Snow White Must Die by Nele Neuhaus

The rusty iron staircase leading downstairs was narrow and steep.

After the all important introduction of a rusty staircase we get Mr. Pronoun feeling for the light switch. The opening paragraph is long and descriptive with heavy words designed to create an overwhelming sense of atmosphere akin to a 1970's B film Gothic epic - until a Bryan Adams' song starts playing, that is. Fortunately, we're not made privy to which.

First thing said:

"Hello, Snow White."

The point of the prologue is that Ms. Pronoun, called Snow White, must be kept hidden. We can infer she is dead, until the writer comes out and states this directly, for those who don't have a very high reading comprehension level. This pronoun must be a little weird for keeping a dead body and pretending it is still alive, talking to it, dreaming for it to smile. So there is a little mystery here that raises some questions. But as I've seen Psycho, I can't say I'm too shocked by this plot point. Truth be told, weirdos keeping dead bodies as companions is getting a bit cliche in fiction.

Chapter 1:

Thursday, November 6, 2008

He didn't say "See you later."

The reason why is apparent in the next line:

Nobody who was let out of the slammer ever said "See you later."

The pronounolgy is ripe in this opening. Mr. Pronoun is let out of prison. Not much conflict here, unless the guy is homicidal or something.

Setting is established first to establish mood. The pronounology only adds to this effect and is obviously intentional. Doing it this way may hook some readers, but in my experience and to my taste, it comes off as melodramatic and, well, cheesy.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Mothers by Jennifer Gilmore

November 2009

We were headed for the Verrazano Bridge, caught in traffic.

Great another opening that's stuck in traffic. So while we wait, and the characters wait in the car, why not take this opportunity for some superfluous information, on weather and seasons and some back story?

It was several weeks before thanksgiving, which I remember because there was a massive billboard hanging from a crumbling brick building off a highway in Sunset Park.

Here the narrator is ensuring the reader that he/she/whoever is not going to be one of those pesky unreliable narrators, as he/she/whoever goes out of her way to prove that it is a certain amount of ambiguous time before the holiday. The next paragraph talks about the weather: ...heat and gas from cars rose in waves.

First thing said:

"Honey."

The story problem on the opening pages is that someone is not getting pregnant. So with a title like The Mothers, this is certainly a problem.

On the plus side, the tone and mood is established right away, with some characters being revealed and the writing is light and easy. Still, I don't see a hook in the first couple of pages, besides the barren, infertile, unfruitful womb and/or impotence element. For some this might make for gripping reading and pull them in, but for me? Nah. Once I'm old, fat, bald and impotent I may come back to this opening with a new-found understanding and appreciation, but until then - next book on the shelf.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Guardians by Andrew Pyper

Memory Diary
Entry No. 1

We watched them come in.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of this blog we thought I would review another book by the author who started it all off. That time round he got a resounding epic fail for how he opened his 'award-winning' novel.

The opening line from this effort reads like an exercise in pronounology. It could be about anything, absolutely anything in the universe. We don't learn who 'we' are, but we do learn that 'they' are police officers going into a house. The first is one fat officer (stereotype intended?), who shows up. Whatever is in the house is disturbing, as fat cop comes out of the house transformed into sweaty fat cop. Fat cop calls it in and soon more police show up, an ambulance and fire trucks, before the body bags start coming out. This prologue ends:

A gulp of french fry, onion ring and chicken finger that, to this day, is the taste of death.

We remember all this, though still not everything.

And some of the things we remember may not have happened at all.

Huh? But that's it. We never learn what happened, or what this is about. Just bodies that the narrators may have remembered or may not have remembered because it may or may not have happened. It sounds like a writer just wrote a first draft of the opening of a story, and is still not sure what is going to happen next. However, the subtitle to this masked prologue explains more than the text. Whoever this 'we' pronoun is, they have memory problems, so one may reasonably infer. So this would have to be the opening hook, which serves to entice readers into the story, but may also warn them that there might be some ambiguity for a bit.

Plus, how does a gulp of food taste like death, as opposed to the food itself? Remove the propositional phrase of...etc., and we have this: A gulp is the taste of death.

Chapter 1:

The call comes in the middle of the night, as the worst sort do.

So this line works two opening cliches: the waking up or bed setting cliche and the phone call cliche.

First thing said:

"I don't even know what time it is."

This line sounds less awkward if that sentence and the next hadn't been separated with punctuation: "But it's late, isn't it?"

Then the voice is described, which is notable enough to add here:

A familiar voice, faintly slurred, helium-pitched between laughter and sobs.

This is another example of the descriptive style of this writer: It seems everything can be described as a series of contradictions co-existing within the being of each thing out there. Take the opening of the Demonologist:

Last night I had the dream again. Except it was not a dream.

Later when describing Ben, a guy who hung himself which is what the phone call is about, the narrator, Trev, talks about how Ben and he might ...have been separated by an ocean, or an even greater barrier, as impossible to cross as the chasm between planets, as death.

