The major debut this week is Gregory Maguire's A Lion Among Men (Morrow), third book in the series that began with the perennial bestseller Wicked, basis of the popular stage musical. (Second in the series was Son of a Witch, on a couple lists this week in trade paperback.) It ranks on all five print lists compiled here, as high as #4 on fiction hardcover lists from New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Publishers Weekly.

Other debuts this week include Brandon Sanderson's The Hero of Ages (Tor), third in his Mistborn series, ranking #21 on the NYT fiction hardcover list; F. Paul Wilson's By the Sword (Forge), his latest Repairman Jack novel, #31 on the same NYT list; and the second volume of M.T. Anderson's young adult Octavian Nothing series, The Kingdom on the Waves (Candlewick), #9 on the NYT children's chapter book list.

Ranking significantly on Amazon.com this week is Brian Greene's children's picture book Icarus at the Edge of Time (Knopf), ranking #37 this week, perhaps due to the NPR interview yesterday with Robert Krulwich, with an abridged reading of the story.

Also, the next Laurell K. Hamilton Meredith Gentry novel, Swallowing Darkness (Ballantine), on sale November 4th, ranks #78 today with prepublication sales.