seen some discussion of the best opening line in fiction recently and I'm sorry but the discussion is over. The honor belongs to C.S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."
honorable mention to Tolkien's "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit," of course
@joshcarlosjosh One of the loveliest books of all time.
@joshcarlosjosh @Kizzia30 Bold words from Clive Staples Lewis
@joshcarlosjosh For me it’s still Bradbury: “It was a pleasure to burn.“ Granted, I prefer my Biblical allusions be made with arsonists with eidetic memories instead of talking animals, but to each their own
@joshcarlosjosh Not to mention that "Dawn Treader" may well be the coolest name of a ship ever.
@joshcarlosjosh Kind of partial to: "This morning I was born in a yurt at the edge of a horse-plain in a land of a planet which no longer exists." - God Emperor of Dune
@joshcarlosjosh "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel." William Gibson, Neuromancer
@joshcarlosjosh Always was a fan of "The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
@joshcarlosjosh Absolutely the best one. Especially once you know he was referencing his own name and childhood dislike of it. 🤣💜
@joshcarlosjosh Nope. “The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.” Great opener by Lewis as well (and great book(s), but that one ☝️ is a better opener
@joshcarlosjosh Truth is, Eustace properly did deserve it.
@joshcarlosjosh 'Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, climbing down from that animal on her return from high Mass.' (Rose Macaulay, The Towers of Trebizond.)
@joshcarlosjosh I know you got to stick to your brand, but the answer is easily Kafka... “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic cockroach.”
@joshcarlosjosh My favourite is Mark Lawrence's Red Sister: It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.
@joshcarlosjosh "The past is a foreign country - they do things differently there." LP Hartley
@joshcarlosjosh @JadeAtrophis Nah. The honor will always belong to Jane Austen for the opening line of *Pride and Prejudice.*
@joshcarlosjosh Nothing beats the opening of the christmas carol. Comparing robert marley to a doorknob and being extra specific with it
@joshcarlosjosh Love those. One of my favourites is ‘The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed’.
@joshcarlosjosh "Your sentiments are elevated and correct." ~the Tisroc (may he live for never) to Ahoshta Tarkaan, and me to you
@joshcarlosjosh It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression 'As pretty as an airport.’
@joshcarlosjosh "All children, except one, grow up."
@joshcarlosjosh @ashtonpittman "There was a corpse on the stairs outside my apartment. This was disturbing since I didn't put it there." - Basket Full of Crap, Steven Campbell
@joshcarlosjosh Also of note: “I was not sorry when my brother died” said by the narrator and protagonist, Tambu in the novel Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga
@joshcarlosjosh TOTALLY! How was it not near the top of the list?
@joshcarlosjosh I still prefer "Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."
@joshcarlosjosh I quote this to bewildered friends all the time
@joshcarlosjosh 100% my go-to “first line,” and before such a thing was cool. Agreed that now it’s all too much work on the first line, like the author in Camus’s The Plague who never actually writes a book, because he only tries to perfect the first line.
@joshcarlosjosh @ashtonpittman To each his own, although such a peremptory way of stating things may not suit all of us. Especially when there's Jane Austen's opening of Pride and Prejudice to contend with.
@joshcarlosjosh Yep there it is. The best opening line in all of Literature.
@joshcarlosjosh Sorry mate but nothing beats this one: "To the worm who first gnawed on the cold flesh of my corpse, I dedicate with fond remembrance these Posthumous Memoirs" - Machado de Assis in The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (or Epitaph of a Small Winner)