Locus Bestsellers, March 2020
The Locus Bestsellers for March include top titles Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, and Star Wars: Master & Apprentice by Claudia Gray.
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) | 4 | 6 |
| 2) | A Brightness Long Ago, Guy Gavriel Kay (Berkley) | 6 | – |
| *) | The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern (Doubleday) | 2 | 8 |
| 4) | The Book of Dust, Vol. 2: The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman (Knopf) | 2 | – |
| *) | Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo (Flatiron) | 3 | 3 |
| 6) | Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, Neal Stephenson (Morrow) | 5 | – |
| 7) | Warrior of the Altaii, Robert Jordan (Tor) | 3 | 5 |
| 8) | Accepting the Lance, Sharon Lee & Steve Miller (Baen) | 2 | 9 |
| *) | Strange Planet, Nathan W. Pyle (Morrow Gift) | 1 | – |
| 10) | Dead Astronauts, Jeff VanderMeer (MCD) | 1 | – |
| *) | Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (Bantam) | 10 | – |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss (DAW) | 75 | 1 |
| 2) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 35 | 2 |
| 3) | Seasons, Mercedes Lackey, ed. (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Good Omens, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett (Morrow) | 28 | 4 |
| 5) | Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| *) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 4 | – |
| 7) | American Gods, Neil Gaiman (Morrow) | 42 | – |
| 8) | The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Neil Gaiman (Morrow) | 3 | – |
| 9) | Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch (DAW) | 2 | 3 |
| 10) | Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 2 | – |
| *) | The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 15 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 36 | 8 |
| 2) | The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor) | 38 | 4 |
| 3) | Dead Astronauts, Jeff VanderMeer (McClelland & Stewart) | 1 | – |
| 4) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 5 | 1 |
| 5) | A Darker Shade of Magic, V.E. Schwab (Tor) | 21 | 3 |
| 6) | The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US) | 5 | 8 |
| 7) | The Raven Tower, Ann Leckie (Orbit US) | 2 | – |
| 8) | The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor) | 6 | – |
| 9) | Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (Simon & Schuster) | 56 | – |
| *) | Leviathan Wakes, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 27 | 5 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Wars: Master & Apprentice, Claudia Gray (Del Rey) | 8 | 4 |
| 2) | Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 4 | – |
| 3) | Star Wars: Thrawn, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 15 | – |
| 4) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Alliances, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 11 | – |
| 5) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 4 | – |
The race to the top of the hardcover list was tight this month, with less than a handful of votes separating first place from fourth place. Tamsyn Muir’s Gideon the Ninth squeaked out a win, just edging out our tied, second place finishers A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay and The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. A Trick of Light by Stan Lee & Kat Rosenfield (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), part of the Alliances Universe, was our new runner-up. We had 49 nominated titles, down from last month’s 52.
On the paperbacks list, the top two held steady, with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and Dune by Frank Herbert remaining in first and second place respectively. Our new runner-up was The Cloud Roads by Martha Wells (Night Shade), book one in The Books of Raksura series. 51 titles were nominated, up from 47 last month.
Old favorites returned to the top of the trade paperback list, with N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season claiming the number one spot followed by The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. There were no new runners-up. We had 56 titles nominated, down from 75 last month.
Star Wars swept our media and gaming-related books list this month. Claudia Gray’s Star Wars: Master & Apprentice captured first place with a substantial lead over Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars: Heir to the Empire in second. There were no new runners-up. We had 16 nominated titles, down from last month’s 21.
Compiled with data from Bakka-Phoenix Books (Canada), Borderlands (CA), McNally Robinson (2 in Canada), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Toadstool (NH), Uncle Hugo’s (MN), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: December 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 March 2020 issue of Locus.
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