The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.

3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.

4. Post it.

5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I'm spotlighting a book a won a few months ago called Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory that I've just started.  I don't know why I've put it off for so long because it sounds like pretty awesome horror fantasy.

Book Beginning:

What I remember are tentacles.  Tentacles and teeth.

I know that those memories aren't real.  I was only three when my father died, too young to understand what was happening.  So later I filled in the gaps with snippets from monster movies and nature documentaries, with half-forgotten visits to dim aquariums, with illustrations from my mother's grad-school textbooks.

This is how the brain works.  It makes up stories out of whatever odds and ends it finds.  Sometimes they're scary stories.

56:

We waited, silently, for two minutes, three.  Then a group of boys nearest me stepped back from the edge.

Something moved under the water.

I stood up and stifled a yelp.  The pale shape coursed toward the edge of the pool at tremendous speed.  At the last moment, the water broke, and the creature threw itself onto the deck.  It slid a few feet, then threw out its arms and rose up on its belly like a walrus.