“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
You know, I don’t even remember which book that was from without Googling. (A Tale of Two Cities, post-Google.) But we know the line — it’s embedded in our cultural consciousness at this point — and that’s a pretty impressive feat when it comes to writing. First lines make a first impression. And that’s something I’ve tried to think about in my work.
Apparently, the folks at Blooming Twig Books think I did OK. They’ve been posting first lines they like from a variety of books, one each day, and both The Daedalus Incident and The Enceladus Crisis have been featured. That’s really very awesome, given that there’s a lot of cool openers out there. You should check out their archive and see what else they’ve uncovered.
And since we already know the first lines of both Daedalus and Enceladus (click on the links if you’ve forgotten), I figured I’d throw out the first line of the upcoming The Venusian Gambit:
Mars will rise once more.
If you want to read the next 110,000 words or so, you can find all the pre-order links on this page. Gambit is due out May 5.
#SFWApro
, 
Michael J. Martinez 
Want! 🙂
Patience!