The New and Improved SFF All-Time Sales List

In 2008 I published a list of the all-time, biggest-selling genre works, attracting comments from luminaries such as Neil Gaiman and John Ringo. In the years since, I have received frequent requests for an update to the list. This has proven difficult as publishers seem reluctant to give out figures for all but the very biggest-selling authors. Nevertheless, I have now attempted an update.

As before, this list is based on information from Wikipedia, authors' own websites and publisher PR details. In many cases I was not able to find updated figures since 2008, and those figures stand unadjusted (noted where so). In some cases, some speculation was required and this is also noted. This list is by no means exhaustive and likely only accurate in the broadest strokes (though in almost all cases, I have gone with the more conservative figures).

J.K. Rowling: one of the few fantasy authors who could afford her very own fighter aircraft squadron. Not that she has one. As far as we know.

1) J.K Rowling (c. 450 million)

J.K. Rowling may have completed Harry Potter, but the series is still selling phenomenally well. Coupled with the success of her two adult novels (The Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo's Calling), her position at the top of the table is maintained and her lead increased.

2) Stephen King (c. 350 million)
As said in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1996), King's worldwide sales are totally incalculable and the above figure remains fairly conservative. King has published a string of popular novels since 2008, so his sales are likely up, but by how much is anyone's guess. A new piece of information to emerge since 2008 is that King's Dark Tower series has sold more than 30 million copies by itself, which would be enough to get into the Top Twenty comfortably even without his many other books.

3) JRR Tolkien (c. 300 million)
Tolkien's sales are likewise incalculable: 100,000 copies of a pirated version of The Lord of the Rings were sold in the United States alone in under a year, so the figures for unauthorised versions of the book in other countries are completely unguessable. What remains certain is that The Lord of the Rings is the biggest-selling single genre novel of all time, and possibly the best-selling single novel of all time. More than 50 million copies of the book have been sold since 2001 alone. The 100+ million sales of The Hobbit alone have also been bolstered significantly by the new Peter Jackson movies. If anything, the above figure may well be the most conservative on the list and Tolkien's sales may be vastly more (and possibly more than King's).

[Dean Koontz (c. 200 million)]
Dean Koontz's official website claims sales of 450 million, which seem hard to credit for an author with a big profile, but nowhere near that of King or Rowling. Other figures suggest 200 million, which seems much more credible. However, Koontz's eligibility for the list is questionable given that he has written numerous non-SFF novels (though many of them still within the horror or suspense thriller genres). Thus his placement on the list is for those who consider him to be a genre author.


[Michael Crichton (c. 200 million)]
Michael Crichton published 27 novels during his lifetime, selling more than 200 million copies. Only eight of those novels are SF, but these include most of his best-known novels (including Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Sphere, Congo and The Andromeda Strain). His placement here is for comparative purposes and for those who consider him to be a genre author.

4) Anne Rice (136 million)
Anne Rice's vampire books were a huge phenomenon through the 1980s and 1990s, bolstered by the Tom Cruise/Brad Pitt movie.

5) CS Lewis (120 million+)
No change here, though Lewis's sales have likely increased somewhat due to the movies based on his books.

6) Stephanie Meyer (116 million)

The Twilight series has sold an enormous amount of copies in just eight years on sale. An impressive achievement.

7) Sir Arthur C. Clarke (100 million+)
Sir Arthur C. Clarke gains the distinction of being the only author on the list to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and have an orbit named after him. Clarke was already a well-known, big-selling SF author when the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and his television coverage of the first moon landing catapaulted him into becoming a household name. A steady stream of best-selling, high-profile and critically-acclaimed SF novels continued into the 1980s, when his profile was again boosted by his TV series, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World. As well as his SF novels he also published a large number of non-fiction books and volumes of criticism on matters of science.


8) Andre Norton (90 million+)
Andre Norton was one of science fiction and fantasy's most prolific authors, penning around 300 books (either novels or story collections) in a career stretching over decades.

9) Sir Terry Pratchett (85 million+)
Pratchett remains one of the biggest-selling SFF novelists in the world and, because his Discworldbooks are mostly stand-alone novels, he may actually have a lot more readers than several of the above.

10) Robert Jordan (80 million+)
On the previous list, Jordan had a lower position based on the frequently-given figure of 44 million. However, since then it has been revealed that the 44 million figure is for the United States and Canada alone. When a series has been sold in more than 20 languages (as this has), the rule of thumb is that half of the total sales figures come from outside the USA. The UK alone has added sales of 5 million to the figure. As a result, worldwide sales of at least 80 million for Wheel of Time are credible, and significantly more than that is possible.

11) James Herbert (54 million+)
The recently-deceased James Herbert has sold more than 54 million copies of his horror novels, most of which had an SF or supernatural twist. 

12) Richard Adams (50 million+)

Watership Down has sold more than 50 million copies by itself, though its fantasy status is debatable (you can argue about this in the comments!). I tend to count it as such, since aside from the talking rabbits there's also the fact that ghosts and spirit guides play a role. Adams has also sold not-inconsiderable numbers of his fantasy novels set in the Beklan Empire, Shardik and Maia, not to mention further works related to Watership Down.

13) Suzanne Collins (50 million+)

Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games hadn't even been published when I created the last list. The trilogy has been published in full, sold over 50 million copies and generated one hit movie since then (with a second out later this year). Very impressive.

[Dennis Wheatley (50 million)]
Dennis Wheatley was the biggest-selling British author of the 1960s and 1970s, routinely selling more than a million copies a year for over a decade. The majority of his books were crime, political or spy thrillers. However, he also published novels featuring supernatural elements, resulting from his own fascination with the occult. As a result, a small number of his books may be of genre interest.

[Jean M. Auel (45 million+)]
Jean M. Auel has sold over 45 million copies of her Earth's Children sequence. Though written as speculative history, some have categorised the books as alternate history and thus borderline SF.

[Morgan Llywelyn (40 million)]
Morgan Llywelyn is a best-selling Irish author whose work consists mostly of historical novels. However, some of them have a supernatural or occult twist, sometimes fairly minor and occasionally more notable.

14) Christopher Paolini (39 million)

Christopher Paolini's four-volume Inheritance Cycle has proven very popular, despite the relative failure of the Eragon movie.

15) Michael Ende (35 million)
Michael Ende has sold more than 16 million copies of his novel, The Neverending Story, by itself and almost 20 million copies of his various other books. The success of the series as bolstered by several films based on his books.

16) Charlaine Harris (32.5 million)
Charlaine Harris has sold more than 30 million copies of her Southern Vampire Mysteries series, driven by the success of its TV adaptation, True Blood.

17) Stanislaw Lem (30 million+)
The Polish author of Solaris and numerous other SFF novels has sold more than 30 million copies of his work worldwide.

18) R.A. Salvatore (30 million+)

Similarly to the Jordan situation, Salvatore's previously-reported sales figure of between 15 and 20 million was for the United States alone. Given his widespread global fame, a total worldwide figure of at least 30 million seems credible.


19) Sherrilyn Kenyon (30 million+)
Sherrilyn Kenyon is a prolific urban fantasy author who also publishers supernatural-tinged historical fantasy under the pen name Kinley MacGregor. She has over 30 million books in print in over 100 countries.

20) Robert Heinlein (30 million)
One of the grand masters of old-school SF, Heinlein had sold 11.5 million books by the early 1980s and about 30 million in total to date. Some sources suggest he may have sold considerably more worldwide.

21) George R.R. Martin (28 million+)

Winning the prize for 'most improved sales', the sales of A Song of Ice and Fire have gone through the roof since the previous list. The books sold more than 9 million copies in 2011 alone. Though Martin's sales were starting to noticeably take off anyway in the mid-2000s, the main reason for the boost has been the remarkable success of the Game of Thrones TV series on HBO. Martin has now sold 22 million copies of the series as physial books and 6 million as ebooks.

22) Kaoru Kurimoto (28 million)

Japanese author Kaoru Kurimoto published a startling 130 volumes of her Guin Saga series of fantasy adventure novels prior to her premature death in 2009.

