Locus Bestsellers, May 2020
The Locus Bestsellers for May include top titles Agency by William Gibson, Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs, The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski, and Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack.
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | Agency, William Gibson (Berkley) | 2 | – |
| 2) | Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey (Tor.com Publishing) | 1 | – |
| 3) | Penric’s Progress, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) | 2 | 2 |
| 4) | Resurgence, C.J. Cherryh (DAW) | 2 | 3 |
| 5) | Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) | 6 | 6 |
| 6) | Highfire, Eoin Colfer (HarperPerennial) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Light of All That Falls, James Islington (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 8) | The Burning White, Brent Weeks (Orbit US) | 3 | – |
| *) | Qualityland, Marc-Uwe Kling (Grand Central) | 1 | – |
| 10) | Come Tumbling Down, Seanan McGuire (Tor.com) | 2 | 4 |
| *) | Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf) | 2 | – |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Storm Cursed, Patricia Briggs (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 3 | 10 |
| 3) | Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 5 | 6 |
| 4) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 37 | 1 |
| 5) | Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US) | 1 | – |
| 6) | Imaginary Numbers, Seanan McGuire (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 6 | 9 |
| 8) | Neuromancer, William Gibson (Ace) | 4 | 3 |
| 9) | American Gods, Neil Gaiman (Morrow) | 43 | – |
| 10) | Octavia Gone, Jack McDevitt (Saga) | 1 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | The Last Wish, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 7 | 3 |
| 2) | Sword of Destiny, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 3 | 8 |
| 3) | Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 2 | 1 |
| 4) | Black Leopard, Red Wolf, Marlon James (Riverhead) | 1 | – |
| 5) | Cast in Wisdom, Michelle Sagara (Mira) | 1 | – |
| *) | Tiamat’s Wrath, James S.A. Corey (Orbit US) | 2 | 5 |
| 7) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 38 | 7 |
| 8) | The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor) | 1 | – |
| *) | Radicalized, Cory Doctorow (Tor) | 1 | – |
| *) | The Tower of Swallows, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 2 | 4 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope, Una McCormack (Gallery) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Firefly: Big Damn Hero, James Lovegrove (Titan US) | 5 | – |
| 3) | Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 6 | 5 |
Agency by William Gibson took the top spot on the hardcover list with a commanding lead over our second place finisher, Sarah Gailey’s new standalone novella Upright Women Wanted. There were no new runners-up. We had 47 nominated titles, down from last month’s 51.
On the paperbacks list, Storm Cursed by Patricia Briggs, book 11 in the Mercy Thompson series, claimed first place over the first novel in the Witcher series, Andrzej Sapkowski’s Blood of Elves. Our new runner-up was Anne Bishop’s Wild Country (Ace), the second book in her World of the Others series. 54 titles were nominated, down from 60 last month.
Reflecting both the popularity of Netflix’s The Witcher TV show and the novels themselves, Andrzej Sapkowski scored a hat trick on the trade paperback list with The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny, and Blood of Elves taking first, second, and third place, respectively. C.A. Fletcher’s post-apocalyptic novel A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World (Orbit US) was our new runner-up. We had 48 titles nominated, down from 65 last month.
On the media and gaming related books list, Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack moved into first place, followed by James Lovegrove’s Firefly: Big Damn Hero. There were no new runners-up. We had 16 nominated titles, down from last month’s 19.
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: February 2020.
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 May 2020 issue of Locus.
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