightens me.
cheers
Andrew
P.S. I will accept cheating accusations. Proust’s one novel probably has as many words as the collected works of most author’s.
44: Yes. I have the 1980 Pocket Book MMPK, as well as used copies of the othe two books in the series.
I wish Andrew Stephenson had written more SF novels.
I’ll mention Daniel Keyes Moran, due to the gnashing of teeth his slim output caused amongst SF fans when I was doing the Bookstore gig.
The maddening thing about Moran is that he has more books written. He just can’t get them published, perhaps because he comes off as Difficult to Work With.
The Long Run is absolutely fabulous. The setting is a little dated (and, to be honest, it was kind of dippy back in the day), but the action scenes and snappy dialogue are just perfect.
Haven’t read it myself, but many think Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep was a great book. Published in 1934; reprinted in the 60s to considerable success. The first volume of his second novel, Mercy of a Rude Stream, came out in 1995. Quite a time lag.
Personally, I’m extremely fond of Charles G. Finney’s The Circus of Dr. Lao. He wrote a few other books, none of which seems to have captured the imagination.
Another vote for T.J.Bass.
I tracked down Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen only a few weeks ago. 8SG is next up on my reading list.
For other one hit wonders, I would add Attanasio’s Radix (as everything else of his that I’ve tried to read has been excruciating) and Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love.
Then there’s Kyril Bonfiglioli, one-time editor of Science Fantasy magazine, who most memorably wrote a small number of books about Charlie Mortdecai, stylistically caught in an hilarious cross between Ian Fleming and P.G.Wodehouse.
Dammit, people! My “to-be-read” pile already takes up an entire bookcase and now you’re throwing more titles out there that I must look up, find, and, probably, buy. You’re not helping me cut back at all!
Alessandro Boffa: “You’re an Animal, Viskovitz” – absolutely enchanting, and so much fun.
Wot, no one’s yet mentioned Daniel Keyes of “Flowers for Algernon” fame?
I, too, love the Hughart books and am sorely disappointed that there aren’t any more. At least I have my nice omnibus edition to comfort me.
Er, she actually did the print run – the omnibus was published by her store. To be sure, the SFBC also picked it up.
The SFBC version of the omnibus is harder to find than I would have expected, but the individual editions of the three books are readily available if one doesn’t insist on near-mint hardcovers.
Bruce @46: I didn’t realize there was a third one; must track that down. The first two are great fun.
If we’re including “died before they wrote a lot,” I think C.C. MacApp deserves a mention.
Elsewise, I would include William Tedford, who has kept writing, he just decided that he didn’t like corporate publishers. Fortunately, he does like Lulu.com (http://www.multiversenovels.com/ or http://stores.lulu.com/wmgt).
Of course, he wrote more than one book.
Heather Gladney: Teot’s War (fabulous debut), Bloodstorm, got stuck on the third and as of 2007 is still working on it.
I like Doris Egan, but she clearly is doing screenwriting these days and not novels. Shame, really, I loved the trilogy she did.
Ooh, I forgot to mention the remarkable Angela Carter, who published a LOT of short stories but only (I think) 2 novels before she died, far too young. Her best-known book is [u]Wise Children,[/u] which everybody must read.
The Horizontal Instrument – not really in any genre but transcendent. Also published under the name “The measure of love”.
sorry, sent the comment before mentioning that Christopher Wilkins was the author of The Horizontal Instrument.
I would love for Julian Jaynes to do a follow-up to The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.
But, of course, he is dead.
Andrew @42 mentions Janet Kagan.
Sad news for those who haven’t heard yet. She died Friday, the 29th. Gardner Dozois has a short obituary for her at http://www.sfwa.org/news/2008/jkagan.htm
George
I found Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai to be truly enchanting and… sadly, the only book she has produced.
Seconded on Janet Kagen. In an odd way, she was a one-hit wonder, novel-wise. Hellspark was her only original SF novel, written under her own impetus. Mirabile was created from a collection of her Mama Jason short stories, while Uhura’s Song was apparently contracted as a weird way of getting Hellspark to print. I had always wondered why we never had any more novels, because Hellspark was absolutely wonderful (and the other two were nothing to sneeze at, however they came to be), but now, alas, I can’t even hope for more.
