The release date is not for 6 months or so, so no it's not especially unusual. The price will go down, and up, and down, and up several times before February 2017. The trick is to preorder as soon as possible and then wait. Because of Amazon's preorder price guarantee, you will lock-in at however low the price gets down to before the release date. You aren't charged before they ship it to you, so you can always cancel the order a couple days before the release, if the price doesn't seem good to you. You can also just return it free of charge for a full refund if you forget to cancel and don't want it. Because Amazon's prices can fluctuate so rapidly and unpredictably, the preorder guarantee is the way to get the lowest possible price. In the past, I've ended up getting several books for less-than-half-price using Amazon this way.