By my front door, hangs this quote by Michelangelo, “I am still learning”. I learn by reading and some of the best reads are speculative books – speculative fiction by female authors.
I’m also a creator of lists and my most recent list is a collection of last lines from speculative fiction. I think authors spend such care of summing up their art with last lines, there is something special about them.
The following are some of my favorite last lines.
Do you have a favorite last line?
“He was beginning to be very curious about his future.” — Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory
“I planted it deep in the rick soil of the riverbank. Seconds after I had expelled it, I felt it begin the tiny positioning movement of life.” — Octavia E. Butler, Imago
“We walked hand in hand down the street. When I met my family again, I would introduce them to both of us.” — Nicola Griffith, Slow River
“The bones of things stuck out everywhere. Waves broke in swift lines on the beach, and she walked over the sand toward her friends, in the wind, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars, on Mars.” –Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
“But it’s not now and that’s not my place. This is where I’m standing, on a station between worlds.” — Karin Lowachee, Warchild
“It was the wrong thing to say about an immortal.” — Helen S. Wright, A Matter of Oaths
“We dream of carving our dragon.” — Robin Hobb, Assassin’s Quest
“But they never learned what Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which had to do, for there was a gust of wind, and they were gone.” — Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time
“He was soon borne away by the waves and lost in darkness and distance.” – Mary Shelly, Frankenstein
“He is coming, and I am here.” — Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife
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