I was thrilled this morning to open up my newsletter from San Francisco independent genre bookstore, Borderlands Books, one of my favorite bookstores on the planet, to discover that the recently released paperback of Ian McDonald’s River of Gods tied for fourth place with Michael Swanwick’s new collection, The Dog Said Bow-Wow, on their Borderlands Best-Selling Titles for September, 2007 in the trade paperback category. Here’s the full list for the category:
1. Butcher Bird by Richard Kadrey
2. Grey by Jon Armstrong
3. Reaper’s Gale by Steven Erikson
4. The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick tie with
River of Gods by Ian McDonald
5. Nova Swing by M. John Harrison
Here’s Borderlands’ contact information, if anyone wants to help boost the book in the rankings!
Update: Somehow I missed this in my first read of the Borderlands newsletter: The Blade Itself – The First Law, vol. 1 by Joe Abercrombie (Pyr, Trade Paperback, $15.00) – Ben and several customers are raving about this grim heroic fantasy debut. Ben says “A fantasy novel that combines a famous barbarian who is sick of ‘the lifestyle,’ an up-and-coming nobleman who is so selfish you just want to slap him, a state-sanctioned torturer who is trying to see every angle in a twisted political labyrinth, and a curmudgeonly ancient wizard whom no one belives. Throw them all together, have them embark on a tale only hinted at in this fist novel, and you have the beginning of a truly unusual and wonderfully captivating series. Buy this book — and this is from someone who doesn’t read fantasy!”