23) Terry Brooks (26.5 million+)

Terry Brooks's sales have increased by 5 million since the previous list. Brooks has sold 26 million paper books and 500,000 ebooks.

24) George Orwell (25 million+)

Orwell's prophetic SF allegory Nineteen Eighty-Four has sold more than 25 million copies by itself, with an unknown (but likely massive) number of copies of his allegorical animal work Animal Farm have also been shifted over the years.

25) Marion Zimmer Bradley (25 million+)
Marion Zimmber Bradley sold more than 20 million copies of her feminist take on the Arthurian legend, The Mists of Avalon, by itself. Her Darkover series has sold an additional 5 million copies. Her many other books may take this total figure rather higher. 

26) Darren Shan (25 million+)
Irish author Darren Shan has sold more than 25 million copies of his numerous YA and adult fantasy and horror novels.  

27) Terry Goodkind (25 million)
This is an old figure, dating back to 2008. No more recent figures have been given, though the publication of several additional novels makes it likely this figure will be somewhat higher.

28) Diana Gabaldon (25 million)
The author of the Outlander series, in which a 20th Century nurse time-travels back to Jacobite times and falls in love with a Highlander. This is now being made into a Starz TV series, which I expect will drive additional sales of the series.

29) Cassandra Clare (24 million)

Cassandra Clare is the author of The Shadowhunter Chronicles, made up of the Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices and the forthcoming Dark Artifices sub-series.

30) Kevin J. Anderson (23 million)
Anderson has sold 20 million copies of his franchise tie-ins in the Dune, Star Wars, StarCraft and X-Files worlds. However, he has also sold a reasonable amount of his original series as well.

31) Eoin Colfer (21 million)
The Artemis Fowl series has sold an additional 3 million copies since the first list was assembled.

32) Isaac Asimov (20 million+)

The seven volumes of the Foundation series alone have sold more than 20 million copies. When coupled with Asimov's other numerous books (he published more than 400 books in his lifetime), his total sales are likely a lot higher than this.

33) Margaret Weis (c. 20 million)
Margaret Weis is best-known for her many collaborations with Tracy Hickman, most notably in the the Dragonlance fantasy world. She has also written several solo novels and in collaboration with other writers, and for many years ran her own RPG company.

34) Tracy Hickman (c. 20 million)
Tracy Hickman is best-known for his work on the Dragonlance series with Margaret Weis. He has also written solo novels and in collaboration with others, not to mention working on gaming materials.

35) Brian Jacques (c. 20 million)

The late Brian Jacques has sold over 20 million copies of his Redwall series of animal-based epic fantasies.

36) Kazumasa Hirai (c. 20 million)

Kazumasa Hirai is the author of the Genma Taisen series of post-apocalyptic novels and graphic novels.

37) Raymond E. Feist (20 million)
Feist has sold more than 20 million copies of his Riftwar Cycle, which he recently concluded after thirty volumes. Some reports suggest that Magician by itself (in both its one-volume and American two-volume formats) accounts for almost half those sales.

38) Michael Moorcock (20 million)
Moorcock has sold an impressive 20 million copies of his numerous books over the course of his lengthy career.

39) Mercedes Lackey (20 million)
The prolific Mercedes Lackey has sold more than 20 million copies of her fantasy novels, the best-known of which form the Valdemar series. 

40) Frank Herbert (18 million)
Frank Herbert's Dune is the biggest-selling SF novel of all time, shifting 12 million copies by itself. I would hazard that most of the remaining 6 million copies are of the five other Dune novels as well.

41) Hideyuki Kikuchi (18 million)

Hideyuki Kikuchi has sold some 18 million copies of his Vampire Hunter D series, not including its manga spin-offs.

42) Anne McCaffrey (18 million+)
Anne McCaffrey has sold 18 million copies of her Dragonriders of Pern series, with more than half a million copies sold of her collaborations with her son Todd alone.

43) Tad Williams (17 million)
Tad Williams had sold 17 million copies of his books, including the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy, the Otherland quartet, the Shadowmarch series and several stand-alones, by 2011. 

44) Larry Niven (17 million+)
Larry Niven has sold 10 million copies of his collaborations with Jerry Pournelle alone. His Ringworld books add a further 7 million sales on top of that.

45) Douglas Adams (16 million)
He may have published only a small number of novels (including the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxyseries) and suffered tremendously from writer's block, but Douglas Adams' sales remain impressive.

46) Brandon Sanderson (15 million)
Brandon Sanderson only published his first novel in 2005, so to achieve 15 million sales in just eight years is extraordinarily impressive, with 12.5 million sales from his three Wheel of Time novels and over 2.5 million of his solo books. More than 1.5 million copies of the Mistborn trilogy by itself have been shifted.

47) Rick Riordan (15 million)

Rick Riordan is the author of the Percy Jackson series, which has so far spawned two successful movie adaptation and driven renewed sales of the books.

48) Philip Pullman (15 million)

The lukewarm reception to The Golden Compass movie hasn't dented Pullman's book-selling power, with the His Dark Materials trilogy shifting 15 million copies worldwide.

49) Yoshiki Tanaka (15 million)

Yoshiki Tanaka is the author of the ten-volume Legend of the Galactic Heroes SF novel series, which is hugely popular in Japan. It has spawned numerous adaptations and spin-offs in other media.

50) Timothy Zahn (15 million)
Timothy Zahn is the biggest-selling author of Star Wars novels, with the 15 million figure coming from his work in that setting alone. You can add hundreds of thousands more sales from his own novels on top of that.

51) Diana Wynne Jones (10 million+)
The late Diana Wynne Jones sold more than 10 million copies of her books worldwide, a million of them in the UK alone.

52) Robert E. Howard (10 million+)
Robert E. Howard's hugely influential short stories, including the Conan the Barbarian and Kull the Conqueror series, have sold more than 10 million copies in book form alone. His total sales, including magazine sales driven by his stories, are likely incalculable.

53) Stephen Donaldson (10 million)
Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, published in 1977, kick-started the modern epic fantasy explosion alongside Brooks' Sword of Shannara. However, unlike Brooks who has continued to work in the Shannara universe ever since, Donaldson spent a whole two decades trying to stay away from his signature character with works such as Mordant's Need and the superlative Gap series before recently returning to the series, and the bestseller lists, with The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Note that Lord Foul's Bane had sold 10 million copies by itself by 2004, so this figure will be considerably higher.

54) Neil Gaiman (10 million + )

Neil Gaiman has sold 7 million copies of the Sandman series of graphic novels alone, and Coraline (arguably Gaiman's least-well-known novel) has sold 1 million copies by itself. On that basis this figure - unchanged from 2008 - is likely highly conservative.

55) Alice Sebold (10 million+)

Alice Sebold's afterlife fantasy The Lovely Bones has sold 10 million copies since its publication in 2002, possibly helped by the Peter Jackson movie adaptation.

56) Madeline L'Engle (10 million+)

Madeline L'Engle's Time Quartet and its related spin-off books have been hugely successful, with the first novel in the series, A Wrinkle in Time, selling 10 million copies by itself. The sales of the rest of the series are unknown, so the total may be noticeably higher.

57) Jerry Pournelle (10 million+) 
Jerry Pournelle has sold 10 million copies of his collaborations with Larry Niven.

58) Chris Bunch (10 million+)
Chris Bunch is the co-author (with Allan Cole)  of the Sten SF series, as well as numerous solo works. He sold more than 10 million copies of the Sten series alone, driven the enormous popularity of the series in Russia, of all places. Sales of his solo work, such as the Seer King Trilogy (a fantasy take on the Napoleonic Wars), would likely push this figure higher.

59) Allan Cole (10 million+)

Chris Bunch's collaborator on the Sten series. Unlike Bunch, Cole has written only a few non-Sten books, so his total sales figures are likely closer to the 10 million figure.

60) Peter Straub (10 million+)
Peter Straub is a bestselling horror novelist, arguably best known for his novel Ghost Story and his collaboration with Stephen King, The Talisman. 

