tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35635012024-03-19T02:19:46.532-07:00Paradox World JournalHome of First Sentences and Other MusingsAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.comBlogger351125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-7736322887433418792021-12-06T20:08:00.000-08:002021-12-06T20:08:13.995-08:00A Closed and Common Orbit I first read Becky Chambers' work when her story, "To Be Taught, If Fortunate," was a Hugo nominee. I liked it, and planned to read more. Her most recent book, A Psalm for the Wild Built, was lovely and reassuring, and I went on to read all of the Wayfarers series. Of these works, the first sentence that interested me most came from A Closed and Common Orbit, book two of the Wayfarers Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-26983947082284881182021-11-22T20:08:00.003-08:002021-11-22T20:08:47.946-08:00Another Vacation Day!Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate. And I am thankful for all of you who read this. Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-3092536515849086072021-11-15T19:41:00.000-08:002021-11-15T19:41:52.946-08:00The Best Thing You Can StealThis week's first sentence is another library find, a recent novel from a prolific English author. I found The Best Thing You Can Steal by Simon R. Green rollicking and clever. The first sentence begins building a world with a strong dash of style: "There is a world beneath the world, where magic and horrors run free, wonders and miracles are everyday things, and the dark streets are full of veryAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-81798567776540167172021-11-08T22:24:00.000-08:002021-11-08T22:24:23.582-08:00OriginIt was time to find more first sentences. I entered the library, and walked to a random stretch of shelf, and began pulling books and opening them, like a shark with a very specialized diet. The one to catch my attention was Diana Abu-Jaber's novel Origin. I wasn't previously familiar with the author, although I looked her up later and saw she has won several awards, of which the PEN award Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-81298544130973626602021-11-01T20:00:00.001-07:002021-11-01T20:00:51.342-07:00TuyoThe first sentence of Rachel Neumeier's novel, Tuyo, widens the view before narrowing it again: "Beside the coals of the dying fire, within the trampled borders of our abandoned camp, surrounded by the great forest of the winter country, I waited for a terrible death." This is a sentence almost like a camera trick. First, we have a narrow focus: "Beside the coals of a dying fire."Then, we Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-81460950638813831992021-10-25T13:45:00.000-07:002021-10-25T13:45:27.343-07:00Black Water SisterZen Cho's novel Black Water Sister starts with a sentence that does an unusually good job of foreshadowing three threads in her story: "The first thing the ghost said to Jess was: Does your mother know you're a pengkid?"The first thread is the supernatural. There is a ghost that speaks to Jess. The second thread is intergenerational conflict: "Does your mother know...?" That phrase is how Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-32479924620433138772021-10-18T17:35:00.000-07:002021-10-18T17:35:43.131-07:00The Once and Future WitchesThe first sentence of Alix E. Harrow's book, The Once and Future Witches, is: "There's no such thing as witches, but there used to be." This sentence is an interesting case. All but one of the words are common, and have little emotional coloring. The single word that has a lot of associations is "witches" and it is a knockout. We have many strong images to go with the word "witches." Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-47876210323730197982021-10-11T21:47:00.003-07:002021-10-12T16:10:11.208-07:00Mr. Midshipman HornblowerIndigenous Peoples' Day caught me unprepared today. When I can, I like to find a good sentence related to a period of observance, read the entire book, and write my blog post to suit. If you'd like to read about a sentence from an indigenous author today, please consider my older posts on Empire of Wild, Two Roads, Trail of Lightning, or Solar Flares. Mr. Midshipman Hornblower is part Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-46439363281290221952021-10-04T20:14:00.000-07:002021-10-04T20:14:14.731-07:00Welcome to TemptationJennifer Crusie's novel, Welcome to Temptation, was the first contemporary romance I absolutely loved. She published it in 2000 and I read it a few years later. Rereading it last year, I again admired the craft and the humor and the characters, even while noticing that quite a lot has changed since it came out. The first sentence of Welcome to Temptation is: "Sophie Dempsey didn’t like Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-24230266173119581222021-09-27T19:01:00.003-07:002021-09-27T19:01:42.838-07:00On Vacation!No first sentence this week! I am on vacation. I believe in vacations! Be kind to yourselves this week. Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-81011603624745900802021-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:002021-09-20T21:24:19.478-07:00Anansi BoysComfort comes in many forms. After a hard couple of weeks, a random link took me to an interview with Neil Gaiman, and I remembered that I hadn't yet chosen a first sentence from one of my favorite authors. Anansi Boys, like Gaiman's work often does, has moments of horror, and yet, the voice that tells that horror comforts me. The first sentence of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys is: "It begins, Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-83453626467742478302021-09-13T18:53:00.000-07:002021-09-13T18:53:04.305-07:00A Minute to Midnight David Baldacci appears frequently on bestseller lists. I browsed through a handful of his opening sentences, and this one, from A Minute to Midnight, appealed the most to me: "Once more she rode into the Valley of Death." That's an operatic and portentous statement. "Once more" – she has done this before, and survived. "She rode" – like a member of the cavalry, or a sheriff in a Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-10126504820349307492021-09-06T19:13:00.000-07:002021-09-06T19:13:12.900-07:00The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes The Girl with Stars in Her Eyes is a recent release with a lot of buzz. Xio Axelrod's bio says she plays in a band under another name. The details of the music business here are fresh and precise. The first sentence