Comments on: MIND MELD: The Best Opening Scenes in Science Fiction & Fantasy

By: ken

ken — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:28:05 +0000

“The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed,”… that is the best opening I have ever read. Drew me into the story like nothing I ever read before. Unfortunately the ending did not live up to the beginning. Stephen king always starts out strong but often leaves the ending as something less than what he started with. The Gunslinger was great to begin with. Other books he wrote were in the same fashion (The Stand, It, Tommyknockers) but even though they bridge the horror/sci-fi genre I think they fit into this category. Still no other opening has ever gripped my attention. As for the Lord of the Rings which I read as a 8 yr old…70 pages of boring hobbit stuff before the first action sequence didnt do it for me. If not for my intense need to finish everything I start I wouldnt have made it through that series. In fact it is Stephen King who again caused my first EVER unfinishing of a book it was called INSOMNIA and i did not finish it. lol.

By: Gary

Gary — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:51:30 +0000

“Tonight, we’re going to show you eight ways to silently kill a man.”

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman.

By: Fly Away

Fly Away — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:40:12 +0000

As an avid Heinlein fan, I would agree with the excitement of Friday’s opening; and also add the opening chapter of Starman Jones: the contrast of the bucolic farm life, with the futuristic train across the valley, is great.

By: Gabrielle

Gabrielle — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:41:57 +0000

maybe it’s because i live in brooklyn but i love the opening to Spaceman Blues by Brian Francis Slattery.

By: Never

Never — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:41:40 +0000

Ha! I was about to comment with that same title (“Friday” was my first Heinlein at the age of 14). I suppose I could add the opening to Octavia E. Butler’s “Dawn” (now sold with the trilogy as a complete set under the title, “Lilith’s Brood”). Within the first five words, three of them are “alive,” said first with triumph, second with the notion of growing awareness, and last with a sense of disappointment and dread. It sets up the struggle of Lilith Iyapo throughout the first book, and of the remainder of the human race throughout the trilogy itself: “Alive! Still alive. Alive . . . again.”

I also highly recommend “Neverness” by David Zindell, and the trilogy that follows after it (collectively known as, “Requiem for Homo Sapiens”). With the first chapter being titled “Journeymen Die”, you know you’re in for a harsh view of life.

“On Old Earth the ancients often wondered at the origin of life, and they created many myths to explain the mystery of mysteries” begins the quotation at the start of the book. The quotation, I will note, is attributed to, “A Requiem for Homo Sapiens by Horthy Hosthoh, Timekeeper and Lord Horologe of the Order of Mystic Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame”. Intense, complex, and complete with lush descriptive language of every sensation, from the most pleasing to the most severe, and entwined in this space drama of pilots and philosophers, is the search for the meaning of human existence (and its potential demise).

By: Garrett Fitzgerald

Garrett Fitzgerald — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:21:10 +0000

Lois McMaster Bujold’s _The Warrior’s Apprentice_ has a wonderful scene — in the first couple of pages, you learn almost everything you need to know about Miles Vorkosigan, the lynchpin of the Vorkosigan Saga.

By: Paul (@princejvstin)

Paul (@princejvstin) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:32:31 +0000

Thanks, JP!

I am partial, controversial as it is, to the opening of Heinlein’s Friday. Blown up beanstalk, would be assassin killed, all smoothly and with clean prose.

By: joshua Corning

joshua Corning — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 08:58:38 +0000

Considering the blue of your average flat screen TV, it did not age well but Neuromancer’s; “The Sky above the port was the color of a television tuned to a dead channel.” Sets a tone and a syntax that is both stunning and persistent through the book.

It may seem old hat whenever you read a Gibson book but at the time when it was fresh and new it was spectacular.