Book Beginning & Friday 56: A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix

Happy Friday everybody!!

Book Beginnings

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Rose City Reader. 

Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading. 

If you like, share with everyone why you do, or do not, like the sentence.

The Friday 56

Rules:

• Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
• Turn to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of Freda's Voice
• Post a link along with your post back to Freda's Voice

Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

I just received A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix for review for the Amazon Vine Program. It will be released on May 15. I have read a few books by Garth Nix and was in the mood for a science fiction/fantasy title. Here is the description from Amazon:

You'd think being a Prince in a vast intergalactic empire would be about as good as it gets. Particularly when Princes are faster, smarter, and stronger than normal humans. Not to mention being mostly immortal.

But it isn't as great as it sounds. Princes need to be hard to kill—as Khemri learns the minute he becomes one—for they are always in danger. Their greatest threat? Other Princes. Every Prince wants to become Emperor, and the surest way to do so is to kill, dishonor, or sideline any potential competitor. There are rules, but as Khemri discovers, rules can be bent and even broken.

Soon Khemri is drawn into the hidden workings of the Empire and dispatched on a secret mission. In the ruins of space battle he meets a young woman called Raine, who challenges his view of the Empire, of Princes, and of himself.

But Khemri is a Prince, and even if he wanted to leave the Empire behind, there are forces that have very definite plans for his future. . . .

Beginning:

I have died three times, and three times been reborn, though I am not yet twenty in the old Earth years by which it is still the fashion to measure time.

This opening sentence certainly raises a number of questions for me. What is happening here? What kind of technology or magic is able to let him be reborn?


Friday 56:

"It's a Bitek digestive agent," I said. "Someone tried to drown me in the stuff on the way to the temple."

I am eager to get into this story because it sounds like a nice complicated fantasy.