Then the next paragraph begins:

Despite this, we were still close. There was a love between us too. A sexless, stillborn love, yet just as fierce as the other kinds.

Yeah, right. Why can I not believe that or imagine that after the hyperbolic chasm description that is like as big as life and death? Hyperbolic chasm description might just be referring to distance, but I can't help but think it has more to do with personalities or the natures of the characters. There are certainly plenty of hints to suggest this is the case. We learn that what connects these two characters is a secret - a secret unknown even to Ben and Trev!

There are many contrary concepts in this writing that makes one wonder why one is even bothering to read. I suppose one could just ignore them if one reads fast enough or multitasks, you know, by thinking about what to have for dinner while reading.

Still the prologue and what we can infer from it and the fact that dialogue is used and a scene unfolds early on in chapter 1 gets this the 'meh' pass.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Savage Girl by Jean Zimmerman

Prologue
Manhattan. May 19, 1876

I wait for the police in the study overlooking Gramercy Park, the body prone on the floor a few feet away.

A problem and a character in the opening line cannot fail to make one read on, which is what each line in a story should do: make readers want to read the next one, so onto the next line:

Outside, rain has cooled the green spring evening.

Unfortunately, this human weakness of succumbing to cliche rears its ugly head in this novel as it does in millions of others. The next paragraph talks about and describes the room this pronoun is in, which is not what the reader wants. The reader wants to know about the body, not the real estate agent's tour of the place. I understand that authors do this to build suspense, done by not revealing what the reader wants revealed right away, but I've always said that that is a rather hackneyed way of creating suspense, sort of suspense by procrastination. A little is fine and may be quite effective; a lot is annoying and feels like wasting readers' time by toying with them. In this case, it is thankfully short and in the next paragraph we return to the body and the interesting circumstances surrounding it, which are: Either 'she' killed 'him' or the narrator killed him but has no memory of it. The use of pronouns bugs me, I can infer more about the dead person than the living in this opening.

While still on the first page the narrator explains that whether it was 'she' who killed him or 'I' who killed him, the narrator is going to take the blame and therefore must wait in the room while contemplating what to do to the body until he/she/it is caught red-handed. The circumstances are unusual enough to pull readers in and it's nice that the hook is so soon. However....this is the prologue, an attachment to the beginning of a story. Chapter 1, where a story is officially supposed to begin rarely continues where a prologue left off, if it did, then the prologue would be chapter 1 and chapter 1 would be chapter 2.

Chapter 1:

In June of 1875, we made our way down Virginia City's "A" Street, proceeding south from the center of town towards the mountains.

As was expected the opening of chapter 1 does not continue  the action of the prologue but instead goes back in time to tell the story that leads to the prologue which one can assume will be a climactic moment in the novel later on, or thereabouts. On top of that, we have the walking cliche here, characters travelling to the beginning of the story and conflict. It goes on to explain who the people are that are walking and I lose interest. I'm not the only one; the library copy I have has the page folded after the prologue. Someone else stopped after reading the prologue, thinking that chapter 1 was for another day. Too bad, I really liked that prologue, despite the split infinitive.

First thing said:

"Where is it?"

Verdict: Pass (barely)

A deeply anticlimatic chapter 1 and a couple of cliches reduces the rating of this opening.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Peter Pan Must Die by John Verdon

Long Before the Killing Began

There was a time when he dreamt of being the head of a great nation.

Obviously this writer's strength lies in creating great titles and subtitles. In regards to the opening line, it has a hint of preamble. There isn't much difference between There was a time... and Once upon a time.... Is there?

Then the final sentence fragment of the first paragraph of the prologue, inserted like a thundering PS with a drum roll, is:

A nuclear power.

Then:

As president, he would have his finger on the nuclear trigger. With a twitch of that finger he could launch nuclear missiles... He could put an end to the human stink.

It's nice when a story starts with such a sympathetic pronoun. Come on, let's admit it, we've all felt this kind of rage and have all dreamed about there being fewer people around at some point in our lives. Actually, there is something to be said about starting off with the antagonist - and I assume this is the antagonist as I don't think too many people would be rooting for a sociopath protagonist wishing he could blow up the world. Beginning with a disturbed bad guy is a pretty common thing to do in prologues though.

Then we learn this pronoun has issues with The Nightmare (my capitalization) and a wheezing clown that hurts this pronoun for money. Honestly, this sort of hooks me, but alas, it is the prologue and the next page which is chapter 1 has absolutely nothing to do with the prologue, so I can't really be bothered to read on.

Chapter 1:

In the rural Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, August was an unstable month, lurching back and forth between the bright glories of July and the gray squalls of the long winter to come.

So we get some weather in the opening line. Nothing much interesting in this. However, the writer tries (rather feebly in my opinion) to connect this ...month that could erode one's sense of time and place to feeding a character's confusion, or more accurately, at least seeming to. That is to say, the weather is used to introduce a character's state of mind, whose name is, um, Gurney. Anyone like a metaphor with their cup of characterization?

