New year, new books! New Years resolutions can be a pain, but tackling a reading pile feels oh-so satisfying. Do you have any goals? Number of books to read? A series you’ve been dying to tackle? An author you’d like to get to know?
And more importantly: what is the first line of the book you’re reading right now?
We’ll give you a few of our own to start with—add yours in the comments!
“So they ran threaded through the breaches, found the seams.”
Vanessa’s Book Pick: Dead Astronauts by Jeff Vandermeer
Why This Book: Borne, another book by Jeff Vandermeer, is one of my favorite novels, so when Dead Astronauts came out a couple of years later, I eagerly picked it up. Life got in the way for a bit, and when I tried to read it in Spring 2020, my mind wasn’t quite ready for the complexity of the prose and I had also forgotten the details around those titular dead astronauts who we saw in Borne. I’ve given Borne a re-read, however, and am now giving Dead Astronauts another try.
“Every morning just after dawn, Lin Chong taught a fight class for women.”
Christina’s Book Pick: The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
Why This Book: After S.L. Huang’s incredible piece on SFF Writing Workshops last year, I’ve been anxiously awaiting The Water Outlaws—a fantasy epic inspired by the classic Chinese novel Water Margin. Plus, the description uses the phrase “ungovernable gender”, which, let’s be real, is aspirational.
“Disaster can lead to transcendence, but the journey between the two may require time and suffering.”
Leah’s Book Pick: Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus by Reggie L. Williams
Why This Book: I got a little obsessed with Bonhoeffer a few years ago. Like a lot of us, I had trouble reading during the early pandemic, but now that my brain is closer to full operational status I want to tackle this fascinating look at the ways social justice-oriented Harlem theologians influenced Bonhoeffer’s fight against the Nazis. Maybe then I’ll be able to dive into Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy—a chonk of a biography by former Veggietales contributor Eric Metaxas.
“It was the best job I ever had.”
Emmet’s Book Pick: I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story by Anthony Daniels
Why This Book: I used to read Daniels’ “Wonder Column” in the Star Wars Insider as a kid, and always found him endearingly wry and full of great behind-the-scenes anecdotes. Also, C-3PO is my favorite. And I liked the idea of starting the year with nonfiction for my exhausted brain, but I expect more Monk and Robot will be next on my list.
“The king stood in a pool of blue light, unmoored.”
Sarah’s Book Pick: Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
Why This Book: I’m forever behind on my TBR wish list, so it’s not surprising that it took me over 5 years to even get my hands on a copy of Emily St John Mandel’s acclaimed novel about a swine flu pandemic and the subsequent collapse of modern society. Which means I added it to my nightstand book pile in early 2020, and I just kept adding more to the stack so I didn’t have to think about it. But now I’m finally ready for it.
“Let’s start with the end of the world, why don’t we?”
Stefan’s Book Pick: The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
Why This Book: You didn’t read Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy when it was released, mainly because you have a thing about second person narrators, but at this point so many people whose taste you respect have told you to make an exception for this one that you’ve given in. And you know? You’re not complaining.
“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”
Actually, I think the first line is “Three rings for elven kings under the sky”.
Anyway, I hadn’t reread it in several years so I’m doing that, and rereading Kate Nepveu’s LoTR reread from 2008 as I go along. Just got to Bree.
https://www.tor.com/series/lotr-reread/
Marissa Levien- The World Gives Way
”Myrra smashed a roach with her bare hand as it crawled along the wall, then recited a small eulogy for the deceased in her head.
@1: Hey, wiredog! Great minds think alike? This is my book too. It’s been over 10 years since I read it in its entirety, so everything is familiar, and yet certain new points are popping out. I’m going to say my first line is either “This tale grew in the telling…” or “This book is largely concerned with Hobbits…”
“You will not disappoint us today, Sera.”
What: “A Shadow in the Ember” by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Why: It is where I am in my TBR list, having finished the third book in the “Blood and Ash” series in the end of December and taking the first of the prequel series before the fourth one like my friend suggested.
