All this happened, more or less.  The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.  One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his.  One guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war.  And so on.  I’ve changed all the names. –Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

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KM REYNALDO – Tine is an English major in bardo. Prose pruner by day, brain soup cook and wannabe-yogini by night, she is often found spaced out in her imaginary apartment on the top floor: http://mirageode.wordpress.com/

• “My father lost me to the Beast at cards.” – “Tiger’s Bride” by Angela Carter
• “I do not know what manner of thing she is. None of us do. She killed her mother in the birthing, but that’s never enough to account for it.” – “Snow, Glass, Apples”by Neil Gaiman
• “MYTHICAL! Ha! I’m as real as the waves, as this sea you cannot even begin to know or imagine. What dumb silence echoes in those empty heads of yours that you are so quickly enticed? One song and you are asleep. Another and you are mine. And the sea’s. who, then, is the myth? Whose lives are so quick to end?” – “A Song in the Wind”by Maria Elena Paterno
• “If you wish to find the woman who sells dreams, go to the most run-down part of the city.” – “The Forgotten City” by Vincent C. Sales

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RICA BOLIPATA SANTOS - An assistant professor at the Ateneo de Manila University where she teaches at the English and Fine Arts departments. Her first collection of essays, published by Milflores, Love, Desire, Children, Etc. won the prestigious Madrigal Gonzales Best First Book Award in 2007. Her new collection of essays, Lost and Found, was just published by the UP Press last July 2010. Her first foray into SF produced the story Just Man, which appears in Philippine Speculative Fiction 5.

The story I’ve chosen is the The Fix by Percival Everett, about a guy who knows how to fix everything! It’s funny, light and does take things to the extreme…which is why the first line to me is hilarious:

-It turns out the silky-looking men wanted Sherman to fix something for them (some thing that could be a weapon for mass destruction or something!)

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FIDELIS TAN – Fidelis’ work has been published in Heights, Philippine Speculative Fiction vol. 5, Love and Heartbreak, After the Storm: Stories on Ondoy, and various indie komiks. She is a regular contributor to the Philippine Online Chronicles (www.thepoc.net).

“The door to Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s memory palace is in the darkness at the center of his mind and it has a latch that can be found by touch alone.”
-From Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris (a book which I didn’t really like compared to the other Hannibal books, but it has a nice first line )

[inverted] “Carl Conrad Coreander, Old Books” [Fidelis sent this to me properly inverted, but sadly WordPress won't register it.]

- From Neverending Story, Michael Ende.

“True! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”

- Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe

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CHILES SAMANIEGO - wrote things that were published in Story Philippines, the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Philippine Free Press, Parole (the UP Portia Society’s literary folio), Usok, Ruin and Resolve, and Weird Tales Magazine.

congratulations on your anniversary!whenever anyone asks about first lines, this one springs immediately to mind:

almost immediately after that, this follows, but here i’ll have to whip out my trusty old secondhand Ballantine Books ed., because i’m never going to be able to quote this from memory:

compare/contrast that with the relative economy of this:

the latter may seem at first to be a bit wrong-footing, given how willfully impenetrable Pynchon’s prose famously is, but in fact both are concise demonstrations of the kind of linguistic performance you’re in for when you venture into these books; even at his most polysyllabic, leaving aside the lyric excesses of those notorious musical numbers, a love for archaisms/anachronisms & obscure jargony words, &c, Pynchon’s prose is just as colloquial, colorful, & economical (perhaps efficient is the better word; i’ll have to think about that) as that first line suggests. from here on, i’ll leave out the pretentious pseudoacademic commentary & let the lines, as it were, speak for themselves. knowing how inclusive your preferred definition of ‘speculative fiction’ is, i’ll just throw in whatever i find that i happen to fancy at the mo:

• In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street. (Wittgenstein’s Mistress, David Markson)
• In the deep chill and the darkness of the Fourth Galaxy, in the black sparkle of deep space, oh so lonely, see a figure in a blue coverall tumbling over and over as it comes towards you: no space suit, no helmet, no oxygen. (Fremder, Russell Hoban)
• With the discovery of God on the far side of the Moon, and the subsequent gigantic and hazardous towing operation that brought Him back to start His reign anew, there began on Earth, as one might assume, a period of far-reaching change. (‘Settling the World’, M. John Harrison)
• I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia. (‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’, Borges)
• Egnaro is a secret known to everyone but yourself. (‘Egnaro’, M. John Harrison)
• In accordance with the law the death sentence was announced to Cincinnatus C. in a whisper. (Invitation to a Beheading, Nabokov)
• Vic Serotonin sat in a bar on Straint Street, just outside the aureole of the Saudade event, in conversation with a fat man from another planet who called himself Antoyne. (Nova Swing, M. John Harrison)
• On the day of the enthronement of the new archbishop, the ‘badly decomposed’ body of a man was found on the roof of York Minster by a TV technician. (‘A Young Man’s Journey to London’, M. John Harrison)
• Today, by radio, and also on giant hoardings, a rabbi, an admiral notorious for his links to Masonry, a trio of cardinals, a trio, too, of insignificant politicians (bought and paid for by a rich and corrupt Anglo-Canadian banking corporation), inform us all of how our country now risks dying of starvation. (A Void, Georges Perec, tr. by Gilbert Adair)
• Today, on this island, a miracle happened: summer came ahead of time. (The Invention of Morel, Adolfo Bioy Casares)
• Came the yellow days of winter, filled with boredom. (‘Birds’, Bruno Schulz)
• The affair of the birds was the last colorful and splendid counteroffensive of fantasy which my father, that incorrigible improviser, that fencing master of imagination, had led against the trenches and defenseworks of a sterile and empty winter. (‘Tailors’ Dummies’, Bruno Schulz)
• ‘Lor’ love you, sir!’ Fevvers sang out in a voice that clanged like dustbin lids. (Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter)

and finally, though i’m rather less than enamored with this line, it did get me to sit up & take notice, & i feel obligated to share something by a Filipino writer, though i imagine this stretches your definition of ‘speculative fiction’ to the very limits:

I had not read General Mata’s journals when I spoke last year to a Mürkian psychoanalyst about the possibility of hysterical abreactions occurring on a national scale. (The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, Gina Apostol)

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CRYSTAL KOO – has been published online and in print in various international venues. In 2007, she won a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature for her short story “Benito Salazar’s Last Creation,” and in 2009, her play “The Foundling” was performed in Hong Kong by Burnt Mango Theatre Productions. She is currently an English lecturer at the College of International Education of Hong Kong Baptist University. She maintains a blog at http://swordskill.wordpress.com.

Mine would be from William Gibson’s Neuromancer, “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

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ERICA GONZALES - is a Christian by grace, a doctor by training and a writer by inclination.Her Haya Project stories have been published in Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 4, the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Ruin and Resolve, and Inscribed: A Magazine for Writers.

Oh dear, I can’t seem to remember first lines immediately, most books get an overall feel from me, and I’m more impressed by the overall impact than first lines.  For instance, I most remember how Artemis Fowl II was introduced in the whole. I remember being astounded by Dune, Hyperion, and The Dispossessed, but their first lines did not strike me.

Here are the ones I most liked:

1. Opening of the original short story version of Flowers for Algernon, Daniel Keynes:

progris riport 1-martch 5, 1965

            Dr. Strauss says I shud rite down what I think and evrey thing
         that happins to me from now on, I dont know why but he says its
         importint so they will see if they will use me. I hope they use me.
         Miss Kinnian says maybe they can make me smart. I want to be
         smart. My name is Charlie Gordon. I am 37 years old. I have
         nuthing more to rite now so I will close for today.

The basic fact that the opening is written like this makes you perk up and pay attention at once. This was required reading back in Comm1 in college. We all sobbed at it. I went on to read the whole book.