Then we're thrown into some moldy back story about retirement, the wife, moving and kids. It's brief though, so that's good. Unfortunately, it's interrupted with more weather to begin paragraph 3.

First thing said:

"This is our secret."

This is what is said in the Nightmare. First thing a verified character says:

"Is that a tarn?"

By golly, I think it is. However, the characters are not sure and need to discuss it for a bit.

Verdict: Fail

I love the title. If I was reviewing just the title (As I get lazier, I just might start doing that), I'd give this five stars.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride

Dead things had always been special to him.

This hooks. Even though there is a pronoun rather than a name, title, or station, we learn a lot about Mr. Pronoun. Too bad the next sentence is a fragment:

Their delicate coldness. The feel of the skin. The ripe, sweet smell as they decayed. As they returned to God.

Someone needs to a grade six Language Arts refresher. I know what this author is doing though. It's a common tactic to use syntax to heighten tension, but it suggests the ideas need some support with suspenseful syntax, Gothic grammar, or...possessed. Punctuation. When I read so many fragments like this it feels melodramatic and overwritten. Don't get me wrong, I like a fragment just as much as the next guy, but a barge of fragments makes me giggle. That's write, syntax does make a difference and can ruin the intended effect a writer was hoping for. Best advice, don't write like you are a teenager sending a WTF text message to friends.

The next five paragraphs:

The thing in his hands hadn't been dead for long.
Just a few hours ago it had been full of life.
It was happy.
It was dirty, and flawed and filthy...
But now it was pure.

These paragraph fragments are overwritten. It was dead -  but it used to be alive. It was dirty and filthy - synonyms in the same sentence waste time and there are way to many pronouns. All we can say for sure is that it is about it. Chapter 1 is short and fits on the first page. Chapter 2 starts with weather, American style:

It was pissing down outside.

A little awkward that to say that it is raining down outside. In my part of the world, one can say it is pouring down rain outside. What is more awkward, however, is how the tone does a 180 from chapters 1 to 2.

First thing said:

"Has death been declared?"

A rather peculiar thing to say, which is to say that it arouses my curiosity.

Verdict: Pass

The opening line hooks, despite the melodramatic sentence structure, but this won't phase most people from being hooked, if YouTube comments are anything to go by. So even though how the story is told isn't very good, that doesn't matter if what the story is hooks. Well, it should matter to writers, but obviously it doesn't as long as someone is making money.

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Critical Mass by Sara Paretsky

Vienna, 1913
And There Was Light

"Oh."

Headings and titles that begin with "...[A]nd" are funny as they are failed attempts to instigate some intellectual prowess. ...or so it seems. They fool the fool though, and don't hide the overpowering desire to add an ellipsis.

Now, to the opening sentence, or should I say opening grunt. One-word openings are always at great risk of being a fail in my estimation. The reason being there isn't much one can do with one word, and there isn't that much that can be expressed. How to express conflict with one word: No! Character: Bob. Tone: Awesome! Or: Totally. Setting: Rain. These one-word fails usually go undetected; the reader washes over them as if it is a mere stain on the page. On the plus side, these grunts are so short, they don't really count as an idea that can challenge and hook. Most people don't notice them because they don't care about them, which makes one wonder why an author would begin with one. The next line:

The syllable is a soft cry of ecstasy.

What the opening of this prologue is about is a child amazed at seeing colors on the floor.

First thing (words) actually said:

"Martina, your manners."

This is whispered harshly.

Chapter 1:

The sun scorched my back through my thin shirt.

Weather and fashion. Nothing to see here. Next line:

It was September, but out on the prairie, the heat still held a midsummer ferocity.

Weather and geography, and it stays that way with some added real estate for several paragraphs before I lose interest. Someone is inspecting an old and fallen down house. I would prefer to know why before the descriptions of the house and the yard and the shed and the fence and the windows and the heat and of a dog long dead.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Killings at Badgers Drift by Caroline Graham

She had been walking in the woods just before teatime when she saw them. 

Pronouns walking and seeing pronouns. We must assume that this is not good because the alternative is to think that "them" means birds or something and that there is nothing really interesting happening here.

Walking very quietly although that had not been her intention. It was just that the spongy underlay of leaf mould and rotting vegetation muffled every footfall. The trees, tall and packed close together, also seemed to absorb sound. In one or two places the sun pierced through the closely entwined branches, sending dazzling shafts of hard white light into the darkness below.

We learn that someone is danger. The scene is tense but I skipped most of it. Someone in the woods, running from persons unknown for reasons unknown. A fairly roundabout way to announce that someone dies.

Chapter 1:

‘There’s something very wrong here and I expect you to do something about it. Isn’t that what the police are for?’