OK, it’s not fiction. “I’m a numbers guy, so I’ll start with some important ones: 260; 1; and 4,500,000,000.” Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice by Bill Browder. I thought I wasn’t happy about Russia. Then I read this book.
If you’re looking for genre, “Jamie Gray!” Rob Sanders popped his head our of his office door and waved at me, ginning. “Come on down. Let’s do this thing.” The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi. This was a fun read.
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.”
Tress of the Emerald Sea, the first of Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarted “Four Secret Novels”.
Why: New novel by Brandon Sanderson.
“The Golden Enclaves” – Naomi Novik:
“The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much.”
“A girl is running for her life.”
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
It was the next on my library TBR stack and is due on the eleventh so fortuitous perhaps.
“The station wagons arrived at noon, a long shining line that coursed through the west campus.”
‘White Noise’ by Don DeLillo
I’ve been meaning to read DeLillo for some time, and now the adaptation is just out on Netflix.
Tregillis, Ian. The Coldest War. Little, Brown Book Group. Kindle Edition.
Sequel to Bitter Seeds, and the second volume in the Milkweed Triptych. British warlocks versus Nazi (and eventually Soviet) supermen. Would make quite the television series.
“From the deep blackness of space, a space tug is approaching Mars at the speed of light.” First line from BRAVE NEW MARS by Somerset Meece. I like it because it provides an alternate view of the potential glories of the colonization of Mars; it might be purchased by a mega-billionaire and developed as a fascist corpocracy instead of a Commonwealth with universal equality? That seems likely, the way new-tech society is heading now.
“Wayne knew about beds.”
The Lost Metal: Brandon Sanderson
After the recap of previous books, Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Memory opens:
“Not with a whimper, but a bang.”
Grey, bloated and pocked, the bodies lined the silt-laden shoreline for as far as the eye could see.
Though the airport wasn’t the nearest one to the target, it was close to New York City.
– Kill Zone by Kevin J Anderson & Doug Beason
“There was a ticking time bomb inside my head and the one person I trusted to go in and get it out hadn’t shown up or spoken to me for more than a year.”
Rereading “Skin Game” by Jim Butcher
“These things may have happened long ago; they may be still to come.”
from Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki, translated by Alex Dudok de Wit
@13: Heck yeah, Adrian Tchaikovsky rules.
The Invincible, a class II cruiser, the largest vessel of the fleet stationed at the base in the Lyra constellation, was moving in photon sequence across a quadrant on the very edge of that cluster of stars.
– Stanisław Lem, The Invincible
“I saw you once.”
Lady in the Lake, Laura Lipppman.
Probably to be followed, for quite another flavor of another city, by N.K. Jemisin and The World We Make.
Jeff VanderMeer for me too!
“DRADIN, IN LOVE, BENEATH THE WINDOW of his love, staring up at her while crowds surge and seethe around him, bumping and bruising him all unawares in their rough-clothed, bright-rouged thousands.” City of Saints and Madmen.
Long time fan of the Southern Reach trilogy, it is finally time to visit Ambergris too.
It would be either “The problems that confront one given responsibility for the writings of a dead author are hard to resolve,” or “Rian, wife of Huor, dwelt with the people of the House of Hador; but when rumour came to Dor-lomin of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, and yet she could hear no news of her lord, she became distraught and wandered forth into the wild alone.” (I got the new edition of Unfinished Tales that features illustrations by Lee, Howe and Nasmith.)
@21 That’s next on the tbr pile. Read “Fall of Numenor” over Christmas weekend
“From the Mortal Realm, the moon shone like a silver disc against the black of night.”
Heart of the Sun Warrior by Sue Lynn Tan
“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
“Þórsein hét maður; hann var sonur Egils Skalla-Grímssonar.”
There was a man called Thorstein, who was the son of Egil Skallagrimson.
“Marlowe had offered me fifty dollars to stand out here in the freezing Chicago cold and do an augury, and like a damn greedy fool, I’d said yes.