61) Frederik Pohl (10 million+)
The late Frederik Pohl's total sales are almost certainly a lot higher, as he sold more than 10 million copies of The Space Merchants by itself.


62) Cyril M. Kornbluth (10 million+)
Cyril Kornbluth has sold more than 10 million copies of his novel The Space Merchants, written in collaboration with Frederik Pohl.

63) David Eddings (8.5 million+)
Eddings had sold more than 7 million copies of the Belgariad and Malloreon series alone by 1995, with another 1.5 million copies sold of the combined Elenium and Tamuli trilogies. The real total figure (incoporating almost twenty years of additional sales and his later Belgariad prequels and other books) is likely considerably higher.

64) Ray Bradbury (8 million+)
Ray Bradbury has sold over 8 million copies of his books in 36 languages.

65) Christopher Golden (8 million+)
Christopher Golden is a highly prolific writer, penning dozens of novels and comic books, both with original material and media tie-ins for properties such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[Bernard Cornwell (7 million+)]
The overwhelming majority of Cornwell's books are historical adventure novels. However, some claim that his novels are alternate history and his Warlord Chronicles series is both highly speculative and features intimations of magic (through visions and prophecies), so he is included for comparative purposes. These are Cornwell's UK only sales from 2000-09, so his total sales will be notably higher.

66) David Weber (7 million)
The author of the Honor Harington space opera series and the Safehold series, amongst many other works, has become one of the dominant authors of military SF.

67) Orson Scott Card (7 million+)
This is likely a fair bit higher, as Ender's Game by itself has sold seven million copies. Card's other books, including the highly successful sequels and 'interquels' to Ender's Game have also sold extremely well.

68) William Gibson (6.5 million+)
Cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson has sold more than 6.5 million copies of Neuromancer by itself. His total sales will be a lot more.

69) Peter S. Beagle (6 million+)
Peter S. Beagle has sold more than 6 million copies of The Last Unicorn by itself.

70) Laurell K. Hamilton (6 million+)
This figure is from 2008, and may be a lot higher now.

71) Jim Butcher (6 million+)
Jim Butcher has sold more than 4.5 million books according to Nielsen Bookscan and some publicity materials from a few years back suggest 6 million. The true figure could be significantly higher than this. 

72) L. Frank Baum (5 million+)

This figure is very inaccurate; the Oz books by themselves had sold 5 million copies by 1956. In the fifty-seven years since, the series has likely multiplied that several times. However, the early books in the series are now out of copyright, which makes tracking sales figures almost impossible.

73) Daniel Keyes (5 million+)
Daniel Keyes had sold over 5 million copes of Flowers for Algernon by 2004.

74) Garth Nix (5 million)
Garth Nix has sold more than 5 million copies of his SF and fantasy works. 

75) Robert R. McCammon (5 million)
A veteran of the early 1980s horror boom, Robert McCammon has sold 5 million copies of his horror and fantasy novels. 

76) Frank Schätzing (4.2 million+)
Frank Schätzing has sold 3.8 million copies of his 2004 SF novel The Swarm. A later SF novel, Limit, has sold almost half a million copies.

77) Fritz Leiber (4 million+)
Fritz Leiber had sold almost 4 million copies of his Fafhrd and Gray Mouser novels and short stories by 1988 alone, and likely more since then.

78) Vonda N. McIntyre (4 million)
Vonda McIntyre has sold more than 4 million copies of her novels, which consist of both original work and a number of Star Trek novels. In Star Trek circles she is famous for creating Mr. Sulu's first name for her books, which was later adopted by the films.

79) Lian Hearn (4 million)
Lian Hearn has sold more than 4 million copies of her Tales of the Otori sequence 

80) David Drake (4 million)
David Drake has sold more than 4 million copies of his various SF and fantasy series.

81) Veronica Roth (4 million)
Veronic Roth has sold 4 million copies of the first two volumes of her Divergent series.

82) Roger Zelazny (3.5 million+)
Roger Zelazny has sold more than 3.5 million copies of the Chronicles of Amber series alone.

83) Aaron Allston (3.3 million+)
Aaron Allston has sold more than 3.3 million copies of his Star Wars novels (including the popular X-Wing series).

84) Robert Harris (3 million+) (SF only)
Robert Harris has sold more than 3 million copies of his classic post-WWII alternate-history novel Fatherland.

85) Alan Dean Foster (3 million+)
Alan Dean Foster is both a prolific solo novelist (such as with the Spellsinger and Commonwealth series) and a writer of movie tie-ins (including the Star Wars and Aliens franchises). This 3 million figure is likely highly conservative, given his novelisation of the first Star Wars movie sold hundreds of thousands of copies even before the film even came out in 1977.

86) Ursula K. Le Guin (3 million+ )
More than three million copies alone of the Earthsea series have been sold, with Le Guin's many other works likely adding a lot to that. 

87) Guy Gavriel Kay (3 million)
Kay has sold more than 3 million copies of his dozen novels. Recent sales seem to be up, presumably driven by the popular success of Under Heaven.

88) Lloyd Alexander (3 million)
Alexander has sold more than 3 million copies of The Chronicles of Prydain by itself.  

89) Dan Abnett (3 million+)

Dan Abnett is one of the most prolific and popular authors in the Warhammer 40,000 science fantasy universe, selling a million copies in that setting by himself as of a few years ago. Strong sales since then, particularly the rising popularity of the setting in the United States, has tripled that amount. He has also worked extensively in comics and recently published his first two original-setting novels.

90) John Ringo (3 million)
Another author I could not find updated figures for since 2008.

91) Joe Abercrombie (3 million)

A new entry on the list, Joe Abercrombie was still an up-and-coming whippersnapper when the previous list was published. His sales are impressive, hitting 3 million of just six books in seven years, which is very steady progress.

92) Margaret Atwood (3 million+)
The Handmaid's Tale has sold 2 million copies and Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood combined another 1 million, putting Atwood's SF work at 3 million sales. Her total sales, including her non-SF, are likely considerably higher.

93) Robert Silverberg (3 million+)
Robert Silververg is one of the grand masters of SF, with dozens of novels and collections published over a very lengthy career. Reported figures of 3 million seem rather low for an author of his popularity and longevity, and may be conservative.

94) Eric Flint (3 million)
Eric Flint is a writer and editor for Baen Books and is best-known for his 1632 series of alternate history novels.

95) Scott Westerfield (3 million+)
Scott Westerfield has sold more than 3 million copies of his Uglies series alone.

96) Robert Asprin (3 million)
Robert Asprin has sold 3 million copies of his Myth series.

97) Rick Hautala (3 million)
The late Rick Hautala was a veteran of the early 1980s horror boom, selling more than a million copies of his third novel, Night Stone, by itself.

98) Brian Lumley (3 million+)
Brian Lumley's Necroscope has sold over 3 million copies by itself. 

99) Simon R. Green (2.7 million)
Simon R. Green has sold over 2.7 million copies of his Nightside and Deathstalker series, amongst other works. 

100) Harry Turtledove (2.5 million)
The prolific alternate-history author has written dozens of novels and sold more than 2.5 million copies. I have also not been able to find updated figures since 2008, so he's likely sold more than this by now.

101) S.M. Stirling (2.5 million)
S.M. Stirling has sold more than a two and a half million copies of his Emberverse novels, of which the most famous is Dies the Fire.

102) Audrey Niffenegger (2.5 million+)
More than 2.5 million copies of The Time Traveller's Wife have been sold in the USA and UK alone. 

103) Michelle Paver (2.5 million+) 
Michelle Paver has sold more than two and a half million copies of her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, which began with Wolf Brother. 

104) Max Brooks (2.4 million+)
By 2011, the last year when figures were available, Max Brooks had sold 1 million copies of World War Z and 1.4 million of The Zombie Survival Guide. With the popular movie adaptation (even if it didn't have much in common with the book), these figures are now likely much higher.

105) James Dashner (2.3 million+)
More than 2.3 million copies of the Maze Runner series have been sold. 