I generally like cozy mysteries, especially if they are set in the UK. I've watched this TV series on occasion and liked it, so I thought it would be interesting to check out the book that started it all. The line above is the opening line of chapter 1 and is also the first thing said. It's effective dialogue because it moves the plot forward. A concerned friend of the prologuie is going to the police to have them check the prologuie's death, that it wasn't an accident.

Sergeant Troy observed his breathing, a trick he had picked up from a colleague at Police Training College who was heavily into T’ai Ch’i and other faddy Eastern pursuits. The routine came in very handy when dealing with abusive motorists, boot-deploying adolescents and, as now, with barmy old ladies.

The character description above is fun.

Verdict: Pass

I'll give this three stars because of chapter 1, the scene, the mystery of a suspicious death, that we know is murder because of the prologue and the characters that are revealed right out of the gate.

I also like the title. Not sure why, I just like it.

Sincerely,

Theodore Moracht

Power Play by Catherine Coulter

Buckner Park
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Middle of March
Saturday, late afternoon

She always ran at sunset.

I love reviewing books by this author because they are so dumbed down that it is fun to write about them. However, I resist reviewing books by this author because my natural instinct is not to give this crap any more exposure than it already has. You know there is something wrong when the chapter heading is twice as long with three times the amount of information as the opening line - an opening line that has zero conflict, little setting and a mysterious pronoun impossible to care anything about.

She rarely ran all-out, rather she maintained a smooth, steady pace because this was her thinking time.

Not that I really care, but I don't think this line makes much sense when one looks closely at it. The way to understand this line is to assume a thing or two and read between the lines but this can lead to many interpretations. The author almost seems to be missing in action and isn't helping the reader out much at all and not least of all because of the pronounology. What we may surmise here is that this pronoun can't run fast and think at the same time, which suggests some epic stupidity or mental issue, like those people who can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Or perhaps one may infer that running at a smooth pace is the only way she can think, as if her legs are somehow attached directly to her brain.

The third line:

Thankfully, it wasn't freezing cold on this early evening.

Okay, so which is it: late afternoon or early evening and if Ms. Pronoun always runs at sunset and since it's March does the sun set in early evening or late evening? Anyway, this line is about the weather, so who cares what time it is.

So, this is this pronoun's thinking time. Here is a sentence that explains what thinking time means to this pronoun:

Diplomatic protocols with endless snafus, relations with Her Majesty's government, and now too often about people who wanted to blow up their neighbors, or London, still fighting out thousands of years of hatreds seemingly bred into their bones. Sometimes there are victories. Thankfully she is good at her job...

That's the second time on the first page the adverb thankfully is used. In any case, if this is how she thinks, her mind's pretty cluttered as it manifests a series of sentence fragments, that reads like incoherent mental shrapnel.

On this occasion she's thinking about why someone would want to kill her when lo and behold someone tries to kill her when a car tries to hit her. Think it and it shall be. We never even learn if this pronoun has a name. Thankfully, chapter 2 begins without this pronoun.

He turned stone-cold and his focus narrowed laser-thin on the man who held the woman in a choke hold.

But begins with another pronoun. Why? At least in this case we can ignore the pronoun because of the conflict in the form of someone choking someone.

First thing said:

Cursing. Yawn. Sounds like the person choking another person is in grade three: "I'm big now; listen to me swear!"

The pronoun had been walking to his jeep with a large Starbucks coffee (What's that? A grande or a venti? Because go into any Starbucks and ask for a large something and the chances are they won't understand what you're talking about.) when he interrupts this carjacking. Everyone can relate to that, yeah? Actually only people in these type of crap novels are confronted with violence everywhere they go, that's why they're in books, I guess. But the believabilty factor is hard to swallow.

Honestly, this opening is like every other opening of this genre. Where do these writers get their opening ideas? At the mall?

Verdict: Fail

Was there ever any doubt?

Thankfully,
Rudy Globird

Freud's Mistress by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack

Vienna, 1895

The season for suicides had begun.

This is what I would classify as a great line by writers for writers. That's not to say that others won't like it, but I think this is a line that most writers would like. As well, this opening line works well in conjunction with the title. The mention of Freud and suicide has a decidedly pleasurable effect.

The next line introduces a scene of a woman writing at a desk, complete with a simile! Then the third line in the book employs the cliched weather report. Since it must be important, I will provide it here for your reading pleasure:

Outside, the sky was ashen gray. Since early November, the air had been bitter cold, and patches of ice had spread over the breadth of the Danube.

So weather introduces the river which introduces the fact that a young bride had just the other week jumped off a bridge, killing herself, with her body washing up, shrouded in white satin.

So the narrative text on the opening page is lyrical, but I'm asking the question: What does this have to do with the lady writing at her desk and as soon as I ask, it hits me, is this lady writing a suicide note? If so, this is a cool beginning. Unfortunately, by the third paragraph Ms. Pronoun is writing a letter to her sister asking for help and then cryptically the third paragraph and page 1 ends:

She would remember this day. It was the beginning.