Even Though I Knew the End – C.L. Polk
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.”
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
“AS THE SUN ROSE, YAE GAZED DOWN THROUGH THE FLOOR SLATS OF HIS MAURO VILLAGE TREEHOUSE AT THE DARK SURFACE OF THE KRONKEL RIVER FORTY FEET BELOW.”
-Peace Child – Don Richardson
Always interesting when a Christian book opens with five chapters of murder and treachery and cannibalism from the perspective of the cannibals, told in such a way that you almost understand.
At 12:00am on 1/1/2023:
“You know, I believe that’s the first time I ever heard the words ‘Ballroom’ and ‘watchdogs’ used together.”
Right now:
THERE WAS SOMETHING VERY, very wrong with the storm to the north.
The first is from Weber & Flint’s To End In Fire. The second is from Glynn Stewart’s Icebreaker.
“The wind was starting to build.” – Rachel Griffin, Wild is the Witch
I just picked this book up quite randomly at the bookstore last week. Hadn’t heard of it before, but it sounded intriguing and I’m in a witchy mood right now :)
“‘I remember you,’ the voice said from the back of the room.” – Marko Kloos, Citadel (Palladium Wars Book 3).
“Midshipman Ravi MacLeod, weightless and adrift in zero g, did what he often did.”
–Braking Day, Adam Oyebanji
“Wednesday had to be the most depressing night of the week in any nightclub.” from “The Abraxas Marvel Circus”, a fantasy by Stephen Leigh who has quickly become one of my favorite authors in the last two years.
“From July of his sophomore year in college until the following January, all Tsukuru Tazaki could think about was dying.”
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
From Charles Stross’ Quantum of Nightmares, the latest book in the Laundry Files series.
Ditto, #5 fcoulter! A funny, feel-good read to start the year.
“Jamie Gray!” Rob Sanders popped his head out of his office door and waved at me, grinning. “Come on down. Let’s do this thing.” The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi.
“Viv buried her greatsword in the scalvert’s skull with a meaty crunch” – when you need the antidote to hospital coffee.
“There is a pirate in the basement.” From The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.
“Jamie Gray!” Rob Sanders popped his head out of his office door and waved at me, grinning.
The Kaiju Preservation Society, John Scalzi
“Eyes mark the shape of the city.”
Haruki Murakami’s After Dark
“Superior Glotkta stood in the hall, and waited.”
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie.
Really (really) looking forward to seeing how this wraps up.
“In all our years of crime detection in the UK capital there was only ever one main suspect: London itself.”
Bryant & May: Peculiar London by Christopher Fowler
Seems to be all the interesting, strange, or apocryphal research bits about London that the author couldn’t fit into the previous 18 books about very strange things in London.
“Demandred stepped out onto the black slopes of Shayol Ghul, and the gateway, a hole in reality’s fabric, winked out of existence.” That’s right, I’m one of the fools trying to force myself to read the Wheel of Time books.
It’s going very slowly.
Every town-bred person who travels in a rich country region, knows what it is to see a neat white house planted in a pretty situation–in a shrubbery, or commanding a sunny common, or nestling between two hills,–and then to say to himself, as the carriage sweeps past its gate, “I should like to live there.”–“I could be very happy in that pretty place.”
Dearbrook by Harriet Martineau, 1839
“I prefer not to lie. No, really – I do. Not for any strong moral compunctions, it must be said: I am, at heart, a poet.”
The Return of Fitzroy Angursell, by Victoria Goddard.
“That morning, God was complaining again.” The City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky.
“Before you arrive, you remember your lola, smoking.”
The Spear Cuts Through Water, Simon Jimenez.
I had a feeling I’d see my opening line here a few times given the demographic, but given that it was made available electronically at the beginning of the year, and I had conveniently just finished the last book I’d read and was waiting for the one I ordered to come, it’s:
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.” (Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson) – I’m actually really digging the style/tone.
@42 Why do I do this?
“This story starts in 2005.” Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton
“In the beginning, before the Republic, Rome was ruled by kings.”
