Locus Bestsellers, June 2020
The Locus Bestsellers for June include top titles Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs, Imaginary Numbers by Seanan McGuire, The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, and Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack.
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | Smoke Bitten, Patricia Briggs (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 2) | False Value, Ben Aaronovitch (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 3) | The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 4) | House of Earth and Blood, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 1 | – |
| 5) | The Queen’s Bargain, Anne Bishop (Ace) | 1 | – |
| 6) | Agency, William Gibson (Berkley) | 3 | 1 |
| 7) | A Pale Light in the Black, K.B. Wagers (Harper Voyager US) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Penric’s Progress, Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen) | 3 | 3 |
| 9) | Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf) | 3 | 10 |
| 10) | The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook) | 3 | – |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Imaginary Numbers, Seanan McGuire (DAW) | 2 | 6 |
| 2) | Blood of Elves, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 4 | 2 |
| *) | Oathbringer, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 6 | 3 |
| 4) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 38 | 4 |
| *) | Octavia Gone, Jack McDevitt (Saga) | 2 | 10 |
| *) | Storm Cursed, Patricia Briggs (Ace) | 2 | 1 |
| 7) | The Cruel Stars, John Birmingham (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Fleet of Knives, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US) | 2 | 5 |
| 9) | The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin (Ace) | 13 | – |
| 10) | The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 16 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 39 | 7 |
| 2) | Sword of Destiny, Andrzej Sapkowski (Orbit US) | 4 | 2 |
| 3) | The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury US) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) | 1 | – |
| 5) | A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 6) | This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga) | 1 | – |
| 7) | The Three-Body Problem, Cixin Liu (Tor) | 40 | – |
| 8) | The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US) | 7 | – |
| 9) | The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders (Tor) | 2 | 8 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope, Una McCormack (Gallery) | 2 | 8 |
Welcome to the coronavirus version of our Bestsellers list. The numbers reported reflect any sales made before lockdown and any online, mail, or curbside pick-up orders since.
On the hardcover list, two new releases, both from long-running and well-loved series, claimed first and second place. Smoke Bitten by Patricia Briggs, book 12 in the Mercy Thompson series, barely edged out the eighth book in the Rivers of London series, False Value by Ben Aaronovitch, to nab the top spot. There were no new runners-up. We had 36 nominated titles, down from last month’s 47.
On the paperbacks list, book nine in Seanan McGuire’s InCryptid series, Imaginary Numbers, owned first place with almost twice as many votes as our second place finisher Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski, the first book in The Witcher series. Our new runner-up was the third book in The Books of Raksura series, The Siren Depths by Martha Wells (Tor). There were 44 titles nominated, down from 54 last month.
N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (the first book in her Hugo Award-winning The Broken Earth trilogy) returned to the top of the trade paperback list, followed closely by the fourth book in The Witcher series, Sword of Destiny by Andrzej Sapkowski. There were no new runners-up. We had 49 titles nominated, one up from 48 last month.
Only one book received enough votes to earn a spot on our media and gaming related books list, Star Trek: Picard: The Last Best Hope by Una McCormack. There were no new runners-up. We had 11 nominated titles, down from last month’s 16.
Compiled with data from Bakka-Phoenix Books (Canada), Borderlands (CA), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Toadstool (NH), Uncle Hugo’s (MN), University Bookstore (WA), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: March 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 June 2020 issue of Locus.
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