2. The opening line to the original novella form of Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card:

“Whatever your gravity is when you get to the door, remember — the enemy’s gate is down. If you step through your own door like you’re out for a stroll, you’re a big target and you deserve to get hit. With more than a flasher.” Ender Wiggins paused and looked over the group.

This version of the story is the first one I read; the full force of the concept and its ending is heavier in this original version. You may not understand what the terms are, but the fact that a boy (no adult is called ‘Ender’, at least before this boy) is barking them out makes you take notice. I still like this version more than the novel version.

3. Whatever was the opening line to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, because of Kyon’s supreme boredom and snark from the very first sentence. (“The question of how long someone believed in Santa Claus is a worthless topic that would never come up in idle conversation.”)

Of the local stuff:

1. “It was a Monday when Frances De Jesus, senior copywriter, decided to become God.” (The Day that Frances, The Copywriter, Became God; Monique Francisco, Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 4 )

The title and opening line makes you take notice, is this girl serious or what, and while I know it’s a fantasy story, how much of a god will she be?  The rest of the story doesn’t disappoint.

2. “The day I finally returned home, I was carrying my sister’s corpse on my back.” (Lex Talionis; Paolo Chikiamco, A Time for Dragons and Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2009)

You gotta salute a guy who carries his sister’s corpse (not a girlfriend’s?) on his back, first of all, then you wonder why he’s doing it, the circumstances around it.

* * *

DOMINIQUE CIMAFRANCA – Dominique is a Davao based teacher and author, and a self-proclaimed geek–before it was fashionable. A fellow at the 2006 Siliman National Writer’s Workshop, a finalist in the 3rd Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards for his story, and currently busy organizing Taboan 2011.

The most memorable opening line in speculative fiction, i.e., the one that I can quote without looking up any references is: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.“However, that’s nothing compared to the most memorable opening lines that I can recall which are, strangely enough, from the classics:

• “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God.  And the Word was God.”
• “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
• “Call me Ishmael.”
• “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this Sun of York.”

As is the most memorable closing line:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done; it is a far, far better place that I go to than I have ever gone.”

Is it coincidence that two books I quote have both been featured in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan?”  It was “Wrath of Khan” that brought me to the classics.

For some reason, I keep recalling this line from “Don Quixote”:

“The reason for your unreasonable treatment of my reason gives me reason to complain of your beauty.”

The best opening chapter for a speculative fiction story, though — and I’m sorry I can’t quote it verbatim — was “A Game of Universe” by Eric Nylund.  It was the only time I every bought a book from an author I didn’t know on the basis of the first chapter.

* * *

ADAM DAVID – Adam is an indie publisher, published author, opinionated blogger, and columnist/reviewer for The Philippine Online Chronicles. He was  awarded the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award for his book, The El Bimbo Variation – the first self published book to have won the prestigious award.

After much thinking, I’ve decided to choose six first lines that I feel are six of the best first lines I’ve read so far not only from the ever widening shelf of speculative fiction, but also from the greater shelves of Literature.

I divided the six lines by language and by nationality, meaning: two are in Filipino and four are in English, four are from the Philippines and two are from America.

Like most if not all people who’ve answered the roundtable question, the six first lines I’ve chosen are from texts that I feel deserve wider readership here in the Philippines, texts that suffer obscurity by the complexly simple problem of not being widely accessible physically, ie they either came out in books that have limited distribution or are simply not carried by our local bookstores. I hope that my briefs on the lines and their source texts will help change that even by just a little.

From foreign works:

“This is what Abhor, who’s my partner, part robot, and part black; told me was her childhood:”

- and so begins Kathy Acker’s EMPIRE OF THE SENSELESS. Technically the first line of the first paragraph, it is set up by the chapter title – I. Rape by the Father – and a subtitle – “(Abhor speaks through Thivai)” – basically accurately encapsulating the book as an exhibition of incestual rape and blood and guts and interracial lesbian lip-locks – literal and metaphorical – and tattoos as memoralising personal and public narratives and various other atrocities that people do for/to the ones they love, and above all that, it is also an exercise on plagiarism. A very important book for me from a very important writer. It left enough of an impact on me I had one of the tattoos in the book tattooed on my left forearm. Acker died in Mexico more than ten years ago from cancer. EMPIRE OF THE SENSELESS is published by the perverts of Grove Press.