So a little preamble is inserted assuring us not to worry, there is conflict and story to come, just not really on page 1.

Page 2 begins:

Two Days Earlier

The sky was raining ice...

Someone obviously has a weather fetish; however, the sentence ends well and indeed the weather in this case has some importance in establishing character:

...but the woman hurrying down the boulevard wore no coat or hat.

First thing said:

"Good evening."

I will give this opening a 50/50 rating for the opening line and title and the scene that emerges on page 2 of a frantic woman carrying a sick baby through bad weather.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. 

This novel may not be for everyone, but at least we know in the opening line what it is going to be about. In this line there is setting and conflict and I think it works quite nicely in conjunction with the title.

The rest of the opening paragraph:

I remember saying something like 'I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .' And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'

Whoever the narrator is, he is with his attorney who is pouring beer on his chest to help get a tan, and obviously the attorney did not see or hear the giant bats. This opening page not only establishes the premise but also reveals something of the characters and perhaps most importantly, the tone of the the novel.

Verdict: Cool

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Farm by Tom Rob Smith

Until that phone call it had been an ordinary day.

This opens with the phone call cliche, and with that opening phrase: Until that phone call[,]...there is a comma that's gone AWOL. Kids, look away!

Anyway, I suppose there is some foreshadowing in this line, but it's so obvious, like saying: This story will have a problem! Next line:

Laden with groceries, I was walking home through Bermondsey, a neighborhood of London, just south of the river.

Another cliche, the walking cliche, with a standard GPS info dump, which in a most uncreative way, introduces the setting. This could have been revealed as a subheading like: South London, Bermondsey - except there are no headings in this book and the fact that this bit of information isn't at all important or interesting, unless we infer that Bermondsey is the Farm. I couldn't care less where this pronoun is at this point. He could be walking down the little yellow brick road for all I care. I just don't need to know. What do I need to know in order to care? Answer: Conflict, pain, suffering directed towards this pronoun. So, in theory, that should come before explaining where Mr. Pronoun is.

As well, I'd move that last comma up to the first line if there is a shortage of commas at Grand Central Publishing. Next line:

It was a stifling August evening and when the phone rang I considered ignoring it, keen to hurry home and shower.

The third line of this novel rounds out the three-hit-cliche wonder. Absolutely nothing in these three lines is interesting and worthy of being published. A writer only gets one opening, one opening line, and this one wastes it on boring cliches of some pronoun getting a phone call while carrying groceries. Who wants to read about that? It happens everyday to millions and millions and millions of people.

Then we get a smidgen of back story after we learn that the person calling is this pronoun's father.

First thing said:

"Dad?"

As was just mentioned, Dad is calling, and he's crying, something this pronoun has never heard before. So, while still on the first page, conflict is introduced in the form of a sick Mom, who is apparently imagining things. This is the hook, and I think it will hook most people. I mean, who isn't interested in hallucinating mothers? If this hook were on page 4 or page 10, this book would have been highly recommended as a cure to insomnia and would've given some of Henry James's work a run for its money.

Overall, the first paragraph is a waste of space and a fail, but the opening recovers quickly with dialogue and conflict. The first section ends on page 3 with the pronoun, now with a name, Daniel, promising to get on a plane and fly to Sweden and to...the...farm, because suddenly Daniel realizes that that is where the story of this novel is, and Daniel is not where the story is and has to get his butt there, hopefully before chapter 2. However, first the reader must endure a back story dump that is not very thrilling.

My advice: Wait for this book to hit the remainder bins and pick it up for two bucks, because Grand Central Publishing almost certainly overprinted this one. That's what I did with the other books by this author, books which I still have not read. They do serve as excellent dust catchers though.

Verdict: Pass (Barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht.

The Last Dead Girl by Harry Dolan

Rome, New York
The last night of April, 1998

They put me in a room with white tile on the walls and a pair of long fluorescent lights glaring down from the ceiling.

The pronoun "they" sounds ominous, but other than that there is nothing really untoward in this line. "They" could be hotel staff. Using pronounology is a technique writers use to to create suspense by withholding information. It's like telling a story by way of omission; any intelligent reader will see through this ploy and have the subtle feeling that their time is being wasted. With the third sentence we get something that makes me wonder if this is a bad situation:

I had a cut on my temple.

We learn that it's itching, and the narrator tries to ignore it. So, I'm thinking that this person is tied up, but that's not the case, the narrator is only locked up in a room.

First thing said:

"Why'd you kill the girl?

This comes on page 2, and it is the first thing a detective asks the narrator after coming into the locked room. It's direct and gets to the point, moving the plot forward. There is lots of dialogue after this as the narrator and detective butt heads with witty dialogue as both try to outwit the other for no other apparent reason than that is what people try to do these days.

This opening scene will hook all those who love this genre. We have a character in conflict, a problem in the form of a dead girl, which raises a few questions. The scene is not as transparent as it seems from the beginning, which only aids in pulling the reader in.

