#OpeningSentence

In the early sun-swept hours of the morning, when purples and pinks smeared across the sky like blood, Firuz-e Jafari looked for a job.

— The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia

Humans often say that they are made of stardust.

— The Old Goat and the Alien by Veo Corva

Wolfe Studios released a tarot deck’s worth of stories about me over the years.

— Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

Every morning just after dawn, Lin Chong taught a fight class for women.

— The Water Outlaws by S. L. Huang

It was much, much worse at night.

— Crossing the Line by Karen Traviss (The Wess'har Wars, #2)

The bot was immune to the snow, and so was Aras.

— City of Pearl by Karen Traviss (The Wess'har Wars, #1)

By the time Professor Richard Lovell found his way through Canton’s narrow alleys to the faded address in his diary, the boy was the only one in the house left alive.

— Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

The bells of the Palace of Stars were barely audible outside its walls.

— At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard (Lays of the Hearth-Fire, #2)

In Siberia, the thawing ground was a ceiling on the verge of collapse, sodden with ice melt and the mammoth detritus of prehistory.

— How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

“Eighteen!” bellowed Viv, bringing her saber around in a flat curve that battered the wight’s skull off its spine.

— Bookshops and Bonedust by Travis Baldree

And so it was that my mother went into labor while sitting astride the donkey that was carrying her from the city to our village.

— Wondrous Journeys In Strange Lands by Sonia Nimr, Marcia Lynx Qualey

A few years back I was running out of money so I volunteered for a research study at the University of Pennsylvania.

— Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak

She lived where the railway tracks met the saltpan, on the Ahri side of the shadowline.

— The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall (Mkalis Cycle, #1)

While the sisters of the Our Lady of Impossible Constellations argued themselves in circles, the Reverend Mother sat silently in her chair at the head of the chapel as she always did, listening to the arguments twist and double back on themselves.

— Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather (Our Lady of Endless Worlds, #1)

The first time Isabel heard a voice in her head, she’d tried to talk back.

— The Colours of Death by Patricia Marques (Inspector Reis, #1)