106) Susan Cooper (2 million+)
Susan Cooper has sold more than 2 million copies of her The Dark is Rising sequence.

107) Sergei Lukyanenko (2 million+)
Sergei Lukyanenko has sold well over 2 million copies of his Night Watch books in Russia alone. His sales outside that territory, also buoyed up by two movie adaptations of his work, have likely increased that considerably.

108) Hans Domink (2 million+)
German SF pioneer Hans Dominik had more than 2 million books in print by 1944 alone, so again the true figure is likely higher.

109) Peter F. Hamilton (2 million+)
The above figure is from 2004, so it's likely to be extremely inaccurate. Hamilton may have well sold twice or more this amount. Hamilton remains the UK's biggest-selling SF author, and his US profile has grown significantly in the last decade as well.

110) Brent Weeks (2 million)
Relative newcomer Brent Weeks has sold more than 2 million copies of his debut Night Angel Trilogy. 

111) Andrzej Sapkowski (2 million+)
Andrzej Sapkowski has sold more than two million copies of his books, dominated by sales of the fantasy Witcher series, in Poland alone. His worldwide sales are likely significantly higher.

112) Lois McMaster Bujold (2 million)
Lois McMaster Bujold has sold more than 2 million copies of her SF and fantasy novels, most notably the popular Vorkosigan Saga. 

113) Katherine Kurtz (2 million)
Katherine Kurtz has sold more than 2 million copies of her Deryni saga. 

114) Trudi Canavan (2 million+)

Trudi Canavan sold her one millionth book for Orbit in 2011 and has doubled those sales since then.

115) Stephen Lawhead (2 million+)
Stephen Lawheard is the author of both outright fantasy novels and Guy Gavriel Kay-style alternate/fantastical histories. 

116) Robert Rankin (2 million+)
Robert Rankin has sold 'millions' of copies of his comic fantasy and SF novels.

117) Maggie Stiefvater (2 million+)
Maggie Stiefvater has sold more than 2 million copies of her urban fantasy novels, including the Books of Faerie and Shiver series.

118) Gregory Benford (2 million+)
Gegory Benford has sold 'millions' of copies of Timescape by itself. The rest of his work would extend this total considerably.

119) Greg Bear (2 million+)
Greg Bear has sold 'millions' of his novels, having both high-selling original SF work (such as the Thistledown or Eon trilogy, Blood Music and Moving Mars) and also writing Star Wars and Halo tie-in novels.


120) Gordon R. Dickson (2 million+)
Gordon R. Dickson has sold 2 million copies of his books, of which the best-known are the Childe Cycle (aka the Dorsai series).

121) Jacqueline Carey (2 million+)
Jacequeline Carey has sold 'millions' of copies of her books, including the Kushiel series and the Sundering duology.

122) Piers Anthony (2 million+)
Piers Anthony has sold a million copies of the first Xanth novel by itself, so this total figure maybe a little low. However, 2009 PR info for the series did say it has sold just over 2 million copies by itself. Anthony has also written numerous other books and series, so his true sales are likely higher than this.

123) Melanie Rawn (1.8 million+)
Melanie Rawn had sold 1.8 million books by 1998 alone. Her later sales may be considerably higher, although her popularity and profile seem to have dimmed in recent years (her Spellbinder series was recently abandoned due to poor sales).

124) Jennifer Roberson (1.7 million)
Jennifer Roberson has sold 1.7 million copies of her books published by DAW.

125) Elizabeth Moon (1.5 million+)
Elizabeth Moon has sold 100,000 copies in the Baen Books omnibus version of the Deed of Paksenarrion trilogy alone. The Paksenarrion series as a whole has sold more than 1 million copies across all formats worldwide, and her total sales in the US alone is 1.5 million.

126) Deborah Harkness (1.5 million+)
Deborah Harkness has sold 1.5 million copies of A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night combined.

127) Susanna Clarke (1.5 million+)
Susanna Clarke sold more than a million copies of her novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in its first year on sale alone, with an additional half million sales following in the UK alone. Total sales figures by now, almost a decade on, must be considerably higher.

128) Markus Heitz (1.5 million+)
Markus Heitz has sold more than a million and a half copies of his popular Dwarves series, which has been a bestseller in Germany and done well in English translation. 

129) Seth Grahame-Smith (1.4 million)
Seth Graheme-Smith has sold one and a half million copies of his horror novels with a tinge of comedy, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

130) Dan Simmons (1.25 million+)
Dan Simmons has sold more than a million copies of his novel Hyperion by itself. Combined with its three sequels and his many other bestselling novels, his total sales figures will likely be several times this amount. The Terror has also sold more than a quarter-million copies worldwide.

131) Stan Nicholls (1.25 million+)
Stan Nicholls had sold 1.25 million copies of his Orcs series worldwide by 2010.

132) Naomi Novik (1.2 million+)
Naomi Novik has sold 1 million paper copies of her Temeraire series and almost 200,000 ebooks.

133) Jack Campbell (1.2 million+)
Jack Campbell has sold 1.2 million copies of his Lost Fleet series of SF novels. 

134) Iain M. Banks (1.1 million)+
The late Iain M. Banks sold 1.1 million copies of his science fiction work in the UK before his tragic passing. Banks's SF accounted only for a small fraction of his sales; when combined with his mainstream fiction and non-UK SF sales, he likely sold at least four or five times this amount. His controversial non-SF debut The Wasp Factory has sold over a million copies in the UK by itself, or almost as much as all his SF combined.

135) Kelley Armstrong (1 million+)
A prolific urban/dark fantasy author, Armstrong sold more than 1 million copies of her books in 2011 alone. Her total figure is much higher.

136) Samuel R. Delany (1 million+)
SF legend Samuel R. Delany has sold more than a million copies of Dhalgren by itself. His total sales will be notably higher than this.

137) Ed Greenwood (1 million+)
Ed Greenwood is the creator of the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, the biggest-selling and most popular shared fantasy world ever created. He has sold 1 million copies of his debut novel, Spellfire, alone. Sales of his many later novels would amount to a great deal more than this. 

138) Paul S. Kemp (1 million+)
Paul Kemp has sold more than a million copies worldwide of his Forgotten Realms novels featuring Erevis Cale, servant of the god Mask, and also his own original fantasy series.

139) L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (1 million+)
L.E. Modesitt, Jr. has sold more than a million copies of his Recluce series in paperback alone. This does not include his numerous other books, or the hardcover sales of Recluce.

140) Connie Willis (1 million)
Best known for her time travel novels such as Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, Willis has sold just under 1 million copies of her books.

141) Sara Douglass (1 million+)
The late Sara Douglass has sold more than a million copies of her Axis and Wayfarer Redemption series (not to mention several sequel series) in Australia alone. Her worldwide total will be far higher.

142) Robin Hobb (1 million+)
Another outdated figure, stemming from 2003 and applying solely to the first nine books written as Robin Hobb. Counting the seven novels published since and her successful work as Megan Lindholm, the true figure is likely to be much higher than this.

143) David Gemmell (1 million+)
Given his prolific career, the late David Gemmell's sales figures may appear to be disappointing. This may be down to Gemmell's lack of profile in the United States.

144) Steven Erikson (1 million+)
Erikson's publishers announced that his books had sold 1 million copies worldwide with the publication of The Crippled God. With another book published since then and sales of the older books growing, it's likely rather more than this.

145) Alastair Reynolds (1 million+)
Alastair Reynolds has sold more than 1 million SF novels worldwide, hence his impressive £1 million, ten-book deal from a couple of years ago.

146) Ian Irvine (1 million+)
Ian Irvine has sold more than a million copies of his novels set on Santhenar. 

147) Richard A. Knaak (1 million+)
Richard A. Knaak is a noted tie-in author, writing books set in the Conan, WarCraft and Dragonlance universes.

148) Katherine Kerr (1 million+)
Katherine Kerr is the author of numerous SF and fantasy novels and is most famous for her Deverry series. 