“In the beginning, sometimes I left messages in the street.”

- from David Markson’s WITTGENSTEIN’S MISTRESS, a book that David Foster Wallace liked to call one of the few truly experimental novels published in the West. The book is the story of a woman who is convinced she is the last person left on Earth. It is made up of single lines uttered monosyllabically one after the other, almost an enumeration and a chant at the same time an effort to preserve sanity amidst an insane situation, the first line being one of the most powerful – a desperate attempt for communication, any communication, to anyone, even when you already know that no one is listening. The entire book is a monologue – or rather a dialectic – on loneliness and reality and art and art as salvation from the loneliness of reality. It’s been labeled as Wittgenstein’s various arguments on language and reality – most especially bits from TRACTATUS – refracted into creative writing. All these things said, the most incredible thing about this book is that it was rejected by book publishers 54 times. Markson died June 2010. WITTGENSTEIN’S MISTRESS is published by the weirdos from the Dalkey Archive.

From English-language Filipino works:

“the people are ruled by a king.”

- from Dana Delgado’s “In Saudi Arabia,” an essay that is also a love letter that is also a piece of psychogeography that is also a riff on the Eastern almanacs written and compiled by Western imperialist explorers a la Marco Polo in China. It dryly lists dry facts on Saudi Arabia, a place that is very much close to ours by way of global labour and by effect familial ties not to mention the shared Muslim heritage but still inexplicably remaining foreign to us. As someone who actually grew up in Saudi Arabia, Delgado’s listing of facts seems to be an effort to demystify the place to us, the facts snowballing into a pointillist landscape of a place that still somehow remains again inexplicably foreign, now definitely almost alien. My defense for reading “In Saudi Arabia” – a very cut and dried factual essay – as speculative fiction is that the most immediate response upon reading it is one of bewilderment due to the absurdness of the factual information being relayed, facts that border on Borgesian-Calvinoesque fantasy. The first line captures this vibe thoroughly, when contextualised on our irrepressibly global urban nagpapaka-firstworld democratic Catholic/Christian sensibility – in its mere seven words, all we know about contemporary living is already being confronted, basically what the rule of thumb should be in speculative fiction. This was published in the first volume of the UP DIliman creative writing journal &, as edited by Conchitina Cruz. I’m not sure if there are still copies of it in UP, but I think there are plans on releasing it as a PDF one of these days. Or you can ask Dana herself about getting a copy of the text!

“The thin, feathery, tall grass swayed with the wind in an endless wave of goodbye.”

- from Tara Sering’s ”Reconnaissance,” teetering on the brink of OAness, held back mere inches by the second line, lifting it up to the sunlight to better see it for what it is: a story fine-tuning its notes before it starts its ode. I may be the only person who’d even hazard to argue that this story can be read as speculative fiction, and my argument for that reading is to highlight the story’s subtle and terse proclamations on the oscillation of memory and identity and the elasticity of social and moral and temporal boundaries (private – public, fantasy – reality, past – present, etc etc), done with the brash classiness and clear-eyed prose of Ray Bradbury – and/or Greg Brillantes, while I’m at it – tinged with just enough nearly-Lovecraftian – and/or Franz Arcellanaish – unease in the narrative’s physical and metaphysical levels that upon reading, you just know it’s not just merely contemporary English-language Filipino realist fiction; you just know it is something that is actually better. This was published in the 1999 volume of the Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction, from UP Press, and republished in Tara Sering’s collection RECONNAISSANCE, inexplicably side by side with her first chicklit novel, also from UP Press, although I recommend finding the Likhaan printing, as that includes a hell of a lot more stories and poems – for the most part fairly good to very good – written by other people, and in books, “more stuff” is always equal to “a good deal.”

