Fantastic first sentences you'd LIKE to find in a book...

[Alex]

He had no reason to wait, so he crossed on the red light, stepping not only over the white crosswalk, but also over the outraged looks sent from across the road.

[Ken]

If Time is a river, it must lead to an ocean, from which the effects of our actions must evaporate and return to the mountains of our earliest beginnings like summer rain.

[Al "Tank"]

Alex wrote: "He had no reason to wait, so he crossed on the red light, stepping not only over the white crosswalk, but also over the outraged looks sent from across the road."

This is about "the chicken" crossing the road -- right?

[Albert]

Once upon a time I used to be a human

[Micah]

A friend of mine suggested this as a great first sentence, see what you think:

"Ron Jeremy is not in nearly enough dubstep dance videos."

[Luke]

There was no shame in skipping a stage, especially now that Joe had such a good head start, Frank mused as he looked down the barrel and reached for the trigger at the far end of his rifle.

[Christopher]

I went through Customs on Betelgeuse 5, right after midnight, yawning, bleary-eyed, and then cursing my stupidity as I suddenly realized I'd forgotten the jar of peanut butter.

[Alicja]

It came from the sky one day, one by one they dropped down like rain, naked except the parachutes on their backs. The elder of our tribe said wide-eyed they were called men, and she hadn't seen one since she was five.

[Art]

Once I had her laughing, it was that much easier to slit her throat.

[Steph]

Art wrote: "Once I had her laughing, it was that much easier to slit her throat."

I think this thread should be renamed, "Fantastic first sentences that reveal the dark depths of your psyche"...

[Art]

Licking a person's face is an effective way of ending a conversation.

[Art]

My being dead wasn't hard for me. The others had some problems with it.

[Ken]

Art wrote: "Licking a person's face is an effective way of ending a conversation."

Actually, I could tell you a story about how this ended in marriage. Mine, in fact.

[Kevin]

Reading Rise of Empire and Zoe's Tale, which I am quite enjoying so far.

[Michael]

Kevin wrote: "Reading Rise of Empire and Zoe's Tale, which I am quite enjoying so far."

Okay, so you win for the wackiest first sentence for a book!

[L.R.A.]

"It's the history of chocolate and the wars between it, plain and simple."

Who could resist chocolate?
God, I have to make this a thing...

[Kevin]

Michael wrote: "Kevin wrote: "Reading Rise of Empire and Zoe's Tale, which I am quite enjoying so far."

Okay, so you win for the wackiest first sentence for a book!"

Sorry, I thought this thread was what are you reading now thread.

[Ken]

If stone dragons can change their expressions with the fading of the sun's disk, so too could I alter my appearance in certain solar company.

[Michael]

Kevin wrote: "Michael wrote: "Okay, so you win for the wackiest first sentence for a book!"

Sorry, I thought this thread was what are you reading now thread. "

No problem. I was being funny, but I also like the idea of a books that reference other books, I wonder if there would be a way to setup a series of books that reference each other, by different authors...

[L.G.]

"It wasn't until he started falling that he realised that being defenestrated meant the same thing as being thrown out a window."

I'm actually thinking of using something similar in a story I'm working on, but I'd thought I'd get it out there.

[Art]

"My children hated my niece because I loved her best. Of course, she wasn't really their cousin, and I wasn't even related to her. All of us were victims of time."

[Art]

By the middle of February, Al the snowplow driver took on the visage of a fiend from some frozen reach of Hell.

[Art]

(As to the previous, he just filled in the end of my driveway, and I have to leave in a couple of minutes)

[Adriaan]

Leonardo arrived in the lift, wiping his hands in a filthy rag, just as the battered vessel shuddered and groaned its way back into real-space. Francis pointed to the blue-white globe now visible in the flickering display without taking his eyes off the instruments. "It has been a long, strange journey my friend, but we're almost home."

[Margaret]

"its", please.

[Art]

Thanks, Margaret.

[Adriaan]

Margaret wrote: ""its", please."

Done, Thanks :)

[Micah]

Not claiming it's fantastic, but here's the start of a short story I've just begun (The Cut-Up Man) set in my Posthuman Cycle (first paragraph actually):

His head was pickled safely away in a scan-resistant compartment on the interior of his shipping container--boring, true, but unavoidable--the rest of him just mass of PB-Mat, Programmable Bio-Matter, a state-variable blue-green micro-cellular jelly from which his body would be reconstituted just as soon as these damned AntMen got around to checking the container through customs. You gotta hate AntMen.

[Wade]

"You'd think the bullet through the back of my mouth would've killed me," he smiled through smoky, pink-spattered teeth, "but let's just say getting fired wasn't the most exciting thing that happened to me today."


Like that?

[Wade]

"You'd think the bullet through the back of my mouth would've killed me," he smiled through smoky, pink-spattered teeth, "but let's just say getting fired wasn't the most exciting thing that happened to me today."


Like that?

[M Todd]

"An elf, an android, and a lawyer walk into a tavern."

[Ken]

I will kill her while the snow falls, and they will praise my courage - though they will not understand my motives.

[James]

It was all over, these two were the only ones alive in all the entire world, they alone had not succumbed to the terrible plague virus that day one started with a runny nose and day two resulted in death, so quiet with not another living soul on Earth.

[Margaret]

@James, that's really more like four sentences. Turning it into a run-on with a bunch of comma splices does not exactly make me want to read the (imaginary) book. Just sayin'. :)

[James]

How about:

Doomsday had finally come to all on planet Earth.

[Art]

Suicide is just so damn final!

[Art]

A yo-yo! Just the perfect gift for a 60-year-old tomboy! I'll pu it in her stocking!

[Art]

Make that "put" (iPod keyboard)

[Jim]

I knew she knew; and figured that she knew that I knew she knew, but wasn't quite sure how much she knew.

[Ken]

"Your books burn or you do, and if you don't decide quickly it shall be both."