Great Opening Lines – and Why! (December 2023’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

My last entry in this category was August 2023’s Great Opening Lines – and Why! (August 2023’s Great Opening Lines) which covered Angela PanayotopulosThe Wake Up. This entry in the Great Opening Lines – And Why! posts is Hal Clement‘s Hot Planet.
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (December 2023’s Great Opening Lines)”

Great Opening Lines – and Why! (August 2023’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

My last entry in this category was January 2023’s Great Opening Lines – and Why! (January 2023’s Great Opening Lines) which covered Lidia Yuknavitch’s‘s The Chronology of Water. This entry in the Great Opening Lines – And Why! posts is Angela PanayotopulosThe Wake Up.
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (August 2023’s Great Opening Lines)”

Great Opening Lines – and Why! (October 2022’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

My last entry in this category was July 2022’s Great Opening Lines – and Why! (May 2022’s Great Opening Lines) which covered Binah Shah’s Before She Sleeps. This entry in the Great Opening Lines – And Why! posts is Laura Koerber‘s Coyote’s Road Trip.
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (October 2022’s Great Opening Lines)”

Great Opening Lines – and Why! (July 2022’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

My last entry in this category was May 2022’s Great Opening Lines – and Why! (May 2022’s Great Opening Lines) which covered James Tiptree, Jr.’s The Milk of Paradise in the Harlan Ellison edited “Again, Dangerous Visions”. This entry in the Great Opening Lines – And Why! posts is Bina Shah‘s Before She Sleeps.

Before getting to the great opening line itself, some notes on the book as a whole.

I started this book before the US Supreme Court demonstrated that great legal minds can also be idiots. That demonstration occurred half way through my read.

Before, I thought the book brilliant and profound. After, even more so.

Before She Sleeps is rich with some of the most beautiful language I’ve ever encountered. Often reading beautiful phrasing can throw one out of a book because the phrase stops the reader so they can savor the author’s eloquence.

Not so here. The language is universally rich, so much so that the over-the-top brilliant passages merely hurried me along to read more.

I will offer the book ended too abruptly for me. I can accept the ending as written, everything is tied up, no loose ends, and I would have preferred it to linger a bit longer so I could bid the characters a better farewell for the joy they gave me.

Now to that great opening line.
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (July 2022’s Great Opening Lines)”

Great Opening Lines – and Why! (May 2022’s Great Opening Lines)

I wrote in Great Opening Lines – and Why! (Part 3 – Some Great Opening Lines) that I’d share more great opening lines as I found them.

It’s been another eight months since I posted some great opening lines. I still read what some consider an amazing number of books each month, each cover to cover. It’s simply harder and harder to find great opening lines.

But this month I read James Tiptree, Jr.’s The Milk of Paradise in the Harlan Ellison edited “Again, Dangerous Visions” and wow what a find it is.

Note that I do not recommend the book, only this and a few other stories in it (see my Goodreads review for more on this).
Continue reading “Great Opening Lines – and Why! (May 2022’s Great Opening Lines)”