149) Dave Duncan (1 million+)
Dave Duncan had sold a million books by 1999.

150) A.C. Crispin (1 million+)
The late A.C. Crispin was noted for her tie-in works. One of these, the novelisation of the 1984 mini-series V, has sold more than a million copies by itself. 

151) Hugh Howey (1 million+)
Howey has sold more than a million copies of his Wool series of post-apocalyptic books.

152) Joe Haldeman (1 million+)
Joe Haldeman has sold more than a million copies of The Forever War by itself. 

153) Glen Cook (1 million+)
Glen Cook has sold more than a million copies of his novels, the best-known of which is the Black Company series. 

154) David Brin (1 million+)
David Brin has sold more than a million copies of his Uplift Saga alone. With his many other bestsellers, his total figure will be much higher. 

155) Henry N. Beard (1 million+)
Henry N. Beard's 1969 satirical novel, Bored of the Rings, written with Douglas C. Kenney, is itself a long-running, steady seller.

156) Douglas C. Kenney (1 million+)
Douglas C. Kenney is the co-author of Bored of the Rings with Henry N. Beard.

157) Alexey Pehov (1 million+)
Alexey Pehov has sold more than a million copies of his Chronicles of Siala (which starts with Shadow Prowler) series. 

158) Peter V. Brett (925,000)
Peter Brett is closing down on a million sales of the first three books in his Demon Cycle. 

159) Chris Wooding (750,000+)
Chris Wooding has been making a name for himself as an adult fantasy author with his Braided Path and Tales of the Ketty Jay series, but his initial success has come from his highly popular YA books, which have sold very well in the United States. This figure is from the UK and USA alone, so total sales may be higher.

160) Erin Morgenstern (650,000+)
Erin Morgenstern has sold 650,000 copies of her novel, The Night Circus. 

161) Janny Wurts (500,000+)
Janny Wurts has sold more than half a million copies of her Wars of Light and Shadow series worldwide. Her other solo novels and in particular her popular collaborations with Raymond E. Feist have likely raised the total figure to a considerably higher level. 

162) Kevin Hearne (500,000+)
Hearne is the author of the Iron Druids Chronicles fantasy series. 

163) Alison Croggon (500,000+)
Alison Croggon has sold more than half a million copies of her Books of Pellinor fantasy series.

164) Michael Gerber (500,000+)
Michael Gerber has sold half a million copies of his Barry Trotter parody novels.

165) Gail Carriger (400,000)
Carriger is the author of The Parasol Protectorate series.

166) Lynn Flewelling (350,000)
Lynn Flewelling has sold 350,000 copies of her six-volume Nightrunner series.


167) Kate Elliott (300,000+)
An old and certainly incorrect figure, Kate Elliott is listed as having sold 300,000 copies of her Crown of Stars series. With her many other series, she has certainly sold far more than this.

168) Ben Aaronovitch (300,000+)
Ben Aaronovitch has sold almost a third of a million copies of his Rivers of London series. 

169) Ernest Cline (300,000+)
Ernest Cline has sold over 300,000 copies of his novel Ready Player One by itself.

170) J.V. Jones (250,000+)
One of the oldest figures on the list, Jones had sold 250,000 copies of The Book of Words trilogy and The Barbed Coil by 1999. Her sales since then must have pushed this total considerably higher.

171) Mark Lawrence (250,000+)
Mark Lawrence has been a big success story, shifting a quarter-million copies of his Thorns trilogy in just two years.

172) Michael J. Sullivan (250,000+)
Michael J. Sullivan took the step of self-publishing his Riyria Revelations fantasy series before it was snapped up by a traditional publisher. This fanbase has propelled him to healthy sales for another (relative) newcomer. 

173) Karen Miller (250,000+)
Karen Miller (also writing as K.E. Miller) is the author of the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series of fantasy novels.

174) Sharon Lee (250,000+)
Sharon Lee is the co-author of the Liaden Universe series.

175) Steve Miller (250,000+)
Steve Miller is the co-author of the Liaden Universe series.

176) James Barclay (200,000+)
James Barclay has sold more than 200,000 copies of his Raven and Ascendants of Estorea series in the UK alone. 

177) Paolo Bacigalupi (200,000+)
The Windup Girl has sold more than 200,000 copies to date.

178) Jaye Wells (200,000+)
Jaye Wells is the author of the Sabina Kane series. 

179) Gail Z. Martin (180,000+)
Gail Z. Martin is the author of the Chronicles of the Necromancer and Fallen Kings series. 

180) David Dalglish (175,000+)
The Shadowdance series has sold 175,000 copies to date.

181) Daniel H. Wilson (160,000+)
Daniel H. Wilson has sold over 160,000 copies of his novel Robopocalypse by itself.

182) Adam Roberts (150,000+)
Adam Roberts has sold more than 150,000 copies of his Tolkien pastiche The Soddit by itself. Combined with his many other books, his total figure is likely much higher.

183) Glen Duncan (150,000+)
Glen Duncan has sold more than 150,000 copies of his novel The Last Werewolf by itself.


184) Scott Lynch (145,000+) 

Scott Lynch has sold 145,000 copies of his two novels in the United States alone. His UK sales figures, not to mention in other countries, will add a lot to that, and he'll likely get a good boost when The Republic of Thieves comes out in a couple of months' time.

185) R. Scott Bakker (125,000+)

According to Overlook Books' PR copy for The White Luck Warrior, Bakker's four previous fantasy novels have sold over 125,000 copies for them. For a small American publishing house, that's not actually too bad. This figure also does not include Bakker's Canadian sales from Penguin or British/Commonwealth sales from Orbit (and Orbit report that they are very happy with Bakker's performance for them), or American sales from fans opting for one of the other editions. On this basis, the 125,000 figure should be taken as being at the lower end of sales.

186) Glenda Larke (120,000+)
Glenda Larke has sold more than 120,000 copies of her Stormlords Trilogy alone, not counting her other books. 

187) James Lovegrove (100,000+)
James Lovegrove has sold more than 100,000 copies of his Pantheon series by itself.

188) Russell Kirkpatrick (70,000+)
Russell Kirkpatrick had sold 70,000 copies of the Orbit editions of his map-heavy Fires of Heaven trilogy by 2008. 

Figures Not Available

Patrick Rothfuss: his first two books were instant bestsellers and have sold huge numbers. His sales are likely around the million mark, if not more.

J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick etc: 'classic' authors of yesteryear have few reliable sales figures available for them. In some cases lots of reprints and complex foreign sales deals means that this information is simply not available or reliable when it is so.

China Mieville: sales figures for this author also seem to be unavailable, despite his profile and clear success. The same for Clive Barker, despite his lengthy career.


Books Not Counted

The sixteen-volume Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins was written as a religious thriller rather than a work of SF or Fantasy, though arguably it falls into the category of a fantasy. It has sold 65 million copies.

Michael Crichton has sold approximately 200 million copies of his novels. However, his books are a mixture of SF, sort-of-SF, political and/or crime thrillers and historical novels. Separating his sales out per-book is impossible. Similarly, Dean Koontz has dabbled in several different genres and identifying sales of his supernatural and fantastical work alone has not proven possible. However, I have added them to the list for those who want to include them.


Thanks
Many thanks to the numerous contributors to this list from websites and forums such as Westeros.org and SFFWorld. I am particularly indebted to Jussi from Westeros.org and Risingshadow whose research has been invaluable in expanding the list from its original state.

Robert Jordan bigging up A GAME OF THRONES in 1997

This is a cool find, courtesy of Terez. It's a letter from the late Robert Jordan to George R.R. Martin's editor, Anne Groell, requesting a signed copy of A Game of Thrones. The letter is dated 6 March 1997, after Thrones came out in hardcover (August 1996) but before its paperback publication.

Click to embiggen.

It also features an interesting statement from Jordan regarding series length:

"I see in Locus that George says he no longer thinks he can finish the story in a trilogy. Good. Not that his story will be any longer, but that he isn't going to try shoe-horning his story into the form everybody seems to say such stories must follow. Writing what you want to write, in the way you want to write it, isn't easy when people are telling you that you can't do it that way because it it isn't done that way. He apparently is as lucky as I am in having a publisher and editor who are willing to go against the flow."

