Locus Bestsellers, July 2020
The Locus Bestsellers for July include top titles The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin, Dune by Frank Herbert, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, and Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn.
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 2 | 3 |
| 2) | The Last Emperox, John Scalzi (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 3) | The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune (Tor) | 1 | – |
| 4) | Smoke Bitten, Patricia Briggs (Ace) | 2 | 1 |
| 5) | The Pursuit of the Pankera, Robert A. Heinlein (Caezik) | 1 | – |
| 6) | Agency, William Gibson (Berkley) | 4 | 6 |
| *) | The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, Grady Hendrix (Quirk) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com Publishing) | 7 | – |
| 9) | The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow (Redhook) | 4 | 10 |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 39 | 4 |
| 2) | Dayfall, Michael David Ares (Tor) | 1 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Saga) | 2 | 6 |
| 2) | Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) | 2 | 4 |
| 3) | A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US) | 2 | – |
| 4) | The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley (Saga) | 1 | – |
| 5) | Sixteenth Watch, Myke Cole (Angry Robot US) | 1 | – |
| 6) | The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US) | 40 | 1 |
| 7) | A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine (Tor) | 2 | 5 |
| MEDIA & GAMING RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 5 | – |
| 2) | Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow, E.K. Johnson (Lucasfilm) | 2 | – |
Coronavirus Edition: During April, the stay-at-home orders continued to affect all our bookstores, with some closed, but most selling books online, by mail order, and via curbside pick-up. The numbers reported reflect those sales, with some stores declining to send us a list this month. From the books on the list, it is clear that the pandemic has affected buying patterns. Pre-pandemic, most of the books on our lists were new releases. This month, most books sold were old favorites, parts of series, or by established authors.
On the hardcover list, N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became, the first book in The Great Cities Trilogy, moved into first place with a significant lead over our second-place finisher, The Last Emperox by John Scalzi, the conclusion to the Interdependency series. There were no new runners-up. We had 33 nominated titles, down from last month’s 36.
There was no consensus on this month’s paperback list, with only two books receiving enough votes to make it onto the list. Even then, the vote was close, with Dune by Frank Herbert barely edging out Michael David Ares’s Dayfall to take first place. There were no new runners-up. There were 41 titles nominated, down from 44 last month.
On the trade paperback list, This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone claimed the top spot by a razor-thin margin over Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow in second. There were no new runners-up. We had 44 titles nominated, down from 49 last month.
Only two books received enough votes to earn a spot on our media and gaming related books list, with Star Wars: Thrawn: Treason by Timothy Zahn in first place, followed closely by E.K. Johnson’s Star Wars: Queen’s Shadow. There were no new runners-up. We had six nominated titles, down from last month’s 11.
Compiled with data from Bakka-Phoenix Books (Canada), Borderlands (CA), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Toadstool (NH), Uncle Hugo’s (MN), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: April 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 July 2020 issue of Locus.
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