There is no narrative back story in the opening and yet the reader is able to understand what is happening, just like one would watching a scene play itself out on the street - without any context. So you see, back story is not always necessary to make a story beginning be understood; credit the wondrous nature of the human brain. The back story we do get a little later on is in the form of dialogue with the characters telling it in their own words as the narrator explains what happened to the dead girl and what his past relationship was with her.

The lack of a back story dump frees this opening up, and lets the story unfold organically, like real life does, so I'm giving this opening a high rating of 3.5 stars.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke

There are no monsters under the bed.

That doesn't sound very interesting. It would be more fun to read that there are monsters under the bed. The paragraph is about a pronoun who built a spaceship in his room that is wrecked and about a crazy person downstairs who might have heard the crashing to the floor. There is no obvious connection between the second paragraph and the opening line so we must continue to read this short prologue to see if a connection is made. At the end there is the statement:

There are no monsters under the bed. But there's one towering over it.

Presumably this is a person the boy (he's been upgraded from a mere pronoun) is afraid of. The prologue is effective as a scene unfolds, in which someone is attacking the boy and his mother. We are made to assume they are both slaughtered, so two more prologies are sacrificed at the beginning of a novel for dramatic effect. Personally, bloody prologues don't hook me.

Chapter 1:

Bergen, Norway, September 1528

The mendicant monk had heard few good things about Bergen and even fewer about Norway, the land where he was born, about which he had forgotten so much.

No surprise that the prologue and chapter 1 are in different time zones. A monk in an opening line of a horror/mystery novel attracts attention, but there is little else here that will hook. Having heard few good things about Bergen, is too vague to hook. What else can one expect with words like: things and so much?

First thing said:

"I am everywhere."

The killer says this in the prologue. Part 1 begins with a quote from Alan De Lille, ca. 1100 stating: God is an understandable sphere in which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. This suggests that whatever killed the two prologies was godlike?

There are no obvious cliches, there are scenes with conflict, there is little back story, yet the forward narrative is understandable, so this opening could receive a much higher rating. It's just that the bloody, violent prologue opening has been done so many times that it starts to bore and wear thin. It's becoming a cliche in its own right.

Verdict: Pass (Barely)

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese

He walked the old mare out of the pen and led her to the gate that opened out into the field.

Besides the obvious usage of pronounology there isn't much else to comment on. Mr. Pronoun is walking a horse. It's descriptive, though slightly better than a mere visual as at least something is happening to someone, if it is only just someone walking about. The next line introduces weather - it was frosty out. So yet another novel is gobbled up by the weather opening cliche. But the weather here has a purpose besides creating an idyllic picture: because of the frost they (whoever they are) left tracks.

First thing said:

"Get ya some breakfast."

The dialogue that follows is of the incidental type but it's interesting as we learn that one character, the pronoun of line one, is leaving. From the conversation between the boy pronoun and the old man we learn a little about their situation, what they eat etc. One might think food is boring to talk about and even more risky to put at the beginning of a novel, but the conversation is terse and moves forward quickly. Nevertheless, not much is happening in the first couple pages, until on page 4 the paragraphs get long and dense which can only mean one thing: back story and description. Okay, two things.

Verdict: Boring Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Accident by Chris Pavone

Prologue

He awakens suddenly, in terror.

A pronoun waking up in terror has been done to death as an opening in books, short stories, films, TV shows, commercials, poems, raps, banner ads, eulogies and gossip, etc. Obviously, however, some people haven't gotten the memo. As there is little in this line to interest the well read, let's read on at least to the end of the first paragraph and see what happens with Mr. Pronoun.

He spins his head around the spare room, searching the darkest shadows in the blue wash of moonlight, sitting bolt upright, head cocked, alert for noises. He reaches his hand across his body, and grabs the gun.

Yikes. He spins his head around the room? Who is this guy, the love child of Wile E. Coyote and Regan from The Exorcist? And of course, he reaches for "the" gun, which is even more predictable than a tough, hunkly (did I just make that word up?) pronoun waking up. It's also a little awkward that as Manly Pronoun spins his head around the room, he is searching the darkest shadows while in the process of sitting upright - that is, all at the same time. Present participle forms of the verb are used to show those verbs are occurring at the same time as other verbs like spin. Example: He walks down the street and goes into the store. Happening at the same time? Nope. What about:  He walks down the street, going into the store. Happening at the same time? Yes, with the aid of the multi-moment phasing app now available for download from Google Play.

I would have the pronoun bolt upright first and then spin his head around the room, searching for whatever...

As well, it sounds strange that "reach" is used transitively, that is, with an object (hand): He reaches his hand across his body. Why is Mr. Pronoun's hand the object of the verb reaching which his hand is doing? Hm? In my neck of the English woods, "reach" is used intransitively (without an object): His hand reaches across his body... Of course, that's not to say "reach" never has an object, as in traveling: I reached the shore. A quick Google search shows that this He reaches his hand... phrasing has been used before: He reached his hand down. Not many search results though,  so it's a construction with only a small cult following. I still think it sounds weird, but I might use it.