GRRM has said many times that he credits the early success of A Game of Thrones in paperback to Jordan's cover quote and, a bit later, people picking up Legends to read Jordan's short story New Spring, also reading The Hedge Knight and then picking up the novels. An interesting insight into Jordan's opinion of Martin (and for the reverse, Martin penned a memorial for Jordan when he died in 2007).

Interview with Brandon Sanderson

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Joel Williams, a writer for CNN's website, who had interviewed Brandon Sanderson last year ahead of the publication of the final Wheel of Time novel, A Memory of Light. Ultimately the website decided not to publish the interview so Joel kindly offered to let me publish it here. As it was written for a more general audience than the SFF hardcore, there's little new information here, but it's always interesting to here Sanderson's thoughts on finishing off The Wheel of Time.

When it comes to the Epic Fantasy genre, Robert Jordan is a legend. You know what Robert Frost is to poetry? Jane Austen is to literature? That’s what Robert Jordan is for fantasy. Jordan started his book series, The Wheel of Time, in 1990 and proceeded to publish 12 more books in the series before passing away in 2007 of a rare blood disease. He left the series unfinished and his millions of fans wondering if they’d ever know how the epic saga ended. Much like the characters in the books they loved so much, millions of Wheel of Time devotees needed a hero. Among dozens of other characters, the series follows Rand al’Thor, a backwoods youth who finds out that he is the next in a long line of reincarnated heroes destined to fight “The Dark One” to rid the world of evil. Not doing it for you? Don’t worry. There’s almost certainly another character in the series that will pique your interest. Jordan was notorious for spending lots of time developing side characters, often to the detriment of plot momentum. But it’s those side characters, and the love Jordan obviously felt for them, that turned casual readers into devoted fans.

Jump back to 2007. With the series in jeopardy, Jordan’s widow and editor Harriet recruited accomplished fantasy author Brandon Sanderson to finish the series using Jordan’s notes. With the Wheel of Time series having sold upwards of 40 million books, you can understand the pressure Sanderson felt to do the job right. As a lifelong fan of the series himself, Sanderson knew that this was an opportunity to end the saga as Jordan would have wanted. I spoke with Sanderson shortly before the final volume of Wheel of Time was set to hit the shelves. The following is an edited transcript of that conversation.

Despite the fact this his series takes up a lot of real estate on bookstore shelves, Robert Jordan is not a household name. Why is that?

Sanderson: Epic fantasy is a very challenging genre, I love it, but I’m aware it’s a little harder to pick up. When you go to a bookstore and there’s a series of 14 books, where one is bigger than three other books. That’s not for everyone. But for those of us who read Epic, that big thick book is part why we love it. Not because it’s thick, but because it’s an entire world.

What was it like to take on the project of finishing Jordan’s series? Did you have any idea what you were you getting into? Did any unexpected challenges come up?

Sanderson: I certainly did not know what I was getting into. I started reading these books when I was 15, back in 1990, and I’ve loved them ever since. So I was aware of the complexity of the series and I understood how excited people were, but I didn’t know how much or little Mr. Jordan finished before he passed away. So on the one hand I had an inkling, but on the other I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Famously, before he passed away, Jordan had been telling fans that this book would be so big that they would have to sell luggage carts to get them out of the bookstores. He was planning an enormous, epic finale to his series. That’s what I was anticipating. When I got the notes it was all there, in theory. The notes indicated a great epic book. But not a whole lot had been done yet. He had written some important scenes, but most things were just outlines or pre-outlines. A project that I expected to take year and half, ended up taking up five years of my career in order to do it right.

You mention that started reading the books at the age of 15. As a fan of the series, did you ever think you’d be the one called upon to finish the series?

Sanderson: It completely blew my mind. When Robert Jordan passed away I made the choice that I didn’t want to be the literary version of an ambulance chaser. So I said to my agent, we’re not going to pursue this. I would love to do it, but I don’t think it’s appropriate. When I got called about it, it completely blindsided me. I had consciously decided I wasn’t even going to let myself consider it. I never thought I’d be here where I am. I’ve gotten to participate in the dreams and vision of an author that inspired me to be a writer in the first place. That’s been incredible, but if you had asked me what are the chances of doing something like this, I wouldn’t have given myself any reasonable chance.

Are you concerned because you were a fan, you put something in that might’ve been cut by Jordan? Are you confident you ended it the way he wanted it?

Sanderson: There were a lot of holes in the notes. I had to put in scenes where I don’t know if Jordan would’ve put it in. We’re different writers. The idea was to capture the feel, the mood, the tone. [Jordan’s widow] Harriet was also his editor. She discovered Jordan when she was working as an editor and then she married him. I like to joke that it’s one way to make sure your editorial advice is taken. If I strayed, Harriet would let me know. She has the final say. And we’ve been upfront about it, I’m not ghostwriting this. I’m a coauthor. There wasn’t enough done to be finished off by a ghostwriter, it needed somebody to fill in holes. That’s why I was brought on and that’s what I’ve been doing.

When you were working on this project did it all feel like you were cheating on your world? Maybe feel like you were cheating on a spouse?

Sanderson: [Laughs] That’s an interesting way to put it. Not cheating on a spouse, but cheating on my hobbies. I was still able to release Way of Kings, which is my big capstone epic I’d been working on up until that point. I was still able to do a book in the Mistborn sequence. I had to put a lot aside, but it didn’t feel like I was cheating because I view these characters as closely to my own as possible. Beyond that Jordan, even though I never knew him, was a mentor to me. His writing is what I studied when I was trying to figure out how to be an author. I picked up Wheel of Time and tried to figure out, how is he doing this? I wouldn’t have said yes to anything else, but I said yes because it was Wheel of Time and I was so familiar and attached to these characters.

It’s all coming to end, for yourself as well as the millions who read the books. What does that mean to people reading the books?

Sanderson: I can get a sense for it because I felt it myself in 2007. When I first was offered the project, and we signed contracts and I flew to Charleston where Harriet lives and I read the last scene that Jordan had written. The last scene in the book and the epilogue are his writing. I read that and got the same sense fans are having now. Having been on a long journey, with many wonderful experiences along the way, and having time to think about what it meant and why you loved it so much. It’s bittersweet, when a journey is done. There’s a sense of loss and regret. I felt it back then and I suspect that’s what a lot of fans are going to be feeling.

The Wheel of Television Part 4: Practicalities

In the first three parts of this article series, I argued that the current plans by Red Eagle Entertainment and Universal to turn The Wheel of Time into a series of movies were impractical and unrealistic, and that adapting the books into an ongoing television series was more feasible. This especially makes more sense in the wake of the success of fantasy TV projects such as Sky's Discworld TV movies, the BBC's recently-concluded Merlin and of course HBO's Game of Thrones. I concluded that getting the series made by one of the three big remaining cable channels (Starz, AMC or Showtime) was essential to give the project the right combination of high production values and a decent amount of time to adapt the complex storyline before going on to address the issue of how you structure the series from a top-down approach. In this part I address several major technical and practical issues standing in the way of adapting the books to television.

Sets and Locations
If there is one major cost saving that TV shows have over movies, it's sets. A film with a budget in the tens of millions of dollars can afford to construct a specific set for each and every scene, and use a different location in every other shot. TV shows spread their costs more widely by the use of regular, recurring sets. Think of the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek, the throne room in Game of Thrones or the school library in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You can spend a fair bit of money on an impressive set and then spread that cost over dozens of episodes.

With Wheel of Time, there is one rather huge problem: there is no single standing set that could be constructed and re-used a lot in the first season (if you recall, in the hypothetical plan we are discussing the first season would adapt the first two books, The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt). The first two books are constantly on the move, taking the characters from the Two Rivers to Baerlon to Shadar Logoth to Whitebridge to Caemlyn to Shienar, and thence to Tar Valon, Cairhien and Falme. Later in the series we would get standing sets and regularly-appearing locations, such as the Royal Palace in Caemlyn and the White Tower in Tar Valon (which would debut in the first season, but would not be revisited until later), but it's a while before such places recur regularly.

