First Line

Book

Author

1. Testimony of Bill Smith. My phone rang just before one o’clock on the morning of December 10.

Millennium

John Varley

2. Here, in the living room of a peaceful house in the suburbs, a typical family sits quietly.

Back to the Future

George Gipe

3. For a week Mr R Childan had been anxiously watching the mail.

The Man in the High Castle

Phillip K Dick

4. When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of a city – which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was.

The Chrysalids

John Wyndham

5. There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire

Stardust

Neil Gaiman

6. Moarnan. No sure if it’s moarnan.

But N Ben A-Go-Go

Matthew Fitt

7. Mars was empty before we came.

Red Mars

Kim Stanley Robinson

8. “You fell out of the sky,” the coyote said.

Buffalo Gals and Other Animals

Ursula K Le Guin

9. A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys

Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

10. The last drops of the thundershower had hardly ceased falling when the pedestrian stiffed his map into his pocket, settled his pack more comfortably on his tired shoulders, and stepped out from the shelter of a large chestnut tree into the middle of the road.

Out of the Silent Planet

C S Lewis

11. The crown grew heavier with each passing year

The Fountains of Paradise

Arthur C Clarke

12. “ninety-eight – ninety-nine – one hundred”

I, Robot

Isaac Asimov

13. The tall and dour non-com wore Imperial dress greens and carried his communications panel like a field marshal’s baton.

The Warrior's Apprentice

Louis McMaster Bujold