First Lines

I was intrigued by this meme as well, but in a different way.

I make no apology for what I'm about to do. :-)

These are not first lines of favourite books. Rather, guilty books. Some of them are very good. Some of them are atrocious. I've carefully culled from an astounding list to try and bring you a very special set of first lines. What I think of as defining lines.

What I mean by that will be seen in the examples, but it comes down to this: You would know as soon as you read an opening line like this exactly what kind of book it was going to be. In some cases you'd only be sort of wrong; in others you'd be exactly right.

Because this is, without a doubt, an atrocity, I am supplying more than 10 first lines. Instead, I have an even baker's dozen. I swear I tried to cram in a line from Lois McMaster Bujold (had one picked out from Brothers in Arms), but these 13 were better.

( one liners )