Well, for what it’s worth, Hughart himself blames the publishers:
Again, Janet Kagan. And again, Doris Egan — though I suppose she could decide to ditch House and write novels again.
I’ll also mention Alexander Laing, who wrote 2 wonderful novels in the 1930’s: Dr. Scarlett and The Methods of Dr. Scarlett. They chronicle the adventures of the doctor of a steamship on the Far East run. It’s a shame that nobody has heard of these two wonderful, humane, fascinating books.
Nicole @60: I was going to chime in with Daniel Keyes and “Flowers for Algernon,” too. I haven’t read it in a long time, but I remember how heartbreaking it was.
Surprisingly, no one’s mentioned J. R. R. Tolkien. I would argue that the posthumous collections (e.g. Silmarillion) don’t count, and The Hobbit is arguably part of LOTR.
Marcus Goodrich, author of DELILAH, a novel set aboard a US Navy steamer in the Phillipines around the time of WWI. Some of the most brilliant, diamond-sharp writing I’ve ever read.
That one book, and then nothing. An afterword to a reprint edition in the 1970’s revealed that the sequel/continuation to DELILAH had been written by Goodrich, but never submitted. And he’d written another three or four novels, also never submitted to publishers.
AND… oh, crap, that selfish bastard… he’s given instructions to have his manuscripts burned after his death.
He was still alive at the time of that reprint, but since I’ve never heard anything since, I assume his wishes were followed. Damn!
“Memoirs Of An Invisible Man” by H. F. Saint. Wonderful book, but the author seems to have dropped from sight.
How about Keri Hulme’s The Bone People? An amazing story, powerfully told, and so far, the only Booker prize winning book I have ever re-read.
Raymond Harris – The Broken Worlds (1986), Shadows of the White Sun (1988), The Schizogenic Man (1990)
Andrew M Stephenson – Nightwatch (1977), The Wall of Years (1979)
Michelle Shirey Crean – Dancer of the Sixth (1993)
Richard Burns – Khalindaine (1986), Troubadour (1988)
Janet Kagan definitely sprang to my mind. Dammit.
Well, one hit wonder is probably not the right term, but Robert Toomey’s ‘World Of Trouble’ showed a lot of promise, and even occasional flashes of brilliance.
The book reads fairly well, even today.
Well, Hughart would have been my first pick as well. I once placed an order with The Other Change of Hobbit for the omnibus edition, but it never turned up, so I still haven’t read The Story of the Stone.
My other candidate would be Raphael Carter. The Fortunate Fall was an amazing first novel, but RC seems to have vanished from the scene without a trace.
Thanks for sharing the sad news about Janet Kagan — her Trek novels were right up there with Mike Ford’s and Diane Duane’s as proof that great writing can occasionally flourish in franchise fiction.
My vote would be for Frans G. Bengtsson’s The Long Ships. It’s actually two linked novels published as a single volume in the English translation by Michael Meyer. Bengtsson wrote a bunch of historical essays, poems, and biographies but, as far as I know, only two novels. The other novel doesn’t seem to have been translated, so in English at least, he qualifies as a one-hit-wonder novelist.
The Long Ships is a wonderful episodic story set in the 10th century and includes all of the great viking themes: raiding in England, arrogant kings, beautiful slave girls, berserkers, journeys to Moorish Spain and the hinterland of Russia, hidden gold, blood feuds, drunken feasts, etc. The humor is very dry and modern, but the prose reads very much like a translation of the Icelandic sagas (not a lot of psychologizing or internal monologue).
I ran across a paperback version in Copenhagen airport when I was 13 or 14 and read it until it fell apart. More recently I found a very nice hardback first edition on Abebooks to replace the paperback. Every time I read it I want him to write another novel, but sadly, that would require some heavy duty necromancy.
