Locus Bestsellers, August 2019
The Locus Bestsellers for August include top titles A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay, A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, and Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray.
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | A Brightness Long Ago, Guy Gavriel Kay (Berkley) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf) | 1 | – |
| 3) | Storm Cursed, Patricia Briggs (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Middlegame, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com Publishing) | 1 | – |
| 5) | Tiamat’s Wrath, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 3 | 1 |
| 6) | Octavia Gone, Jack McDevitt (Saga) | 1 | – |
| 7) | Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) | 7 | 4 |
| 8) | The Binding, Bridget Collins (Morrow) | 1 | – |
| 9) | A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) | 13 | – |
| *) | The Stiehl Assassin, Terry Brooks (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) | 93 | 3 |
| 2) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 21 | 2 |
| 3) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 28 | 1 |
| 4) | Head On, John Scalzi (Tor) | 2 | 7 |
| 5) | American Gods, Neil Gaiman (Morrow) | 39 | 9 |
| 6) | The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 68 | 4 |
| 7) | Though Hell Should Bar the Way, David Drake (Baen) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Magic Triumphs, Ilona Andrews (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 9) | Embers of War, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US) | 2 | – |
| 10) | Oblivion, Steve White & Charles E. Gannon (Baen) | 1 | – |
| *) | Relic, Alan Dean Foster (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) | 28 | – |
| 2) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 29 | 1 |
| 3) | Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| 4) | The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor) | 32 | 3 |
| 5) | Children of Ruin, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 6) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 1 | – |
| 7) | A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab (Tor) | 2 | 10 |
| *) | A People’s Future of the United States, Victor LaValle & John Joseph Adams, ed. (One World) | 4 | 3 |
| 9) | Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 21 | 2 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, Claudia Gray (Del Rey) | 2 | 2 |
| 2) | Magic: The Gathering: War of the Spark: Ravnica, Greg Weisman (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| 3) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 7 | 1 |
New releases dominated the hardcover list, with our four top finishers released in May, but Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Brightness Long Ago claimed first place, barely beating Ted Chiang’s new story collection Exhalation in second. The new runner-up was The Gordian Protocol (Baen), a new stand-alone from David Weber & Jacob Holo. We had 52 nominated titles, down from 54 last month.
Old favorites continue to take the top spots on the paperback list, with A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin in first place, followed closely in the number two spot by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens. There were no new runners-up. There were 50 titles nominated, down from last month’s 64.
Not satisfied with nabbing the top spot on the paperback list, George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones narrowly edged N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season out of first place on the trade paperback list. There were no new runners-up. We had 47 titles nominated, down from 72 last month.
In media and gaming related books, Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray moved up from second last month and into first place with a substantial lead over second place finisher Greg Weisman’s Magic the Gathering: War of the Spark: Ravnica. There were no new runners-up. We had 21 nominated titles, down from last month’s 24.
Compiled with data from Bakka-Phoenix Books (Canada), Barnes & Noble (USA), Borderlands (CA), McNally Robinson (2 in Canada), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Toadstool (NH), Uncle Hugo’s (MN), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: May 2019
Note: book titles and covers on this page link to IndieBound, a network of independent booksellers, such as those that contribute to this list.
From the August 2019 issue of Locus.
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