Locus Bestsellers, June 2023
The Locus Bestsellers for June include top titles: A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury US), Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace), Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (Tor), and Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars, Sam Maggs (Random House Worlds).
| HARDCOVERS | Months on list |
Last month |
|
| 1) | A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury US) | 1 | – |
| 2) | The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, Shannon Chakraborty (Harper Voyager US) | 1 | – |
| 3) | A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers (Tordotcom) | 14 | 3 |
| 4) | Babel, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager) | 8 | 2 |
| 5) | What Moves the Dead, T. Kingfisher (Tor Nightfire) | 3 | – |
| 6) | Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, Heather Fawcett (Del Rey) | 3 | 4 |
| 7) | A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Becky Chambers (Tordotcom) | 8 | 8 |
| 8) | The Foxglove King, Hannah Whitten (Orbit US) | 1 | – |
| 9) | The Curator, Owen King (Scribner) | 1 | – |
| *) | Fairy Tale, Stephen King (Scribner) | 7 | 9 |
| PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 73 | 1 |
| 2) | The Way of Kings, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 42 | – |
| 3) | Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 28 | 3 |
| 4) | A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin (Clarion) | 10 | – |
| 5) | Hyperion, Dan Simmons (Bantam Spectra) | 8 | – |
| 6) | Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett (Harper) | 4 | – |
| 7) | Chapterhouse: Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 2 | 10 |
| 8) | Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 24 | 10 |
| 9) | God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert (Ace) | 3 | – |
| 10) | Warbreaker, Brandon Sanderson (Tor) | 3 | – |
| TRADE PAPERBACKS | |||
| 1) | Legends & Lattes, Travis Baldree (Tor) | 5 | 1 |
| 2) | A Court of Mist and Fury, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 8 | 5 |
| 3) | A Court of Silver Flames, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 3 | 10 |
| 4) | The Priory of the Orange Tree, Samantha Shannon (Bloomsbury US) | 16 | 7 |
| 5) | A Court of Wings and Ruin, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 5 | 6 |
| 6) | A Court of Thorns and Roses, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 11 | 2 |
| 7) | Backpacking Through Bedlam, Seanan McGuire (DAW) | 1 | – |
| 8) | Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Orbit US) | 7 | – |
| 9) | A Court of Frost and Starlight, Sarah J. Maas (Bloomsbury US) | 5 | – |
| 10) | Under the Whispering Door, TJ Klune (Tor) | 1 | – |
| MEDIA & GAMING-RELATED | |||
| 1) | Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars, Sam Maggs (Random House Worlds) | 1 | – |
| 2) | Star Wars: Thrawn, Timothy Zahn (Del Rey) | 21 | – |
Prequels moved to the top of the hardcover list with A Day of Fallen Night, Samantha Shannon’s prequel to The Priory of the Orange Tree, capturing the top spot, and Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, which takes place 1000 years before The City of Brass, in second. The Crane Husband (Tor), Kelly Barnhill’s contemporary retelling of the Japanese folktale of ‘‘The Crane Wife’’, was our new runner-up. We had 60 nominated titles, up from 51 last month.
Old favorites dominated the paperback list with no new releases making the list. Dune by Frank Herbert barely held onto first place, just edging out Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings. There were no new runners up. Sixty-five titles were nominated, down from last month’s 68.
On the trade paperback list, Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree came in first, with a slight lead over Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Mist and Fury. Our new runner-up was Dead Country (Tor), Max Gladstone’s first book in his new Craft War Series. There were 58 nominated titles, down from last month’s 71.
Only two books had enough votes to make our media-related & gaming-related books list. In its first month of release, Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars by Sam Maggs took a commanding lead with almost twice as many votes as our second-place finisher Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars: Thrawn. We had 19 nominated titles, up from 12 last month.
Compiled with data from: Bakka-Phoenix (Canada), Book Moon (MA), Borderlands (CA), McNally Robinson (two in Canada), Mysterious Galaxy (CA), Toadstool (two in NH), White Dwarf (Canada).
Data period: March 2023.
Note: book titles and covers on this page link to IndieBound, a network of independent booksellers, such as those that contribute to this list.
See this listing and more like it in the June 2023 issue of Locus.
While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time or recurring donation. We rely on reader donations to keep the magazine and site going, and would like to keep the site paywall free, but WE NEED YOUR FINANCIAL SUPPORT to continue quality coverage of the science fiction and fantasy field.
©Locus Magazine. Copyrighted material may not be republished without permission of LSFF.