From Filipino-language works:

“Lumalangoy na naman ang anak ko.”

- from Piya Constantino’s “Langoy,” a fairly innocuous bright sunny opening that transforms rather quickly into a cold dead thing by the story’s end. It’s a horror story, along the lines of Stephen King’s MISERY and, quite accurately pointedly, PET SEMETARY, and not by way of zombie animals but by way of terrifyingly terribly terrible things done out of love. I’m trying not to talk about this story much here as I plan to republish this in a journal I’m working on, and this is a rather short story – just two pages when it was originally published in UP Diliman in the second UP UGAT literary folio – so there’s not much to say about it without risking on spoiling it for everyone. Suffice it to say that this first line demonstrates the power of the technique of the Slow Reveal, of the Plot Twist pulled off very subtly, almost off-handedly, of the Revelation that changes everything preceding it into Something Else Entirely. One of the best things I’ve read written in Filipino in the past ten years.

“Walang iisang bisyon na maglalagom sa karanasan ng buhay sa Lungsod.”

- from Jay Fernando’s “Bagong Developments sa Pagbubuo ng MITO NG LUNGSOD,” a text that would probably be read today as a lyric essay if it didn’t already win first place in the Palancas’s Future Fiction category back when it was still alive in 2003 – a story chock-full of footnotes and marginalia, written in almost-mock academese, interrupted by song numbers not only from the City’s denizens but also of/on social conditions the City’s denizens find themselves co-existing with. The first line is a thesis statement, the story announcing in advance what it plans to tell you in excruciating detail, and it is also its narrative device, how it chooses to tell its story – it is saying, these are fragments of city narratives, narratives that are already fragmented, told in fragments via fragmented perspectives, fragmented because city narratives are by their very nature fragmented and cannot be told in any other way, only the reading process is almost always inescapably linear, the mind always looking for coherence, and all this metafictional oscillation in fragmentation and coherence ends fittingly – the only way it (the oscillation, the city, stories themselves) could end – in two atomising explosions, one that is yet to come in fifty years’ time, and one that has already happened fifty years ago. It’s a crazy crazy crazy story, marred only by its award. It was first published in the same UP UGAT folio where Constantino’s “Langoy” was published, and, like “Langoy,” I plan to republish this in a journal I’m working on. Hopefully, it’ll be out by the end of 2010.

* * *

ZARAH GAGATIGA – Influential blogger, librarian, storyteller, and chair of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, she is one of the staunchest advocates for books and literacy in the Philippines.

(Zarah posted her list on her blog.)

• The night when she thought she would finally be a star, Maria Isabella du’l Cielo struggled to calm the trembling of her hands, reached over to cut the tether that tied her to the ground, and thought of that morning many years before when she’d first caught a glimpse of Lorenzo du Vicenzio ei Salvadore: tall, thick-browed and handsome, his eyes closed, oblivious to the cacophony of the accident waiting to occur around him. - Kite of Stars; Dean Francis Alfar
• First the colors.Then the humans. That’s usually how I see things. Or at least, how I try. – The Book Thief;  Markus Zusak
• Clare: The Library is cool and smells like carpet cleaner, although all I can see is marble. – The Time Traveller’s Wife;  Audrey Niffenegger
• When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. – The Hunger Games;  Suzanne Collins
• In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride on broomsticks. – Witches; Roald Dahl
• 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. – The Fellowship of the Ring; JRR Tolkien
• The Iron Giant came to the top of the cliff. – The Iron Giant; Ted Hughes
• There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire. – Stardust; Neil Gaiman
• Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; JK Rowling
• You must understand that all of this occurred some thirteen years ago, when I was young still and the Empire had but newly begun its campaign to rid the realm of the Wildness. – EmberWild; Nikki Alfar

If you read closely, these first lines are all pregnant with possibilities or contain an action waiting to happen. Alfar’s beginning for The Kite of Stars presents to us, a history that spans six decades of loving and longing. Some, like Zusak’s The Book Theif, Dahl’s The Witches, Rowling’s Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban and Gaiman’s Stardust start with wonder and intrigue. Enough to keep the reader to move further on in the story or novel. Others like Collins’ Hunger Games, Hughes’ Iron Giant and Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife prepare the reader to the mood and tone of the story.