Aegis: Can you reach that book for me?
Superman: Sure I will reach my hand to that book, because I like reaching my hands.

I guess this opening paragraph feels like writing. With the next paragraph we learn that that first paragraph was a false alarm! In other words, it's a clumsy way of foreshadowing that there is a problem, which is, put quite simply, not where it should be: in the first paragraph. This technique dangerously borders on the "ha-ha made you look" trick that I hate. You know, the openings that begin with an exciting dream or film scene on TV that the character is watching and the scene has nothing to do with the actual story.

The prologue is short, but out of the 13 paragraphs, 8 start with pronouns. Later we learn that Mr. Pronoun is a writer and he's written a memoir and that an earlier draft was in first person but in the final draft he'd changed it to third person and was obsessing whether he'd caught all the first person references - not really fascinating. His epilogue ends:

...if what you are reading is a finished book...I am...dead.

Chapter 1:

It is just before dawn when Isabel Reed turns the final sheet of paper.

We assume that this is Mr. Pronoun's book in the prologue and that Mr. Pronoun is dead. Honestly, I don't care if I'm wrong and I don't have much interest in finding out one way or the other.

First thing said:

"My God."

Indeed.

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Two Soldiers by Roslund & Hellstrom

She's been living here for so long.

Ms. Pronoun doesn't like to move or can't or likes the place she's at. The only question this raises is who cares? Next line:

It's mostly voices.
Maybe footsteps.

Prose that looks like poetry. And  maybe footsteps? That means maybe not; so if not, ignore that sentence then. Perhaps someone is making a run for some artsy-fartsy literary award? What follows is a paragraph with some curiousness. People pass by this pronoun's door and she wants to call them in so they can hold her hand. A little creepy. Then there is a break and more artsy-fartsy sentence fragments that sound like bits from a long lost Beatles' song written in a drunken stupor with Jimmy Savile:

Her face, so strange.
She's sixteen, maybe seventeen, or even eighteen.

I personally don't like sentences that offer no concrete information and whose only purpose is to further befuddle the as yet blank mind of the readers whose only reason to care so far is the fact they paid money for this book. Plus, it feels like beefing up the word count. Then:

But she looks old.

Eighteen is not old - well, it is if you are nine. Is a nine-year-old narrating?

Mind, these are separate paragraphs, even though they all should be part of one grand paragraph because they are all about one idea. They are separated into paragraph fragments to heighten some intensity that must only exist in the authors' (one?) mind, because I ain't feeling it.

The first two pages are broken up into four parts that on the surface don't have anything to do with one another. Briefly, in the first a pronoun is in a space she's lived in a long time and wishes to ask people in. In the second there is a pronoun who may or may not be dead, hands probing her body and a needle doing something again, again, again before giving up and breaking. In the third a pronoun is in a place with people screaming, there is pain she can deal with like her period, though it's more often and longer and someone had put her in an armlock. The fourth begins with the snowy weather outside a window the pronoun is looking out of where she'd made a snow angel before being dragged back in. There are guards, an ambulance and green uniforms. It feels jumbled and blurred which might be the intended effect, but the only questions this opening is raising is why am I reading this? I can't tell if this pronoun(s) is in an insane asylum, a torture chamber, or at daycare or all of the above depending on the holiday.

Then more short sections like:

Like waves. Like fire.
Something hitting, pressing, forcing. It's happening inside her body. But she has no control.

There is so much more of this style like:

The waves. The fire. The pressure. The pounding. The force.

At this point I've had enough of this pretentious attempt at creating tension and suspense. It reads like a six-year-old on a rampage with a dictionary. On page 5 we learn what this is all about and I laugh out loud.  All that for that? Hint: It isn't kidney stones. The wording doesn't fool me into getting hooked. Corny never hooks.

Her face, yeah, yeah, yeah, so strange, baby.

First thing said:

"Come on."

Verdict: Fail

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore

They waited at the dock, the three Venetians, for the fool to arrive.

There is a preface that explains what the setting of this book is. I skipped most of it after reading the first part of the first line: ...mythical late-thirteenth-century Italy. Because it's mythical, I will myth it out in my head without author aids. The rest reads like a data crammed wiki article about politics...or some such thing.

Then we have a sepia-toned antique map of Italy and then Act 1 which has some poem that's yelled out by a chorus of people like in ancient Greek theater. I skip that to. After the first line,  Rise, Muse! I think I've had enough. If the chapter 1 opening hooks me and I'm pulled into this novel against my will, then I can always go back and read that stuff.

The design of the book might hook some people, though one should never judge a book by its cover or it  blue-stained page edges. Is this a gimmick, or an expression of the soul?

