Right from the beginning...

For writers, coming up with that perfect opening sentence is a signal achievement, whether you are penning a blog entry or a novel. As a fan of science fiction, I found this list of great opening sentences illustrates this art form.  These are my favorites from the list:

"He woke, and remembered dying." — Ken MacLeod, The Stone Canal. I don't really think I need to explain why this is a great opening. It's spare and intriguing. And no adjectives or adverbs. Yay!


"In the summer of his twelfth year — the summer the stars began to fall from the sky — the boy Isaac discovered that he could tell East from West with his eyes closed." — Axis, Robert Charles Wilson. It's got so much going on, what with the coming-of-age thing and the stars falling. But then you get that human-compass thing, which is intriguing and fascinating. And this is a nice, spare sentence, with no excess clutter. It's snappy!
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I think my best opener was actually two sentences:

"Nature abhors a vacuum.  It's not my favorite appliance either." [More]

Sadly, you don't think of stuff like that often enough.