“Are you afraid of falling, baby?”
Grimspace, by Ann Aguirre
“Tancredi took his hands off the wheel again and waved them.”
Lest Darkness Fall, by L. Sprague de Camp
“It’s a port city.”
Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany.
*Vince’s chair screeched across the paint-speckled linoleum. *
–“Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! My Adventures in the Alice Cooper Group” by Dennis Dunaway.
“There were three empresses of Mars.”
The Empress of Mars by Kage Baker
“It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was.”
- The Outsider, by Stephen King
“The release of the restored 1927 Metropolis is the cinematic event of the year.”
Jar Jar Binks Must Die and Other Observations about Science Fiction Movies, by Daniel M. Kimmel
“They say it takes a while to recover your land legs after years spent at sea.”
Meet Your Baker, by Ellie Alexander.
“Del was sick of being interrogated.”
Diamond Star, by Catherine Asaro.
“It was a dark and stormy night”
Something by Bulwar Lytton
“I came to say a last prayer for you … that you’ll be forgiven.”
The Last Aloha, by Gaellen Quinn
“It was the middle of May and unusually hot for the season as Rabbi David Small of the Barnard’s Crossing Temple made ready for his appointment with President Macomber of Windermere College in Boston’s Back Bay.”
That Day the Rabbi Left Town: A Rabbi Small Mystery, by Harry Kemelman
Skipping the prologue, since it’s hard to determine what the ‘first sentence’ of that is, as it’s in the form of a government memo…
‘As the bus entered the prefectural capital of Takamatsu, garden suburbs transformed into city streets of multicolored neon, headlights of oncoming cars, and checkered lights of office buildings.’
Battle Royale - Koshoun Takami (2003 translation by Yuji Oniki)
“After decades of patient mismanagement and loving neglect, The Ford County Times went bankrupt in 1970.”
The Last Juror, by John Grisham
“The journeyman Hilketa athlete was looking to make an impression in his final game.”
Head On, by John Scalzi.
“The airship cruised from the hoary mountain pass on a current as cold as an avalanche.”
- Arm of the Sphinx, by Josiah Bancroft
“He thought: When I get there nobody will believe I could have managed a ride like this and neither by God will I.” — The Shootist, Glendon Swarthout
“The moth makes Evie laugh.”
– Sleeping Beauties, by Stephen and Owen King
“Gordon Edgley’s sudden death came as a shock to everyone–not least himself.”
Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy
“There were few streets in the main port of Sydney which deserved the name, besides the one main thoroughfare, and even that bare packed dirt, lined only with a handful of small and wretched buildings that formed all the permanence of the colony.”
Tongues of Serpents, by Naomi Novik