First Lines Friday – 28/10/2022
Hello all welcome to today’s First Lines Friday post! I hope you are having a lovely day to conclude the working week?
In today’s First Lines Friday post, I wanted to do something different in terms of my book selection. Sometimes I set myself a challenge for these posts, and today’s selection was along those lines. Rather than picking a book that I’ve been thinking about of late, I decided to let an element of randomisation in.
Instead, I decided to go to my Goodreads homepage and look through the books on my feed until something caught my eye. It didn’t take very long, as the fourth book I found is the sequel to another that I know is on my TBR. I decided to check out that first book rather than skipping it and going for the second (the book I actually saw), and then took a look at it for First Lines Friday potential. It did not disappoint.
Let’s check out today’s introduction!
There is so much blood.
Roger didn’t know there was this much blood in the human body. It seems impossible, ridiculous, a profligate waste of something that should be precious and rare — and most importantly, contained. This blood belongs inside the body where it began, and yet here it is, and here he is, and everything is going so wrong.
Dodger isn’t dead yet, despite the blood, despite everything. Her 
chest rises and falls in tiny hitches, barely visible to the eye. Each breath is a clear struggle, but she keeps fighting for the next one. She’s still breathing. She’s still bleeding.
Middlegame – Seanan McGuire
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 492
Audience: Adult
Publisher: Tor
Publication Date: 07 May 2019
New York Times bestselling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces readers to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in this standalone fantasy.
Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.
Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.
Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.
Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.
Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.
My Thoughts…
As you know, I am a big fan of fantasy. I’ve also been reading a lot more in the way of science fiction in recent years. One of the things that excites me about this book is that it seems to combine the two genres very well.
Middlegame has been on my TBR since May 2019 – pretty much since its publication. However, I haven’t gotten around to reading it as yet because my reading list is huge!
I can’t wait to finally get around to reading this one. Whilst the synopsis indicates it was originally published as a standalone novel, a second novel has since been published, which revolves around different characters. As to whether that book makes it to my TV or remains to be seen – I will see how I like middle game first. Based on the synopsis and the reviews I have read, I am pretty sure this is one I will enjoy!
Have you read Middlegame, or any other books by this author?
