Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by Gilion at Rose City Reader. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include include the title and author so others know what you're reading.
I have two books beginnings this week. The two books are Blackout by Connie Willis and All Clear by Connie Willis. They are really one book divided and published as two. The combination won the Hugo Award in 2010. Blackout was the pick for our Science Fiction Book Club this month. While everyone liked the story they were upset when the book just stopped. A common thought was that the book could have been edited down to about half its length. I immediately checked out the next book and felt that it too could have been edited enough to allow one book instead of two. Here is the beginning of both books. Some other thoughts will follow.
Blackout - "Colin tried the door, but it was locked."
All Clear - By noon Michael and Merope still hadn't returned from stepney and Poll was beginning to get really worrked."
I know why this won the Hugo. This is a story that really has stayed with me. There is so much going on and while I expected some of the ending part of it left me feeling sad. If you are a Science Fiction fan and like Time Travel novels you should read these two. Just expect it to take awhile as both are long novels.
3 comments:
I have enjoyed many long novels...in fact, I just finished one. And while many of them could be edited down, I fear that sometimes we would lose parts that are really valuable.
A quandary.
Here's MY FRIDAY MEMES POST
The beginnings are rather simple; however, it makes the reader curious ^_^
Here's mine:
http://www.sinnfulbooks.com/2012/12/book-beginnings.html
sinn @ sinnful books
There are several fine examples of lengthy novels that totally deserve the 500+ pages. It is unfortunate that neither of these fall into that category. I believe it makes all the other books in the TBR pile appear more appealing when a book of substantial length doesn't keep you hooked.
Hope you will stop by when you have a moment.
Shirley @ My Bookshelf
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