Top SF Opening Lines

Is there anything better than a great opening line or paragraph? It can set the tone for the whole book, and oftentimes a great opening will hook me right from the get-go. I was thinking about this and I realized that there are just some that stick with me, even years later. And how fun would it be to share them? I'd love to see yours as well, so if you have any favorites share 'em in the comments! 

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy 

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

Game of Thrones 

"We should start back," Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. "The wildlings are dead."

Six Wakes 

"Sound struggled to make its way through the thick synth-amneo fluid."

"With the smears on the outside of the vat and the purple color through the bluish fluid Maria floated in, she figured the orbs were blood drops. Blood shouldn't float. That was the first problem."  

Star Wars  

"ANOTHER galaxy, another time. The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time."

"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Naturally they became heroes."

Leia Organa of Alderaan, senator

Replica

 

"On very still nights sometimes we can hear them chanting, calling for us to die."

Contagion



"In the ransacked Black Quarry base, the boy climbed into an overhead vent and secured the cover behind him. Peering through the crosshatched metal, he watched the engineer consider the pistol in his lap."

The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet



"As she woke up in the pod, she remembered three things."

Lost Girls



"I remember last night perfectly. I know what we ate for dinner. I know my little brother didn't do his homework. I know Dad drove me to my ballet lessons, and then waited for me in the Starbucks across the street. I know that, later in the evening, I fell asleep when I was supposed to be studying geometry, my earbuds in while I listened to Taylor Swift's latest album. That was my yesterday. The problem is, everyone, from my parents to my teachers to the police, say that stuff didn't happen yesterday. It happened last year."

The Pack



"Two lions met a woman in the woods. 
Ro could tell right away that the woman was like them- a shifter, and a lion- in the way she held herself."

Obsidian and Stars



"The day is so new, it's barely day at all. Yet we are already far out on the blue water, gliding under the blue sky. The first rays of the sun paint long stripes of light on the surface."

Brave New Girl



"When I was little, I thought every girl in the world looked just like me, because that's how it is in the nurseries."  

The Extinction Trials 



"She couldn't see him. She didn't even know he was there."