Beginnings are beautiful things. I go back to these beginnings after reading the last line and then establish connections; create hypothesis; and yes, imagine. Such capabilities that make us truly human. We get that from READING!

* * *

And I suppose it’s only fair that I put in my own two cents as well:

PAOLO CHIKIAMCO

“This song is one I have never sung.” The Singer’s Man, by M.R.R. Arcega (Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 3, Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler)

- You need to read more than just the first five lines to get the full effect, but there’s something about the first lines of the story which evoke the feeling of fireside camaraderie, where histories and secrets swapped amidst the hushed night are the just rewards after a long day. Many spec fic stories take place in “a world not our own” and it’s important for the first lines to remove the reader from his/her world somehow, to begin the process of alienation-familiarization, and these first lines do just that: they create a focal point, a persona who holds my attention, who appears to have something to say, a tale to tell.

“Surprised to see me alive, pare?” The Death and Rebirth of Nathaniel Alan Sempio, by Alexander Marcos Osias (Philippine Speculative Fiction Volume 3, Ruin and Resolve)

- This is one of the rare stories in the local spec fic scene that has a focus on plot and action — albeit largely off camera action — and the larger than life, in your face, fun of the story, as well as its very Filipino tone, are present to some extent in the first line. I love a story that fulfills its initial promise to the reader. Some of the best first lines are simple statements, yet perform a double or triple duty that only becomes clear in hindsight. [Another line that excels in a similar manner: "Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler!" -  Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O'Malley]

“For numberless years, a myna had astounded travelers to the caravansary with its abilities to spew indecencies in ten languages,  and before the fight broke out, everyone assumed the old blue tongued devil on its perch by the fireplace was the one who maligned the giant African with such foulness and verve.” Gentlemen of the Road, by Michael Chabon.

- Then, of course, there are those first lines which are not concise at all. Few writers can pull off such an… opulent sentence without making it a parody of eloquence, but then, few writers are Michael Chabon. There is an exhilaration in Chabon’s language that manifests itself in the occasional excesses of his prose, and the effect is magnetic.

“It was a dark, blustery afternoon in spring, and the city of London was chasing a small mining town across the dried-out bed of the old North Sea.” Mortal Engines, by Philip Reeve.

- The easiest way for a first line to do its job–getting the reader to read the second line–is by startling the reader. The first line of the first book of the Hunger City chronicles employs a few tried and tested methods to do just that: a sudden shift (from an ordinary description of the weather to a chase scene), a strange juxtaposition (“city of London” “chasing”), a vivid image (a chase scene involving cities somehow moving across a post apocalyptic landscape). I read the first line, then the first page, then I bought the book. Mission accomplished. [Another good example, but in two lines: "The end of the world had come and gone. It turned out not to matter much in the long run." - And the Deep Blue Sea, by Elizabeth Bear.]

“At an annual adulterous assembly, as Aaron, Azalea, and Ada achieved animalistic apogee, Adrian–amidst Aaron’s, Azalea’s and Ada’s aahs and awoos–arrived alone at an awkward anticlimax.” From “Abecediarya”, by Adam David.

- Of course, no mention of startling first lines is incomplete without mentioning this one. While some anthologies provide a sort of overview before each story, that’s not one of the hallmarks of the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology, and as such one hits that dizzying first line unprepared–did the author just write an entire sentence using words that begin with “A”? Why would he do that? What the hell is going on? It’s hard to imagine anyone reading that line and shrugging with indifference.