Kindle sci-fi and fantasy bestsellers

We had a request to follow up on what's happening with the Amazon Kindle's spec fiction bestseller lists. It is three months to the day I posted about the front runners at the Kindle's launch, so it seems like a good time take another look.

In science fiction, classics continue to dominate the top sellers, with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five occupying the number one slot, and Orwell's 1984 right behind at second. In November these two classics rated in the top 300 of overall Kindle sales, and both have now moved up to around the top 200 in Kindle sales. Video game tie-ins have given way to the newest military SF by Nebula winner Elizabeth Moon, and yet another science fiction classic, Brave New World.

In fantasy, Gregory Maguire's Wicked continues to hold its own near the top of the bestseller list. Wicked has fallen from #1 to #2 in fantasy, and has fallen from the top 150 to the top 250 in Kindle's overall sales. Number three in fantasy is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, and number four is Gaiman's Stardust.

Here's an interesting piece of zeitgeist: the stunning success of the Dresden Files series on the spec fiction Kindle bestseller lists. Author Jim Butcher's Storm Front occupies the number 4 slot in science fiction and the number 5 slot in fantasy. Not only that, his White Night: A Novel of the Dresden Files is number one in fantasy. Not too shabby.

In horror, King continues to dominate, with three of the top five bestsellers. King's novels alternate with books by Kim Harrison.

Addio Kurt Vonnegut

NPR reports that Kurt Vonnegut (84) died last night. His Wikipedia entry has already been updated to reflect the date of his death. According to an NPR quote, for decades Vonnegut had been engaged in the "fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide" of smoking, but in the end was done in by complications from a fall- which just goes to show what must happen one day even to the mightiest.

I'll be talking more this week about Kurt Vonnegut. When one of my favorite authors dies, I usually enjoy some of their writing in their honor. For now I'll end with one thought:

Kurt Vonnegut was born in 1922. Let me repeat that. 1922. He grew up through the Great Depression and WW I. He was a private in WW II (and was captured as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany). The quote "So it goes" from his most famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five became an anti-war slogan for protesting Vietnam, and he was an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq. My point here isn't simply about Vonnegut's politics- it's about the span of his life, the times he lived through, and his extraordinary personal engagement with the most important events of modern history. Here's a guy who had a story to tell, and boy did he ever.