Locus Bestsellers, December 2019
The Locus Bestsellers for December include top titles Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing); Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson (Tor); To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US); and Forgotten Realms: Boundless by R.A. Salvatore (Harper Voyager US).
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) | 1 | – |
| 2) | A Little Hatred, Joe Abercrombie (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 3) | The Testaments, Margaret Atwood (Talese) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Darkdawn, Jay Kristoff (St. Martin’s) | 1 | – |
| 5) | The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook) | 1 | – |
| 6) | The Institute, Stephen King (Scribner) | 1 | – |
| 7) | Tiamat’s Wrath, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 6 | – |
| 8) | A Brightness Long Ago, Guy Gavriel Kay (Berkley) | 5 | 3 |
| *) | The Unkindest Tide, Seanan McGuire (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 10) | Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, Neal Stephenson (Morrow) | 4 | 1 |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 25 | 1 |
| 3) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 32 | 2 |
| 4) | The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 14 | 4 |
| 5) | The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 72 | 5 |
| *) | The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 34 | 9 |
| 7) | Uncompromising Honor, David Weber (Baen) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Empire of Silence, Christopher Ruocchio (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 9) | Midnight Riot, Ben Aaronovitch (Del Rey) | 4 | – |
| 10) | The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (Ace) | 11 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Simon & Schuster) | 55 | 8 |
| *) | The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor) | 35 | 1 |
| 4) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 2 | – |
| 5) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 33 | 7 |
| 6) | The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) | 5 | 5 |
| 7) | Velocity Weapon, Megan E. O’Keefe (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 25 | 3 |
| 9) | Cibola Burn, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 3 | – |
| 10) | Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (Orbit US) | 36 | 10 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Forgotten Realms: Boundless, R.A. Salvatore (Harper Voyager US) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 3 | 1 |
| 3) | Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, Claudia Gray (Del Rey) | 5 | – |
| 4) | Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge: Black Spire, Delilah S. Dawson (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| *) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 10 | – |
Tamsyn Muir’s debut novel Gideon the Ninth, the first book in The Locked Tomb trilogy, captured first place on the hardcover list with a respectable lead over A Little Hatred by Joe Ambercrombie. Annalee Newitz’s novel The Future of Another Timeline (Tor) was the new runner-up. We had 44 nominated titles, down from 51 last month.
On the paperback list, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett slid into second place, following Brandon Sanderson’s Oathbringer in first. The latest October Daye novel to appear in paperback, Night and Silence by Seanan McGuire, was our new runner-up. There were 56 titles nominated, up from last month’s 48.
Becky Chambers’s standalone novella To Be Taught, If Fortunate, jumped to the top of the trade paperback list, while The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu moved into second. There were no new runners-up. We had 73 titles nominated, up from 67 last month.
On our media and gaming-related books list, R.A. Salvatore’s new Forbidden Realms book Boundless stormed the list with over twice as many votes as our second-place finisher Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn. There were no new runners-up. We had 20 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), University Bookstore (WA), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: September 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 December 2019 issue of Locus.
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