by Mark Twimbly

Every few months I check the SFF bestseller list at Locus Magazine to see if there’s anything I want to read on it – and lately, every time I ask myself ‘Where’s all the SFF?’. It’s like looking at an alien landscape, with everything but the alien landscape. Their bestseller list doesn’t even feature the stuff they cover in their magazine, so what’s the point?

I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own list of best-selling SFF books that genre fans who tend to pan on young adult and ‘urban fantasy’ might be interested in. So no romantic werewolves or majickal kiddies. And I also excised media tie-ins as well. Which , to be honest, leaves very little in any of the official bestseller lists, but that’s life: sometimes, the rarer the better.

I do want to make it clear that this isn’t a value judgement. I’m not saying that those ‘other’ books aren’t good, just that they don’t belong on this particular list. If someone wants to make the case that the Sookie Stackhouse box set should be part of this list, let’s talk about it!

So without further pomp and circumstance, on to the inaugural edition of the Plutonian Times Really Real SFF Bestseller list:

The Gathering Storm, by Robert Jordan
World War Z, by Max Brooks
Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb
Star Carrier, by Ian Douglas
The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire
Blackout, by Connie Willis
Black Powder War, by Naomi Novik

February 24, 2010 9:03 pm

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