reads, "Antonia Bennette woke up from her after-school nap to the sound of a guitar." There's no dread or suspense here – we are not afraid of naps or guitars – so this Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-91402691098543776042021-08-30T19:18:00.000-07:002021-08-30T19:18:36.732-07:00Plumage This first sentence comes from the books I carry with me. Plumage is a favorite from 2000, and its first sentence reads: "Sassy Hummel knew she should get over it, but how?" We have one character, "Sassy Hummel." Check out that name! "Sassy" suggests someone spunky, not afraid to talk back, and spirited. "Hummel" is close to "hum" and "humble" – quiet, self-effacing words that contrastAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-36589633980790321872021-08-23T19:55:00.000-07:002021-08-23T19:55:51.945-07:00Last Looks Howard Michael Gould's book, Last Looks, has an unusually long first sentence for a book published in 2018: "As he scrubbed one sock in the day's supply of well water, noting that his stitches had not held and the hole in the toe had reopened, he considered once again the problem of the One Hundred Things, as he had every day, every hour of every day, for the past three years." The Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-43037241619702665332021-08-16T19:02:00.000-07:002021-08-16T19:02:08.617-07:00The Last Picture Show The first sentence of Larry McMurtry's novel, The Last Picture show, is: "Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town." That comes so close to being a genre sentence! One little change, "Sometimes Sonny was the only human creature in the town," and now he's a lone survivor of a zombie apocalypse! Or change the emphasis a little, and Sonny is one human, Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-46462261008826712342021-08-09T18:37:00.000-07:002021-08-09T18:37:38.046-07:00Monkey AroundMonkey Around is Jadie Jang's first novel, and its first sentence sealed my decision to read it: "The guard looked entirely human." That's five words with plenty to intrigue and unpack. Let's get to it!First, we have a character: "The guard." Guards separate what they protect from the people they protect it from. So the guard isn't the person who has a problem here. Whoever is noticing the Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-43522191593358073172021-08-02T20:11:00.000-07:002021-08-02T20:11:08.223-07:00SunshineThe first sentence of Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, is: "It was a dumb thing to do but it wasn't that dumb." Someone recommended this book to me. I hadn't read any of McKinley's books before. The situation in the first few pages grabbed my attention and the book gripped me to the end. The sentence mentions no names, no time, no location. It does set up a problem. When someone says, "It Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-89973985191716607872021-07-26T19:14:00.000-07:002021-07-26T19:14:15.165-07:00Ukridge P. G. Wodehouse was a humorous, prolific writer best known for his Jeeves and Wooster books. Born in England, he spent much of his life in the United States, including the last decades of his life. He's part of our comedic novel heritage. Ukridge collects a series of stories featuring the title character, which he first published in 1924. As I paged through the library's WodehouseAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-20383914475158702132021-07-19T21:48:00.000-07:002021-07-19T21:48:06.329-07:00A Conspiracy of Truths Today I was thinking about how genre affects first sentences. The classic hook – a first sentence that grabs the reader with suspense – appears most often in mystery and thriller novels. When I started writing about first sentences, I expected to find mostly hooks. Maybe that's because the writing books of Lawrence Block, a mystery writer, were a strong early influence on me. Other Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-9196673459227663902021-07-12T20:29:00.000-07:002021-07-12T20:29:22.040-07:00Murder in the Marais This week I had the long-delayed pleasure of browsing for books. Murder in the Marais caught my eye with a stylish cover, several sequels shelved beside it, and, of course, an intriguing first sentence. That first sentence reads, "Aimée Leduc felt his presence before she saw him." It's short. It's unsettling. It raises questions. Let's look at how the author, Cara Black, pulled meAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-46677457044214465652021-07-05T14:44:00.000-07:002021-07-05T14:44:35.951-07:00Another Brooklyn Jacqueline Woodson has won the National Book Award, and I found Another Brooklyn on a recommended reading list. The first sentence, "For a long time, my mother wasn't dead yet," intrigued me. This morning, with some ideas about what I might say about the sentence, I read the book. The book gives the sentence a different meaning than I'd taken as I considered the first sentence on Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-61084415139624767322021-06-28T17:21:00.002-07:002021-06-28T17:21:48.855-07:00Spoiler AlertI've enjoyed a number of Olivia Dade's books. She writes characters who often share my interests, and puts them in situations that I can believe. She often includes a bit of humor, which I appreciate. Her novel, Spoiler Alert, starts with this sentence: "Between takes, Marcus did his best not to acknowledge the obvious: this was a stupid-ass way to die." Let's start at the end this timeAnna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-72820376109888083232021-06-21T22:44:00.000-07:002021-06-21T22:44:57.875-07:00One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize for literature, published One Hundred Years of Solitude in 1967. The first sentence, in English translation, is: "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." There's a life-threatening situation in this sentence: Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3563501.post-6565453974910967542021-06-14T20:25:00.000-07:002021-06-14T20:25:52.988-07:00The Raven and the Reindeer T. Kingfisher recently won the Andre Norton Nebula Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction for her novel, The Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. That book was outstanding. The Raven and the Reindeer is one of her fresh takes on fairy tales, and the first sentence drew me in. She starts the story like this: "Once upon a time, there was a boy born with frost in his eyes and Anna Paradoxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16816448902589533180noreply@blogger.com0