This is fairly headache-inducing, although compensated for to some extent by how much of the first two books takes place outdoors. This brings its own headaches in terms of the expense and practical issues of location filming (dealing with the weather and so on), but at least is better than having to build dozens and dozens of different sets and then discard them. A surprising number of locations in the first two books are in fact pubs of different description (the Winespring Inn in Emond's Field, the Queen's Blessing, the inn in Cairhien that Rand, Hurin and Loial stay in etc). A standing 'pub set' could be built, possibly in modules, with walls and partitions that can be switched around. Combined with redressing and the use of different camera angles, this can turn one set into several different locations. The same principal can be applied to shops, houses and even palaces (the Royal Palace of Caemlyn could pull double-duty as Fal Dara, for example, if you dropped in a few partitions and redressed things).

For location filming, Wheel of Time does have some problems with how much of it is set in large cities (especially later on, when scenes unfold near-simultaneously in Caemlyn, Cairhien and Ebou Dar). Caemlyn, for example, would likely have to be a real medieval-looking city, possibly in Europe, just as both Mdina in Malta and Dubrovnik in Croatia have stood in for King's Landing on Game of Thrones. Given the weird and otherwordly nature of Shadar Logoth, on the other hand, it might be possible to get away with realising that city through small set-pieces and CGI backdrops (CGI is of course a powerful and useful tool but we are not at the stage yet where full CGI sets and locations are believable or affordable on such a scale).

As for where the series should be filmed, there are quite a few options. Eastern Europe is both affordable and would have the right look for most of the main continent. The Republic of Ireland (probably not Northern Ireland, since a lot of the more interesting locations have already been used by GoT) would also be an attractive option. Morocco or the American West (heavily CGI-enhanced) could also be viable options for the Aiel Waste.


Costumes
Costuming is probably the least-challenging aspect of the production, thanks to both Robert Jordan's clear descriptions in the books and the availability of costumes and costumer designers familiar with the appropriate period.

"Awesome. I want 100,000 of them for the next shot."

Prosthetics
Wheel of Time features a large number of non-human creatures, including the friendly Ogier and the hostile Shadowspawn: Trollocs, Myrddraal, Draghkar and so on. Some of these creatures appear infrequently enough that they can be rendered in CGI: the Green Man immediately comes to mind. Draghkar and Darkhounds also appear infrequently enough that this should be viable. Trollocs and Ogier are more difficult to achieve. Loial is a fairly major character with a lot of screentime. Rendering him in CGI would require a Gollum-level performance and technology to achieve satisfactorily, neither of which may be available on a TV budget and time schedule. On the other hand, prosthetics/animatronics large enough to depict the Ogier as described in the books may be stiff and unconvincing. This is something that would require screentesting to find the best solution.

It should be possible to depict Trollocs by just using large extras with prosthetics. A mix-and-match of prosthetics could be made available to blend the different animal parts together to make each Trolloc unique (or as unique as possible), rather like how the creatures themselves are created in the books. CGI would be used for scenes with large numbers of Trollocs (which is most of them) to render more of them in the background.

"More lightning bolts!"

"Not too many, they cost $10,000 a time!"

The One Power
The One Power is one of the most detailed magic systems ever created, with a lot of complex rules on how it works, how it's detected and what the different types of the Power can do. Depicting the One Power on screen risks looking cheesy - people sticking their hands out and firebolts roaring off - and depicting people glowing when they embrace the Source could be confusing (as only those able to use the Power can sense it when others are using it).

The best way to handle this is as it is in the books, with 'our' characters initially unable to see or sense the Power itself, only its effects (i.e. someone pointing and the ground exploding or mist appearing). As our core characters become more acquainted with the Power, then we can start to see POV shots from them, showing the glow of the Power (I'm thinking a subtle haloing effect rather than people blazing with the light of a thousand suns). We'll only see this if we have a POV character in the scene who can sense the Power, otherwise they'll just see the effects.

A related issue is how to handle the issue of Aes Sedai ageing. As book-readers know, Aes Sedai gain an 'ageless' appearance as they get older, so that it becomes impossible to tell whether a woman is in her 20s or 40s (and that appearance may be only a reflection of their true age, as Aes Sedai can live for several centuries). Such an effect would be prohibitively expensive to achieve with CGI - 'de-aging' Moiraine alone in her every appearance in the series would cost a fortune, not to mention the problem being exasperated when a dozen Aes Sedai appear in the same scene - so this would have to be a practical make-up effect. If unconvincing or too odd-looking, this may have to be an element from the books that is dropped or perhaps changed to something less notable.

There are obviously a lot more complexities and practicalities that would have to be addressed to make these books into a TV show, but these were a few thoughts on how you'd achieve some basic questions.

This may be the last entry in this blog series, though I may do one more focused on how you'd write and structure the first episode, to put some of these ideas into practice.

What now for THE WHEEL OF TIME?

A Memory of Light is now out, but already the question has been asked if this is truly the end, or if there will be further instalments/expansions of the series. Brandon Sanderson has addressed this issue in both a blog entry and also an interview on Wired.com. Here's a brief summary of what the situation is:

The Outriggers
During the writing of Knife of Dreams (2002-05), Robert Jordan revealed that he had come up with an idea for what he called some 'outrigger' stories. These stories would not be direct sequels to or extension of The Wheel of Time but would expand on some characters and feature side-storylines that would not be addressed in the main series. The storylines for the outriggers were not revealed at the time, although there was some fan speculation that elements such as Talmanes and the Band of the Red Hand's adventures whilst employed by King Roedran of Murandy (in the several months between The Path of Daggers and Knife of Dreams) would be suitable for exploration.

Later on Jordan confirmed that one of the outriggers would focus on Mat Cauthon and Tuon returning to the Seanchan home continent to stabilise the Empire and assert Tuon's rule there. This story would take place about ten years after the main Wheel of Time series. Initially it appeared this would just be one book, but in recent years Team Jordan have indicated there was enough scope for a trilogy. However, it has also been revealed that Robert Jordan himself only wrote two sentences of notes for the books, clearly not enough to base anything solid on. As a result, despite some initial musings by Tor Books and by Team Jordan, the outriggers will now not be written for a dearth of Jordan-written material and a reluctance to turn the series into an open world franchise.

The Prequels
When Robert Jordan expanded New Spring into a novel, he also revealed plans for two other short prequel novels. One would focus on Tam al'Thor, and the other on Moiraine and Lan's continuing adventures, ending immediately where The Eye of the World begins. However, Jordan again apparently did not write much in the way of notes for these books and again, they will now not be written.

The Encyclopedia
Work on The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia is well underway. This book is being written by Harriet McDougal and other members of Team Jordan (Robert Jordan's assistants) and will feature extensive new information on the series. Early reports indicated that the book will feature a 10,000-word vocabulary for the Old Tongue and might feature new maps and tons of notes on characters, places and events. The book will be illustrated, but should not be expected before 2014 at the earliest.

Adaptations
The long-gestating and highly ill-advised Wheel of Time movie project is apparently still percolating at Universal Studios as it has done for the last few years, with no sign of any movement on it. The new Wheel of Time RPG appears to be effectively cancelled, with Red Eagle failing to raise any money for it from publishers and Obsidian Entertainment (the superb game development studio that had originally been hired to work on it if the money had been raised) moving onto other projects. It's possible that the completion of the series will spark renewed interest from those quarters, but at the moment there is no news on them.

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

The Last Battle has begun. The fate of the world and time itself hinge upon Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, and his allies. The great city of Caemlyn burns, the Borderlands are overrun and Lan Mandragoran's army at Tarwin's Gap has been overwhelmed. Rand must convince the nations of the world that they must stand united against the Shadow or face oblivion.

