“We in Congress have elected a President to lead us, and not a king.”
Alternate Presidents, edited by Mike Resnick. (Note: The above sentence is from the first story, “The Father of His Country”, by Jody Lynn Nye. It’s set in an alternate history in which Benjamin Franklin, not George Washington, was the first U.S. President.)
“Marchenko and Parsons circled the bank for sixteen minutes, huffing Krylon Royal Blue Metallic to regulate the crystal as they worked up their nut.”
– The Two Minute Rule, by Robert Crais
When Red wins, she stands alone.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Do me a favor. If you understand the ending of this story when you are done, please explain it to me.
I’ll PM you, so as not to derail this thread.
Late July, 1635
Outside of Paris, France
The need for secrecy was constant.
1636: The Cardinal Virtues, by Eric Flint and Walter H Hunt
“This book is a collection of essays, each one on a different subject related to spaceflight. Some short, some long. Some technical, some emotional. Some fact-based, some purely speculative.”
How to Astronaut: An Insider’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth by Terry Virts
Silhouetted by the light he carried to lead the way, the bent man glanced back at Wilbur Craigson and pointed at the crudely mortared wall.
1636: The Vatican Sanction, by Eric Flint and Charles E Gannon
“Bud Frazier sometimes wandered through St. Luke’s Hospital like a large wraith in a white coat.”
Ticker: The Quest to Create an Artificial Heart, by Mimi Swartz
“Sweetgrass is best planted not by seed, but by putting roots directly in the ground.”
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Simon came out to the river at least once a week, usually in the predawn light, and walked the bank of the Elbe looking for anything he might scavenge and use or sell.
1636: The Devil’s Opera , by Eric Flint and David Carrico
“Freddy’s been murdered, Ludwig, and the police refuse to do anything about it!”
“An Aukward Situation”, by Eric Flint
First story in Grantville Gazette VII, edited by Flint
“As soon as the alarm went off that Monday morning in August I jumped out of bed and headed for the shower.”
Loving John: The Untold Story, by May Pang and Henry Edwards
“What’s two plus two?”
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
“Why are you interested in a master’s degree in library science, William?”
Librarian Tales: Funny, Strange, and Inspiring Dispatches from the Stacks, by William Ottens.
“She had to leave everything behind.”
The Disappeared, by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
When the first sarsen stone was raised in the circle of Stonehenge, the land we call England was already very ancient.
Foundation: The History of England From Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors, by Peter Ackroyd.
I was born in 1927, the only child of middle-class parents, both English, and themselves born in the grotesquely elongated shadow, which they never rose sufficiently above history to leave, of that monstrous dwarf Queen Victoria.
The Magus by John Fowles.
Great first sentence, btw.
Indeed it is. Meanwhile:
“Frank Meyer closed his computer as the early winter darkness fell over his home in Westwood, California, not far from the UCLA campus.”
– The First Rule, by Robert Crais
“Three Thousand Miles Ago, Wrangel Island: An eighty-mile-wide swath of volcanic rock, gravel, and permafrost jutting out from the Arctic Ocean, ninety miles off the coast of Siberia, windswept and forbidding.”
Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History’s Most Iconic Extinct Creatures, by Ben Mezrich.