I always found the most intriguing books were ones that started you in the center of the beginning of the book as the most captivating. Your reaction is along the lines of “wait… what?” and you are playing catch-up through the first third or so of the story (book, novel, whatever) and by then you are so completely hooked with emotional ties or action that you almost have no choice but to find out what happens through the rest of the piece. For this reason, my favorite author is William Gibson.

“I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you’re crude, go technical; if they think you’re technical, go crude.”

As you may infer from the first line of Johnny Mnemonic Gibson doesn’t like to use introductions- and there is no worry about catching someone on the first paragraph, page or line. When they read the first word they are already halfway through the story, and Gibson drops bones for his readers throughout the entire story to flesh out not only the characters, but the setting. If he absolutely must describe a scene it is in two scentences or less, and only sketches it out.

I recently saw the Jane Austen action figure. I was sort of wanting one of those too.

Sarah, where did you get it???

This scans like poetry. Would it be as good without the “and”? No. Would it be as good broken into two sentences? No.

A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy baloon of a head.

That one sentence got me to read the paragraph, which got me to read the first chapter, which got me to read the next then the next chapters, etc. It’s a strange and great book.