Gutbrain Records

Wednesday, 26 November 2008

Wow! Did you see yesterday's Astronomy Picture of the Day? Check it out!

Continuing the appreciation of great first lines from novels and short stories, here's the first line of Abraham Merritt's Seven Footprints to Satan: "The clock was striking eight as I walked out of the doors of the Discoverers' Club and stood for a moment loking down lower Fifth Avenue".

It picks up steam from there and is pretty thrilling except for an unpardonably fortunate coincidence that ends up doing almost all the work for the hero. (When asked if something in one of her husband's books was a coincidence, Vera Nabokov said something along the lines of "My husband would never commit a coincidence".)

Seven Footprints to Satan was originally serialized in Argosy in 1927.