*War of the Worlds* is one of my favourite novels and has my favourite opening paragraph.
>No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment
bookwormG on
The book thief by Markus Zusak. The first page got my attention instantly.
zippopopamus on
The sun also rises
AncientScratch1670 on
Blood Meridian.
“See the child.”
DrunkInBooks on
*The Sunflower Protocol* by Andre Soares
**
15th Revolution
6th Moon
*At the edge of time. You. Always.*
The body washed ashore, sinking into coal-black sands, denying an aggrieved rip current.
Upon his forehead, a fresh gunshot wound pelted with salt imposed a crater-shaped mark, one oozing darker shades of reds competing with the surrounding pink waters.
His eyes opened to an epiphany.
The man was alive, a rogue speck of sand on the Namibian coast, an anomaly among the shifting dunes inevitably pouring into the ocean.
A small caliber round exited his forehead, rejected like undesirable foreign matter; the compressed casing splashed the incoming waves and vanished with them.
There was pain in his glacial, steely eyes, yet hope displayed through a liberating smile.
He was a sane madman, a survivor of the treacherous columns of time and space.
Cautious-Ease-1451 on
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
6 Comments
*War of the Worlds* is one of my favourite novels and has my favourite opening paragraph.
>No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment
The book thief by Markus Zusak. The first page got my attention instantly.
The sun also rises
Blood Meridian.
“See the child.”
*The Sunflower Protocol* by Andre Soares
**
15th Revolution
6th Moon
*At the edge of time. You. Always.*
The body washed ashore, sinking into coal-black sands, denying an aggrieved rip current.
Upon his forehead, a fresh gunshot wound pelted with salt imposed a crater-shaped mark, one oozing darker shades of reds competing with the surrounding pink waters.
His eyes opened to an epiphany.
The man was alive, a rogue speck of sand on the Namibian coast, an anomaly among the shifting dunes inevitably pouring into the ocean.
A small caliber round exited his forehead, rejected like undesirable foreign matter; the compressed casing splashed the incoming waves and vanished with them.
There was pain in his glacial, steely eyes, yet hope displayed through a liberating smile.
He was a sane madman, a survivor of the treacherous columns of time and space.
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”