I’d add Whiteout by Sage Walker to the list. I really enjoyed the book (a LOCUS award-winner) and have waited with much anticipation for another novel. While that hasn’t happened yet, it’s interesting that she was part of the group of writers including Greg Bear and Jerry Pournelle invited to work with the Department of Homeland Security to think of new and interesting ways terrorists might try to kill us. Maybe that brain play will lead to some new lit?
Wow, I see favorite books popping up here. Emergence was an instant classic for me, as well as Replay. I must say that Harper Lee does OWN this list. Oh please let there be dozens of manuscripts found when she passes. If nothing else it will lay to rest the rumor that Truman Capote ghost-wrote the entire book.
Hughart – I have pushed this man on to more people than any other author in my lifetime. And every time they come back and say “more?” and then I break it to them that the series was never finished. Bridge of Birds was just beautiful and wondrous, and Eight Skilled Gentlemen was fiendish. But the Story of the Stone made me laugh harder than just about anything I ever read. Barry Hughart, please come back. Please.
Speaking of David Bethke, I’m still waiting for the sequel to “Rebel Moon.”
I’m also a little surprised that no one has mentioned Alexei Panshin’s “Rite of Passage.”
Shrike58 @ 80: I’m surprised I didn’t think of Panshin myself. That’s a wonderful book.
He’s not the only person who broke on the Rock of Heinlein.
Charles McNair’s Land O’Goshen–a great dark fantasy Southern Gothic, set in a futuristic U.S. torn apart by a “Second American Civil War” (religious-based)
Bob Oeste’s The Last Pumpkin Paper–a comic mystery/thriller about the Alger Hiss case that jumps back and forth between 1946 and 1989 and features Richard Nixon as a supporting character in both timelines.
Bruno Maddox’s My Little Blue Dress–very apropos considering John’s post about fake memoirs.
McNair and Oeste seem to have dropped off the map. Maddox is rumored to be working on a new book, but no word yet.
H Nearing wrote a series of stories in the early 1950s collected as “The Sinister Researches of C P Ransom” that are a great sendup of academic scrambling. And nothing else. Sigh.
Did King James ever write anything after his Bible?
I love Barry Hughart’s books (and I actually prefer Story of the Stone to bridge of birds if only marginaly and only because of the description of chinese hell).
I also second the mention of long ships by Bengtsson.
Absolutely a great book.
I wonder though why no one yet mentioned H. D. Salinger?
After “Catcher in the rye” he published only a few short stories but never another novel.
Bruce Bethke, the Original Cyberpunk, isn’t dead; he’s blogging at: http://rantingroom.blogspot.com
I nominate “Pandora’s Planet” by Christopher Anvil. Loved it as a teenager – love the humor more the older I get.
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not_scottbot at #75 mentioned Robert Toomey.
I remember Toomey’s work, not for A WORLD OF TROUBLE, but for the various short stories he had in the Ted-White-era AMAZING and FANTASTIC magazines. Some of those stories were damn good, and I thought back then that Toomey would end up as a Big Name. Alas, not so.
I’m amazed that someone’s complaining Marcel Proust didn’t write enough… good lord, man, have pity!
I’ll agree with the mentions of Daniel Keys Moran above and add in another that’s not actually a one-hit wonder, but whom I often wonder what ever happened to: Paula Volsky. I’ve not seen any mention of her since Grand Elipse in 2001.
She has another novel called Your Name Here which has yet to find a publisher; it’s excerpted in the most recent n+1 magazine.
“memoirs of an invisible man” HF Saint
“Ivory books” Doris Egan
“Earth Abides” George R Stewart
“Witches of Karres” James H Schmitz
I’d add “flowers for algernon”
I am another one of the Bridge of Birds fan. I read it now a few times and I brought it back when it came out and got the big World Fantasy Award. The book is my favorite. According to Amazon.. You will find both of his other books ever so often and Barry Hughart has even wrote in under people’s reviews and says he will sign copies too and lives out in New Mexico also said there was suppose to be 10 books in the series but never happen and he was happy at 3 books. I thought I would let u know this.