Publisher blurb: "
Stories Inspired by Famous First Lines
Pride and Prejudice meets Macbeth by way of The Wizard of Oz and a dollop of the speculative, in this entertaining anthology where authors get inspiration for short stories from the first lines of famous works of literature. Edited by respected anthologist Gardner Dozois, the collection features Mary Robinette Kowal's Hugo Award-winning story "The Lady Astronaut of Mars".
Table of Contents:
- "Fireborn" by Robert Charles Wilson - based on first line of Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Tale
- "The Evening Line" by Mike Resnick - based on first line of Pride and Prejudice
- "No Decent Patrimony" by Elizabeth Bear - based on first line of Marlowe's Edward II
- "The Big Whale" by Allen M. Steele - based on first line of Moby Dick
- "Begone" by Daryl Gregory - based on first line of David Copperfield
- "The Red Menace" by Lavie Tidhar - based on first line of The Communist Manifesto
- "Muse of Fire" by John Scalzi - based on first line of Shakespeare's Henry V
- "Writer's Block" by Nancy Kress - based on 'It was a dark and stormy night...' from Paul by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
- "Highland Reel" by John G. Hemry - based on first line of Macbeth
- "Karin Coxswain, or, Death as She is Truly Lived" by Paul Di Filippo - baed on first line of Huckleberry Finn
- "The Lady Astronaut of Mars" by Mary Robinette Kowal - based on first line of The Wizard of Oz
- "Every Fuzzy Beast of The Earth, Every Pink Fowl of The Air" by Tad Williams - based on first line of the Bible
- "Declaration" by James Patrick Kelly - based on first line of the Declaration of Independence