Rubicon : the last years of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland.
“Jude had a private collection.”
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
“Let me tell you of the worlds I’ve left behind.”
The Last Colony – John Scalzi
The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.
Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
Rereading because I just reread American Gods after watching the series. Put me on a Gaiman kick.
My all time favorite first line, though is from Silverlock by John Meyers Meyers (I am quoting from memory so it may not be exact, my copy was destroyed in a flood and I haven’t been able to replace it yet)
Had I cared to live, I would have died
Yup, Im going to re-read Neverwhere now. I seem to have broken my start of year Gaiman streak this year, and that must be rectified before the Christmas tree leaves the house.
At years’ end, I hadn’t quite finished The early Lester del Rey 2 yet, so technically, the first opening line I read in 2023 was one in a Loesje booklet of ..aforisms? First line of a proper book was Tendrils of raw fog floated up from the ice like agonized spirits departing their bodies.– from I am half-sick of shadows, by Alan Bradley. Which was a fun read, but I probably picked it up now because I borrowed it from a friend I’ll be seeing soon ish again.
Either:
“The queen waited.” –The King of Attolia, Megan Whalen Turner
or:
“The body rolled in the current gently, as if still alive.” –The Confession, Charles Todd
(Not sure which I picked up first – one’s an ebook, the other an audiobook).
“Sometimes, I worry that I’m not the hero everyone thinks I am.”
Mistborn: The Final Empire. gotta re-read the whole series before starting on The Lost Metal, so it’s back to the beginning for me.
“Kneeling on the floor of their suite, Tessa Crane could just feel the vibrations of the centrifugal ring as it rotated around the interplanetary cruise ship Lindgren“
— The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal
“It came crackling over the hills, like an invisible fog.”
– A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett. I read and loved The Wee Free Men, first in the series of Tiffany Aching novels, last year.
“I am writing by the light of a piece of string which I have pushed through a fragment of bacon fat and arranged in an egg-cup. ”
The Hopkins Manuscript
R C Sherriff
Technically, it’s this, because there is a preface: “Perhaps the surest sign that you’re in love is that you can’t stop talking.”
But I need to point out the first sentence of Chapter 1, which is only slightly later: “Anyway, like most people, I became obsessed with chess after I ran away to Asia with a stripper I’d just met.”
– Sasha Chapin, All the Wrong Moves (very funny memoir of various antics including chess taking over his life)
“That was when I saw the Pendulum.”
~ Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco (translation by William Weaver)
“The way into the underland is through the riven trunk of an old ash tree.”
Underland by Robert Macfarlane. Non-fiction but more amazing than most fantasy. I knew nothing about the underland of cities..
“The headline for Richard Boss Ribs would be Indian Man Killed in Dispute Outside Bar.”
from The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones.
technically I started this one last year, but life made me set it down. I’ve picked it back up this week though and hooo was that a good decision.
I’m reading two at once, as usual.
“Once upon a time there was a girl named Rosa. She had black hair and brown skin and brown eyes and she was a little bit plump and her favorite color was purple and she was deeply, profoundly, exquisitely bored.
– “Illuminations” by T. Kingfisher
“By the time Professor Richard Lovell found his way through Canton’s narrow alleys to the faded address in his diary, the boy was the only one in the house left alive.”
– “Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution”
“The body lay naked and facedown, a deathly gray, spatters of blood staining the snow around it.”
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I know I’m late to the party on this one.
My reading goal (not just for this year, but in general) is to read through everything that’s won a Hugo or Nebula award for Best Novel. I’m making steady progress, although some of the earliest winners are harder to track down.
“In what felt to him like the first cold morning of the world, he groped for fire.”
The First Book of Swords – Fred Saberhagen
Rockwell didn’t like the room’s smell.
From “Chrysalis,” the first story in Ray Bradbury’s collection “S Is for Space.”
“Call me Neek.”
The World We Make, N. K. Jemisin. The first book I read this year was Wayward by Chuck Wendig, but I finished it a couple of days ago.
