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I saw this on the Tor blog and thought it was fun. So what's the first line of the first book you're reading this year?

"The sun was already sinking into the deep green of the hills to the west of the valley, and the red and gray-pink of its shadows touching the corners of the land, when Flick Ohmsford began his descent"
- The Sword of Shannara

'August 2nd - 2001
"Very good, Jessica. Yes, let go of your surroundings." '
- Lights Over Cloud Lake

He came shambling into Judgment's Round from the Avenue of Souls, a misshapen mass of flies.

- Deadhouse Gates

The fires had all died down, smoke trailing in the night sky, dissipating long before it could reach any of the countless glittering stars twinkling through the tree canopy.

The Princess and the Scoundrel

"I was not born a warden."

The Famine Cycle Book I - Whispers of Ruin

"Perry Graves tried not to think about summer's arrival - the heat devils hovering, breathless, over the blacktop as if waiting for something to happen - or even about the city streets." The Ballad of Perilous Graves

"If the fine denizens of Sleepy Hollow are to be believed, every single person who lives here has had at least one supernatural experience."
-Raising the Horseman

"Vic remembered the first time she wanted to kill a man." Across the Sands by Hugh Howey

"The newest girl had finally cried herself into exhaustion at last and slept, her tear-streaked face half hidden in her disordered hair, head cradled in the silken folds of Jeanette's midnight-colored skirt."
The Black Swan by Mercedes Lackey

The sun, climbing toward midmorning, stretched Galad's shadow and those of his three armored companions ahead of them as they trotted their mounts down the road that ran straight through the forest, dense with oak and leatherleaf, pine and sourgum, most showing the red of spring growth. -Knife of Dreams.

There was Eru, The One, who in Arda is called Ilúvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.

The Silmarillion ~ JRR Tolkien

Through the shredded black clouds a fire moved like a dying star, falling back to earth -
the earth, that is, of the Discworld -
but unlike any star had ever done before, it sometimes managed to steer its fall, sometimes rising, sometimes twisting, but inevitably heading down.
Carpe Jugulum. Terry Pratchett

"It would have been a pleasant day, if not for the hanging." The Shadow of Theron

"From: Chirurgeon Bellan Tortega (BT), certified neuro-psychic attendant" - The Outcast Dead by Graham McNeill

I went back to the first book I started to read in 2023. It was Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson. It is the first of four books released in 2023 from the Kickstarter campaign of 2022 called the four secret novels. The novel is also from the Cosmere series.
The first line is: “In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived on a rock.��

This was fun last year so here we go:

-------------------- 2024 --------------------

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
- Pride and Prejudice

And my first SFF one

"Pistol in hand, Doc ran through the deserted streets of the city of Neckerdam."
- Sidhe Devil

Goodness me, so there are fifteen of me know!

Whotopia the Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse

Goodness me, so there are fifteen of me now!

Whotopia the Ultimate Guide to the Whoniverse

(Careless typing syndrome struck )

I was somewhat distracted by the fact that autocorrect kept trying to change the title to... Ethiopia the Ultimate Guide to the Universe.��

"In the spring of 2014, I received an email out of the blue." That's the first line of the preface.

"I'm an old man, a tired, frightened old man." That's the first line of the foreword.

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." And, finally, that's the first line of Chapter 1.

The book is The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows.

Robin, I love your typos!

'Once on a Wednesday excursion when I was a little girl, my father bought me a beaded wire ball that I loved.'

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

I first read this a few years ago, on the recommendation of my sister. I found it fascinating and some time later, we went to Greenwich where it's possible to see some of the clocks that resulted from Harrison's efforts. The workmanship is extraordinary and the politics of the search for a reliable chronometer demonstrate that nothing much changes over the years. Enjoying the book once more.

He gazed out at the sunfall from an open second-floor window, breathing deeply of the cool salt air, and felt it was the first calm moment he had known in days. From A Burial at Sea It was really good. Read it in two days.

Between the howling of the wind, the pounding of the rain on the roof, and the tumult of the ocean, Mari Prothero knew there was no point in listening for anything else. Home from the Sea

Elijah Bailey found himself in the shade of the tree and muttered to himself, "I knew it. I'm sweating." The Robots of Dawn

The first book I'm actually reading, as opposed to listening to

"A man with binoculars. That is how it began: with a man standing by the side of the road, on a crest overlooking a small Arizona town, on a winter night."

The Andromeda Strain

"The troll was not especially large as trolls go: six feet and a bit, maybe seven at most."

The Road to Farringale

I had seventeen blades concealed along my person, each one more than capable of killing the man in front of me.
-A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair

SILENT, SHE WAITS FOR the sky to fall, standing upon an island of volcanic rock amidst a black sea.

IRON GOLD

Thought I'd revive this. Took a few days since I was actually finishing off a book I started last year, so I had already read its first line in 2024 :)

-------------------- 2025 --------------------

"Cigars had burned low, and we were beginning to sample the disillusionment that usually afflicts old school friends who have met again as men and found themselves with less in common than they had believed they had." - Lost Horizons

Between Pride and Prejudice and Lost Horizons I seem to start the year with fairly cynical/sarcastic first lines.

"Amelia Stonecroft seized the shoulder of her cousin Serena Meleya's woolen cloak forcibly, just before her cousin made a spectacle of herself, and hissed at her." - Miss Amelia's List

Sounds kind of dopey. It is the newest book in The Elemental Masters: The Regency series, so that explains it. Ha! Also it is my third book, but the other two already went back to the library.

"Gavilar Kholin was on the verge of immortality."

-Wind and Truth, Brandon Sanderson.

"Imagine darkness."

City of Illusions, Ursula K Le Guin.

I'm working my way through all her books this year after a long interval since I first read them.

"I’m pretty much fu**ed.

That’s my considered opinion.

Fu**ed"


The Martian

“Ororo Munroe stood on the steps of her primary school, little six-year-old fingers splayed, glancing up at the sky, willing the gates to open so she could escape.��

STORM: DAWN OF A GODDESS

"If anyone told me I could bring down the president, and Pure Movement, and that incompetent little sh*t Morgan LeBron in a week's time, I wouldn't believe them" Vox

Turned out my Regency book was so insipid that I'm tackling this horrifying book club book. I'm going to have them take turns, from being ho-hummed silly to being horrified breathless. If not for this first sentence, I would not have had the courage to read this!

"On the cover of one of the now very battered 'High School Exercise Books' in which some of the Lost Tales were composed my father wrote: The Cottage of Lost Play, which introduceth [the] Book of Lost Tales; and on the cover is also written, in my mother's hand, her initials, E.M.T., and a date, Feb. 12th, 1917."

- The Book of Lost Tales part 1, J.R.R. Tolkien

This is the book I started at the end of last year, and am still reading. For the first book I started this year:

"Karl Selig steadied himself on the ship's rail and peered through the binoculars at the massive iceberg."

- The Atlantis Gene, A.G. Riddle

"I had been in my chambers at Lincoln's Inn when the messenger came from Master Parry, asking me to attend him urgently."

- Tombland by C.J Sansom

"The smuggler held the bullet between thumb and forefinger; studying it in the weak light of the store room. He smiled sourly. 'Just imagine,' he said. 'Imagine what this feels like, going through your head.'"

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding

Kivrin wrote: ""The smuggler held the bullet between thumb and forefinger; studying it in the weak light of the store room. He smiled sourly. 'Just imagine,' he said. 'Imagine what this feels like, going through ..."

Kivrin, I've been rereading Retribution Falls! It's such a fun series.