For Rand's allies, they have their own struggles to face. The Black Tower is in jeopardy of falling to the Shadow, and it falls to the least-powerful of the Asha'man to try to save the day. Mat Cauthon must convince his wife, the proud Seanchan Empress, to join the great coalition against the Dark One. Perrin Aybara hunts the wolf dream for the creature known as Slayer. And Egwene al'Vere must confront the possible annihilation of the Pattern itself, which is in danger of unravelling from the use of the forbidden weave known as balefire.

On a day that dawns twice, the forces of the Dragon Reborn and those of the Shadow meet in two titanic conflicts. On the Field of Merrilor, millions will fight and die in the greatest battle the world has seen in three and a half thousand years. In the shadow of Shayol Ghul, Rand al'Thor must confront the Dark One and end this struggle once and for all.

The Wheel of Time is finished. That's a statement that's going to take a while to get used to. The first volume of the series, The Eye of the World, was published in January 1990. George Bush Snr. and Margaret Thatcher were still in power and the Cold War was still ongoing. Fourteen books, four million words, eleven thousand pages and over fifty million sales (in North America alone) later, the conclusion has finally arrived. Can it possibly live up to the expectations built up over that time?

It is a tribute to the plotting powers of Robert Jordan, the writing skill of Brandon Sanderson (who took over the series after Jordan's untimely death in 2007) and the hard work of Jordan's editors and assistants that A Memory of Light is - for the most part - a triumphant finale. Given the weight of expectations resting on the novel, not to mention the unfortunate circumstances under it was written, it is unsurprising that it is not perfect. The novel occasionally misfires, is sometimes abrupt in how it resolves long-running plot strands and sometimes feels inconsistent with what has come before. However, it also brings this juggernaut of an epic fantasy narrative to an ending that makes sense, is suitably massive in scope and resolves the series' thematic, plot and character arcs satisfactorily - for the most part.

It is a familiar viewpoint that The Wheel of Time is a slow-burning series, with Robert Jordan not afraid to have his characters sitting around talking about things for entire chapters (or, in one case, an entire novel) rather than getting on with business. However, Jordan at his best used these lengthy dialogue scenes to set up plot twists and explosive confrontations further down the line, pulling together the elements he'd established previously in surprising and interesting ways. This reached a high in the slow-moving sixth book, which ended with what is regarded by many as the series' best climax to date at the Battle of Dumai's Wells. Steven Erikson (whose Malazan series is the most notable recent mega-long fantasy series to have also reached a final conclusion) used the term 'convergence' for such structural climaxes and it's fair to say that this is what A Memory of Light is: a convergence for the entire series. All thirteen of the previous novels lined up plot cannons in preparation for the Last Battle, and in the closing chapters of Towers of MidnightBrandon Sanderson started triggering them.

The result is not The Wheel of Time you may be familiar with. A Memory of Light is a brutal, bruising, 900-page war novel that kicks off with all hell breaking loose and doesn't pause for breath until the ending. The prologue starts with a well-paced sequence as we find out the state of play for the major characters, intercut with Talmanes and the Band of the Red Hand engaging hordes of Shadowspawn on the streets of Caemlyn. The rotation of scenes between the desperate street fighting and more familiar politicking is highly effective and is exhausting in itself. Immediately after this we alternate between Rand's attempts to pull together a coalition against the Shadow whilst a small group of Asha'man try to save their organisation from destruction against overwhelming odds. No sooner is that over than the Last Battle is joined in full force. Vast armies clash, channellers engage one another in One Power exchanges that dwarf anything seen before in the series and lots of stuff blows up. There's more action sequences in A Memory of Light than the rest of the series put together, more than earning the adage 'The Last Battle'.

The action sequences (which make up almost the whole book) are, for the most part, impressive but benefit from unpredictability. Jordan has been criticised for making his characters too safe, with almost no major character of note (on either side) dying in the previous books of the series. This limitation has been removed for the Last Battle. Major characters, middling ones and scores of minor ones are scythed down in this final confrontation with near-wild abandon. Some get heroic, fitting, blaze-of-glory ends. Some die in manners so unexpected, offhand and callous that even George R.R. Martin might nod in approval. Many of the survivors are seriously wounded, either in body or mind. Jordan's experiences as a Vietnam vet informed Rand al'Thor's arc in The Gathering Storm, and resurface here when one major character is tortured by the Shadow before being rescued, but spends the rest of the book suffering the effects of his experiences. The war scenes are suitably epic and exciting, but Sanderson remembers to include moments counting the cost of such a struggle.

That said, there is an annoying discrepancy in the Last Battle sequence compared to earlier novels. Based on the army sizes in previous volumes and the number of channellers in each faction, the good guys should have brought the better part of a million troops and five thousand One Power-wielders to the Last Battle, and the Shadow several times more. There is no indication that such vast numbers are present, which seems rather odd. There is also the fact that the channellers suddenly seem to be much less effective in mass combat than previously shown. This is most blatant when Logain is angrily told that he and a couple of dozen Asha'man cannot hope to defeat a hundred thousand Trollocs by themselves. Given this is exactly what happened in one scene in Knife of Dreams, I can only conclude that the channellers were deliberately reduced in power for this book, which is very strange.

For the most part, this is the level of problems A Memory of Light presents: something mildly irritating to those who prefer consistency from fictional works but ultimately not hugely relevant to the overall thrust of the narrative. Similar issues can be found with a number of very minor subplots that the novel fails to resolve (or even address) from earlier volumes. In some cases these may be examples of what Robert Jordan himself said would happen in the last book, with some elements left deliberately hanging to give the illusion that life goes on after the last page is turned. In other cases, it may be that Jordan did not draft out how those storylines ended, so Sanderson chose to leave them rather than risk too inventing too much of his own material. Sanderson even refuses to name an important river that Jordan did not name himself, resulting is a slightly awkward battle sequence where characters talk about the 'river on the border', the 'river on the battlefield' and so on, which is a bit laboured.

However, whilst the war scenes rage there is also a philosophical struggle at the heart of the book, and of the series. This struggle is shown in the confrontation between Rand and the Dark One in which their visions of the world and the Wheel are shown in conflict with one another. Robert Jordan was convinced that whilst there were certainly complexities and shades of grey in real life, he also believed that real good and real evil existed, and these ideas form part of the philosophical struggle that takes place alongside the battles. How successful this is will vary (perhaps immensely) from reader to reader, but is not helped by some muddling of the issues. The primary struggle of the books has consistently been Good vs. Evil, but in this philosophy-off the idea of the Creator personifying Order and the Dark One Chaos also arises, possibly as their primary roles. This is in conflict with the rest of the series and is also more tiresomely familiar and predictable. Once that interpretation arises, it's impossible not to think of the ending of the Shadow War in the TV series Babylon 5, and the resolution we get is not a million miles away from it (Rand even gets a line almost as awful as "Get the hell out of our galaxy!").

On the prose side of things, it's pretty much the same set-up as The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight: acceptable, faster-paced and a bit less prone to unnecessary introspection. Where Sanderson comes undone (yet again) is his very occasional use of terminology and language that Jordan would never have used, particularly modern words and terms. Though relatively rare, they still jar a little bit when they appear. The book's centrepiece is a single chapter that is almost 200 pages (and 70,000 words) long in hardcover, with some 70 POV characters playing a role. Apparently both Sanderson and Jordan wrote parts of this chapter, and a few minor inconsistencies aside their writing styles mesh very well. The very last section of the epilogue, written by Robert Jordan himself before he passed (including, rather eerily, Jordan's epitaph from his own funeral), is indeed a fitting way to end the book.

Taking everything into account, A Memory of Light (****½) is a lot better than perhaps we had any right to expect. The book is a relentless steamroller of action, explosions, plot resolutions, deaths and philosophical (if somewhat confused) arguing. Some elements are under-resolved, or a little too convenient, or not fleshed out enough. But that's par for the course with any ending to a series this huge. The big questions are answered, the final scene is fitting and the story ends in a way that is true to itself, which is the most we can ask for. The novel is available now in the UKand USA.