#OpeningSentence

“Your mother is going to be a star,” said the man in the gray uniform.

— Counterweight by Anton Hur, Djuna

Captain Darian Frey was accustomed to long odds; his whole life, he’d been an outside chance. Lacking the ability to win in a fair fight, he survived instead by guile and the illogical optimism favoured by gamblers and drunks, which made the riskiest of plans seem like a good idea at the time.

— The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #4)

‘On reflection,’ Crake said to Frey, as they huddled behind an upturned table, ‘this wasn’t one of your better plans.’

— The Iron Jackal by Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #3)

Darian Frey was a man who understood the value of a tactical retreat.

— The Black Lung Captain by Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #2)

The smuggler held the bullet between thumb and forefinger, studying it in the weak light of the store room.

— Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding (Tales of the Ketty Jay, #1)

On activation each morning Charles’ first duty was to check his master’s travel arrangements for the day.

— Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky (duplicate)

What do you do when you meet an alien in Central Park?

— Exordia by Seth Dickinson

A crack echoed through the boreal landscape, a momentary chaos in the still afternoon air.

— Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice

A man was loitering outside the bookshop.

— Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-reum, Shanna Tan

Anything at the mercy of such a divine female must, to them, necessarily be a man.

— Steelflower at Sea (The Steelflower Chronicles) by Lilith Saintcrow

The fat-sailed high-prowed Taryam’ajak of Antai bit salt swells, singing of rigging and canvas strained by pressure, bound for home across the wide blue desert of the Lan’ai.

— Steelflower at Sea (The Steelflower Chronicles) by Lilith Saintcrow

I woke from a fuzzy trance with my mead-filled head ringing and four Hain Guards seeking to separate said head from my shoulders.

— Steelflower by Lilith Saintcrow (The Steelflower Chronicles, #1)

Nobody ever believed murders “just happened” around Mallory Viridian.

— Station Eternity by Mur Lafferty (The Midsolar Murders, #1)

This is going to be a bad job.

— David Mogo by Suyi Davies Okungbowa

The walls of the estate emerged from the morning fog before me, long and dark and rounded like the skin of some beached sea creature.

— The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)