Authors · NYT Hardcover Fiction

Alistair MacLean

Charting Jan 29, 1956 → Apr 26, 1987 · 120 weeks with chart power

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Image credits

Photo: Clayton Evans, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Peak Power: 6.64%; week of Mar 30, 1969
Career Power: 618; share-weeks
Crowns: 0; weeks crowned Author of the Week

Peak Year: 141; January 1969 – January 1970
Peak Five Years: 412; February 1967 – February 1972
Top-five weeks: 16; weeks ranked 1–5
Longevity: 120; weeks with chart power
Dominance: 9.58%; week of Feb 16, 1969
Comebacks: 2; Jan 1968, after 11 quiet years · Sep 1975

Ranked by weekly Power Share, part of the ChartReign Power model — not the list's own positions. How it works →

Exponentially smoothed share of the week's total power (the primary metric).

Titles on the NYT Hardcover Fiction

15 books · 618 share-weeks of Career Power

Power contributed is what each book earned this author: their weekly Power Share, split across their books (a featured credit takes its reduced share). Book Power is the book's own figure, the same for every author on it. Bar length compares books within this list.

Title	Peak	Weeks	On chart	Power contributedPower	Book Power
Force 10 from Navarone	#4February 1969	18	December 1968 – April 1969	130.4	130.4
Puppet on a Chain	#5January 1970	17	December 1969 – April 1970	103.5	103.5
Bear Island	#5November 1971	14	November 1971 – February 1972	78.0	78.0
Circus	#5November 1975	12	August 1975 – November 1975	74.5	74.5
H.M.S. Ulysses	#8February 1956	17	January 1956 – May 1956	71.5	71.5
Caravan to Vaccares	#6February 1971	12	December 1970 – March 1971	64.4	64.4
Where Eagles Dare	#8January 1968	8	December 1967 – February 1968	36.0	36.0
The Golden Rendezvous	#13August 1962	8	July 1962 – September 1962	17.4	17.4
The Golden Gate	#8September 1976	2	September 1976 – September 1976	10.3	10.3
The Guns of Navarone	#12March 1957	3	March 1957 – April 1957	8.3	8.3
Floodgate	#12May 1984	3	April 1984 – May 1984	8.0	8.0
Santorini	#13April 1987	2	April 1987 – April 1987	5.2	5.2
Night Without End	#13March 1960	2	March 1960 – March 1960	4.6	4.6
Ice Station Zebra	#10December 1963	1	December 1963	4.2	4.2
Partisans	#15March 1983	1	March 1983	2.1	2.1

At their peak

1969 in books →

Alistair MacLean's best twelve months on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list ran from January 1969 to January 1970. The most powerful authors over those weeks:

Ranked by Era Power over the same weeks.

Their decades: the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s.