Early morning over Helios.
Anders, Karan K. Four Kings (p. 7). Andrea K Hosth. Kindle Edition.
It’s the sequel to The Book of Firsts.
“This is how River Cartwright slipped off the fast track and joined the slow horses.”
– Slow Horses, by Mick Herron
“In the years since the monster dogs were here with us, in New York, I’ve often been asked to write about the time I spent with them.”
Lives of the Monster Dogs, Kirsten Bakis
I’m not positive. It’s either “I decided that Orion needed to die after the second time he saved my life,” from Naomi Novik’s “A Deadly Education,” or “The pigpen on the Bean farm stood a little above the barnyard,” from “Freddy Goes Camping” by Walter R. Brooks. I’ve been re-reading the Freddy series I first read in the mid-fifties. I buy one every time it goes on sale at Amazon for $2. They’re just as good as I remember from reading them to our daughter in the ’80s. The Novik book is the most blatant example of “Suddenly a shot rang out,” plotting I’ve ever read. It’s entertaining in spite of the slam bang pace.
Oh, I haven’t had a reading goal since the last literature class I took. Otherwise it’s been find something to read and if I like it read all the other books by the same author till I get bored.
I became awake. Reflexively, with the return of consciousness, I looked to my weapons.
The Bug Wars – Robert Asprin I’m gradually catching up on the books
This then would be Chicago in the winter of the last year of her life.
Cormac McCarthy :: The Passenger
Even in the dry heat of summer’s end, the great forest was never silent.
Shardik by Richard Adams.
It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
fantastic 40 years ago, when I first read it, and more awesome with every passing year.
I’ve already read four books so far in 2023, and I’m halfway through a fifth.
But the first line of the first one was:
“I don’t know how long I was in the king’s prison.”
The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
“In the middle of the ocean there was a girl who lived upon a rock.” Starting my year off with the first Sanderson Secret Project, and I loved it!
“Give me your hat.”
The Bone Ships, RJ Barker
“Grey, bloated and pocked, the bodies lines the silt-laden shoreline for as far as the eye could see.”
– Steven Erikson, House of Chains, Book 4 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, which I’m setting out to finish this year (all 10 of them)
As with a few others in the comments here:
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.”
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Why this book: i immediately backed this whole shebang when it first went up, knowing that BrandoSando wouldn’t put out anything bad, per se. Maybe something i wasn’t fond of, or didn’t quite fancy, but nothing that was outright unreadable. And this? Oh this was an absolute delight to start the year off! i absolutely devoured this on the 1st and while i totally understand it was meant to be a short little singlet inside of the world of the Cosmere – i absolutely crave a full series out of it. The characters were fantastic, the magic was just enough of a tease of information to both give you enough to go by but leave you desperate for more, and the ending was incredibly fulfilling. i was left two or three times gasping at the book, pushed away from it and open mouthed staring at either the audacity, the shock, or the wonder of whatever had just happened.
It was so damn good.
Tress gave me Auri from The Slow Regard of Silent Things with her love of cups and i adored that. i love Auri so much as she reminds me, well, of myself. So. Tress is a blessing.
This book was fantastic way to start the year.
” ‘Look at me,’ Cole says.”
From Afterland by Lauren Beukes, which seems to have much the same premise as “Y, The Last Man”, but in novel form.
@84 – HA! I am not the only one!
I was just having a separate discussion here about how that book was giving me similar vibes and I specifically mentioned the cups, lol. I found the prose and sense of magic/wonder about it to definitely be a step up.
https://www.tor.com/2015/03/19/rothfuss-reread-the-slow-regard-of-silent-things-part-1/comment-page-6/#comment-963802
“Halfway through his twenty-fifth year, and to his acute relief, Prince Kadou became an uncle.”
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
“The straight opened before the two race cars: an oily river, speckled yellow by the evening sun” – A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White.
“The bottom of the lake tasted like mud, salt and regret.” from Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim.
