September, 1633
Grantville
“Okay,” said Mike Stearns, “we’ve thrashed out what can and can’t be done right now in terms of trade with the Ottomans, the Mughals, and even the Venetians.”
1636: The China Venture, by Eric Flint and Iver P Cooper
“Sheridan Street in Jamaica Plain goes uphill from Center Street for about two hundred yards, crests, and heads down toward Chestnut Avenue. It’s a narrow street, lined with two- and three-family clapboard houses.”
Crimson Joy by Robert B. Parker
“Howard Phillips Lovecraft of Providence (1890-1937) was a man endowed with proofs that he was undesirable.”
Benchmarks Continued: F&SF “Books” Columns 1975-1982, by Algis Budrys
“On a dreary summer’s day, Colonel Aleksandr Tretetsky of the Soviet Military Prosecutor’s Office arrived at his latest worksite: a series of mass graves in a birch forest twenty miles outside of the city of Kalinin. He and his assistants began the morning digging, searching the earth for artifacts of the totalitarian regime: bullet-shattered skulls, worm-eaten boots, scraps of Polish military uniforms.”
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick
“My first personal contact with Star Trek was in August, 1966. At the time I was employed by an advertising agency in Phoenix, Arizona.”
The Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry
“I have often reflected upon the strange series of circumstances that led me to my long association with one of the most singular and remarkable figures of my age.”
The House of Silk by Anthony Horwitz
“My name is Robinette Broadhead, in spite of which I am male.”
Gateway, by Frederik Pohl
“Lenses do not appear to have been in widespread use as magnifiers or vision aids in the ancient world.”
How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap: Odd Excursions Into Optics, by Stephen R. Wilk
“Trailing blood in the snow, the largely shoeless army marched to the boats at night in the midst of the storm as sleet pelted their bodies.”
*The Indispensables - The Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware (Patrick K. O’Donnell)
“This was Mrs. Peterkin.”
The Peterkin Papers by Lucretia P. Hale
“I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly consider’d how much depended upon what they were then doing; – that not only the production of a rational Being was concern’d in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind; – and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost: – Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly, – I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.”
– The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by Laurence Sterne
“Our meeting was not contrived.” Agent Running in the Field - John Le Carre, one of my favorite authors.
“Amy Powers, a young lyricist at the start of a promising career, picked up the New York Times on September 20, 1991, and went straight to reporter Alex Witchel’s influential Friday theater column.”
Singular Sensation: The Triumph of Broadway, by Michael Riedel
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cole, this has nothing to do with you.”
The Monkey’s Raincoat, by Robert Crais
Factory in Poltz, Russia
February 1636
Stefan Andreevich wiped off the sweat, then motioned for Nestor to turn the crank.
1637: The Volga Rules , by Eric Flint, Gorg Huff, and Paula Goodlett
“Libby picks up the letter off the doormat.”
The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell
“I play with Grand Central Corporation.”
Prince: The Last Interview, and Other Conversations, by Prince et al.
Now that’s an opening sentence… which could easily have been four or five!
“Plush dolls of Pinky and the Brain overhung Charlie’s monitor, their bottoms fixed in place with Velcro tabs, toes dangling over the video screen.” This Is Not a Game by Walter Jon Williams
“In retrospect, it seemed an odd way to start a war.” Debt of Honor, Tom Clancy.
“All the sheep were chewing cud when it happened.”
What happened?