Now, to the above opening line. Here it is again:

They waited at the dock, the three Venetians, for the fool to arrive.

Despite the pronounology this line does whet my curiosity with the mention that these three men are waiting for a fool. I like fools; fools hook me. I like reading about them; I like picking them out of crowds, which is to say I enjoy fool watching; I like staring at them; and I like laughing at them and making fun of them. There's nothing like a good fool to make us feel good about ourselves and believe that the world according to us makes sense.

First thing said:

"An hour after sunset, I told him."

This is the beginning of the second paragraph in the book, so it's encouraging that dialogue begins so soon and that something is said that further develops the conflict of three men waiting for a fool that is apparently late.

The dialogue has a tint of the Shakespearean to it, so you've been warned - but not enough to give you a headache or make you feel like you're in a foreign country or visiting a Brooklyn crack house. As these three men wait, they talk about the situation so the reader can begin caring about this scene and just to make sure a monkey is thrown into the conversation. Nevertheless, I sense my attention wandering. On the next page the fool arrives and this book begins to read more like a play being performed by university students who believe in the liberal, bleeding heart myth, before graduating and inevitably joining the polluting world of business and consumerism whereupon they move to the Republican suburbia to eke out a mediocre existence until they're claimed by God and cancer.

Verdict: Pass (barely)

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird

Sniper's Honor by Stephen Hunter

Prologue
Ostfront
1942

It was a balmy November day in Stalingrad, 14 below, twelve feet of snow, near-blizzard conditions.

As this starts with weather, my initial urge is to fail it, banish the book back to the library shelf and troll YouTube comments. However, there are a couple things that attract my attention about this line, despite the weather. The use of sarcasm to establish some tone and the mention of Stalingrad. Most people are already aware of the battle that was the beginning of the end of Hitler and its brutality, so there isn't too much else to say. Setting is established with one word. Anyone interested it this plot of history will be hooked.

The next sentence is about weather too. However, from that point the story delves into details like Kfz 251's, T-34's and geography like Tauvinskaya and Smarkandskaya streets with healthy bouts of back story as a character is revealed - resume style. Nevertheless, the scene that unfolds is fascinating to read, and it's not long either, coming in at under six pages. It shows a German sniper preparing for a shot but he himself gets shot instead, which actually saves his life, as he is one of the last Germans to be airlifted out of there. The prologue ends by saying the sniper lived a long life, dying an old man with grandchildren, before adding: The sniper who shot him was the White Witch. We infer that this is a woman, as whoever it is, has a cascade of hair, bright as gold, reflecting in the sunlight. It's nice that at least women (or one woman) fighting in Stalingrad were issued shampoo and conditioner, to give them that shining, full-bodied look, that men would die for.

Chapter 1:

Outside Cascade
The Homestead
The Present

He was an old man in a dry month.

Surprise, surprise! Of course, the novel does not take place in the same time as the titillating prologue, so all those who were hoping for another epic Stalingrad battle novel, well...ha-ha to you. The only good thing about the opening sentence of this novel is that the line is short. Other than that, we have a pronoun and some weather.

First thing said:

"Not much time left, Gunther."

Even though the novel's title is simple in a non-creative way, it does tell us something about the story and that there will be something about the sniper's code and honor. So this title is important to establishing a hook.

Verdict: Fail

I suppose if one reads this genre there is a hook here. I'm tempted to read on. I liked the prologue, but beginning chapter 1 in another time and place, seriously puts me off.

Sincerely,
Theodore Moracht

Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer

His wife had held him in her arms as if she could keep death away from him.

This is the opening line of To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first book in the Riverworld series. I am ashamed to say that I first learned about this story only after watching the pilot of a failed TV series that is now released as a movie with a gaping cliffhanger. I was pretty upset that nothing else was made, thinking I would never learn what happened next. Fortunately, I came across these books so I can find out how it all ends.

The opening line hooks in that there is the conflict of death. It raises questions like why and how this person dies. The pronouns are annoying, but as one reads on, the faceless characteristic of the characters adds to the mystery of death and the afterlife.

The next paragraph and first thing said;

He had cried out, “My God, I am a dead man!”

This is a little melodramatic. I hope all the dialogue won't be so over the top, complete with an exclamation mark!

The door to the room had opened, and he had seen a giant, black, one-humped camel outside and had heard the tinkle of the bells on its harness as the hot desert wind touched them. Then a huge black face topped by a great black turban had appeared in the doorway. The black eunuch had come in through the door, moving like a cloud, with a gigantic scimitar in his hand. Death, the Destroyer of Delights and the Sunderer of Society, had arrived at last.

Blackness. Nothingness. He did not even know that his heart had given out forever. Nothingness.

So right in the opening the character dies with some rather harrowing description and then:

Then his eyes opened.

What follows is a bizarre and confusing description of the after life in which the person finds himself in a floating cocoon. Many questions are raised, which is what a good hook is made of.

Verdict: Pass

Sincerely,
Rudy Globird