I’ve never heard of the book nor the author before, but judging by the blurb on the dust jacket it sounds interesting. My son recommended it to me recently.
“Dear You,
The body you are wearing used to be mine.”
The Rook by Daniel O’Malley
Yet another Sanderson fan but listened to not read.
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.”
Tress of the Emerald Sea, part of Brandon Sanderson’s Kickstarter “Four Secret Novels”.
Lots of word play in this one, and HOID!
First read.
“Hammer rang out against sword as my fifteen year old opponent feinted high and low, trying to find a way through my defenses. Despite the distraction of a dragon sharing the backyard, she didn’t get through.”
“Trolled” a humorous urban fantasy by Lindsay Buroker.
First YouTube
“What lips my lips have kissed, and where and why, I have forgotten”
Edna St Vincent Millay read by Frances Sternhagen.
My first of the new year is the opening of The Assassins of Thasalon — but I can’t quote it because it was in high demand and has gone back to the library. (Good book, I just don’t remember the first line as smashing.) First I can quote is “I am what I say I am.” from Bindle Punk Bruja, a very different book.
@33: and that’s next — discussing in tomorrow’s book club.
@32: but what’s it from? It sounds like pieces of 2-3 books I remember, so it probably isn’t any of them.
@55: definitely one of the great openers — may even beat “The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone.”, because we want to know how he wound up narrating the story.
Seeing so many reading Tress brings me joy. I so wish that’s where my head is at right now, but what I’m actually reading begins:
“Many babies have killed, but it is very rare that the victim is not their mother.”
-The Girl and the Stars by Mark Lawrence
“It was midnight in Ankh-Morpork’s Royal Art Museum.” –UNSEEN ACADEMICALS, Terry Pratchett.
THE WELCOME WAGON lady, sixty if she was a day but working at youth and vivacity (ginger hair, red lips, a sunshine-yellow dress), twinkled her eyes and teeth at Joanna and said, “You’re really going to like it here! It’s a nice town with nice people! You couldn’t have made a better choice!”
The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin
It was about time, I guess. It was published 50 years ago.
THE WELCOME WAGON lady, sixty if she was a day but working at youth and vivacity (ginger hair, red lips, a sunshine-yellow dress), twinkled her eyes and teeth at Joanna and said, “You’re really going to like it here! It’s a nice town with nice people! You couldn’t have made a better choice!”
The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin
It was about time, I guess. It was published 50 years ago.
“Dying is a dreary business”
Michael Swanwick: The Iron Dragon’s Mothere
“I’ m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked. Six days into what should be the greatest two months of my life, and it’s turned into a nightmare.”
From The Martian, by Andy Weir.
Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn
This is the second book of The Legendborn Cycle, and I had just finished the first book, Legendborn, right before New Year’s. Very much enjoying this book and really appreciating the author using complex characters and an interedting plot and world to share her experiences with racism. It’s brutal at times, but as a necessary eye opener.
The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.
-From A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
“I am going to try to start at the beginning, even though I know you won’t believe me.”
“In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock.” -Brandon Sanderson, SP1
“The memo stank of barrel-printing ink and bad news.” – Witchmark, C. L. Polk
Quote (skipping the *two* prologs): “There were times, Ba’kif thought distantly, when it was good for a man to stare out of the relative stability of the Chiss Ascendancy into the Chaos.”
Book: Thrawn Ascendancy (Book 1: Chaos Rising) by Timothy Zahn
Why: I read about Thrawn (a long, long time ago…) in the original (now non-canon) three books also by Zahn. Now that a “new”(?) version of Thrawn is canon, this series is the story of Thrawn before he came to the Empire (see Zahn’s “Thrawn” trilogy). Fun, well-written, “how is he going to get out of this” story.
“A passerby discovered a toddler sitting on the chilly concrete of an alley, playing with the wrapper of a cat-food container.” – The Stolen Heir by Holly Black
“Cleod tipped his head, letting the sloped brim of his hat block the wind gusting over the cracked ground.”
Draigon Weather, Paige L. Christie