Locus Bestsellers, January 2020
The Locus Bestsellers for January include top titles A Little Hatred by Joe Abercrombie (Orbit US); Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow); and Forgotten Realms: Boundless by R.A. Salvatore (Harper Voyager US).
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | A Little Hatred, Joe Abercrombie (Orbit US) | 2 | 2 |
| 2) | The Burning White, Brent Weeks (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 3) | Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron) | 1 | – |
| 4) | The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman (Knopf) | 1 | – |
| 5) | Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) | 2 | 1 |
| 6) | Warrior of the Altaii, Robert Jordan (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Institute, Stephen King (Scribner) | 2 | 6 |
| *) | The Princess Beard, Delilah S. Dawson & Kevin Hearne (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| 9) | The Testaments, Margaret Atwood (Talese) | 2 | 3 |
| 10) | Imaginary Friend, Stephen Chbosky (Grand Central) | 1 | – |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 26 | 2 |
| 2) | Uncompromising Honor, David Weber (Baen) | 2 | 7 |
| 3) | Fallen, Benedict Jacka (Ace) | 1 | – |
| *) | The Sky-Blue Wolves, S.M. Stirling (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 5) | The Consuming Fire, John Scalzi (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 6) | The Forbidden Stars, Tim Pratt (Angry Robot US) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 73 | 5 |
| 8) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 33 | 3 |
| 9) | Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 2 | 1 |
| 10) | The Wise Man’s Fear, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 35 | 5 |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 6 | – |
| 2) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 3 | 4 |
| *) | Salvaged, Madeleine Roux (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 4) | To Be Taught, If Fortunate, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US) | 2 | 1 |
| 5) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 34 | 5 |
| *) | The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor) | 36 | 2 |
| 8) | Imaginary Friend, Stephen Chbosky (Grand Central) | 1 | – |
| *) | The Library of the Unwritten, A.J. Hackwith (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 10) | Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs (Quirk) | 31 | – |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Forgotten Realms: Boundless, R.A. Salvatore (Harper Voyager US) | 2 | 1 |
| 2) | Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, Claudia Gray (Del Rey) | 6 | 3 |
| 3) | Star Trek: The Next Generation: Collateral Damage, David Mack (Gallery) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Star Wars: Dooku: Jedi Lost, Cavan Scott (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
On the hardcover list, last month’s second place finisher, Joe Abercrombie’s A Little Hatred, climbed into first place, edging out The Burning White by Brent Weeks, the concluding volume in his Lightbringer series. The new runner-up was The True Bastards by Jonathan French (Crown). We had 51 nominated titles, up from 44 last month.
Echoing the move from second to first place, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett moved back into first place on our paperback list with a substantial lead over David Weber’s Uncompromising Honor (the latest book in his long-running Honor Harrington series) in second. The Bartered Brides by Mercedes Lackey (DAW), book 13 in her Elemental Masters series, was our new runner-up. There were 53 titles nominated, down from last month’s 56.
On the trade paperback list, Good Omens, which had fallen off the list last month, returned with a vengeance, nabbing first place over The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. Our new runner up was The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), edited by Carmen Maria Machado & series editor John Joseph Adams. We had 71 titles nominated, down from 73 last month.
R.A. Salvatore’s Forbidden Realms book Boundless fended off all challengers to the top spot of the media and gaming related books, relegating Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray to second place. There were no new runners-up. We had 24 nominated titles, up from last month’s 20.
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: October 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 January 2020 issue of Locus.
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