Suddenly Joe Slattermill knew for sure he'd have to get out quick or else blow his top and knock out with the shrapnel of his skull the props and patches holding up his decaying home, that was like a house of big wooden and plaster and wallpaper cards except for the huge fireplace and ovens and chimney across the kitchen from him. Those were stone-solid enough, though. The fireplace was chin-high at least twice that long, and filled from end to end with roaring flames. Above were the square doors of the ovens in a row -- his Wife baked for part of their living. Above the ovens was the wall-long mantelpiece, too high for his Mother to reach or Mr. Guts to jump any more, set with all sorts of ancestral curios, but any of them that weren't stone...
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This is from Gonna Roll the Bones by Fritz Leiber. First published in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, it won both the Hugo Award and Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
I think this is actually one of the worst beginnings I have ever read. I remember reading the story back in '79 or so and found it on the web. The story actually gets better, but in terms of First 13, I had a hard time getting past even the first sentence.
Posted by annepin (Member # 5952) on :
I have to agree. The wording is awkward, and there's no real hook. If anything, it feels like the story is dissolving into an info dump about the ovens. We have no idea what's going on. I wouldn't read on.
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Funny...I know I read it, but the details have faded from my mind. (Something about a deal with the devil.)
Well, from this writeup, you can tell that Joe Slattermill has kinda reached the end of his rope, and that he lives in a house in some need of restoration, that his wife has a baking business run out of the kitchen, that Slattermill's mother lives with him, as well as an elderly cat, and they keep some family curios on a high and long mantelpiece. And only one "ly" adverb, right in the front. I'd say it's a pretty good opening as these things go.
Posted by halogen (Member # 6494) on :
quote:that was like a house of big wooden and plaster and wallpaper cards except for the huge fireplace and ovens and chimney across the kitchen from him
That reminds me of something you'd see on this list:
"John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met."
[This message has been edited by halogen (edited December 10, 2007).]
Posted by KPKilburn (Member # 6876) on :
quote:If anything, it feels like the story is dissolving into an info dump about the ovens.
The funny thing is that none of this is mentioned again in the story. Joe leaves the house to gamble and doesn't return (I guess he does, but the story ends before it actually happens).
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Should'a added the detail that the ovens were the old-fashioned wood-burning ones, too.