I started the "First Lines" thread because my editor was so brutal in red lining my own first line, and because so many of the "Writing" books I read emphasized their importance. Lately, I've started to take David Morrell's advice an have begun to read the first lines and first few pages of new books in the bookstore, looking for unique or novel writing styles. Today's entry, . . . not so great.
"Fair Haven at South Cape was a squalid little town."
The Tatja Grimm's World – Vernor Vinge.
Anyone who reads this blog religiously will know that Vernor Vinge is one of my faves. So I'll give him the first paragraph to wow me. He fails there too.
"Fair Haven at South Cape was a squalid little town. Ramshackle warehouses lined the harbor, their wooden sides unpainted and rotting. Inland, the principal cultural attractions were a couple of brothels and the barracks of the Crown garrison. Yet in one sense Fair Haven lived up to its name. No matter how scruffy things were here, you knew they would be worse further east. This was the nether end of civilization on the south coast of the Continent."
BLAH. Truth is things don't really get interesting till chapter three.
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