Did you know April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness month? The Amputee Coalition began this observance in 2011. Today, 2.1 million people in the U.S. alone live with a limb loss or limb difference. More than half of those who have amputations are caused by vascular disease. That’s a lot of people. A lot of people who need the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to continue to protect their civil rights. (Note: ADA protects all people with disabilities.)
We must be aware of this so we may help protect their civil rights and so we can practice prevention of vascular disease and other preventable causes of limb loss or limb differences.
What Has LL & LD Got to Do with First Lines?
First Lines is a series of blog articles posted on around the first of the month. Inspired by a friend’s suggestion that I write a post on how to write the first line of your story, I started this series. My idea was to inspire my writing with these examples. I also hoped to inspire other writers and point readers to books they might enjoy.
I didn’t find any SFF featuring a character with LL or LD. But in the spirit of raising awareness of how disabilities affect people’s daily lives, let’s explore science fiction books whose main characters have a disability. Even broadening my search to all disabilities, there aren’t nearly as many of these as there should be, But I found some I think you’ll be interested in reading.
Disability: Aphasia, Celiac/Coeliac Disease, Cerebral Palsy, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Endometriosis, Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease, Migraines / Headaches
Ticks don’t actually have teeth. I looked it up afterward, scrolling through photos with that same kind of sick fascination of watching someone pop a pimple. They’ve got this horrible ridged capitulum that opens up into three parts like the monster from Stranger Things, sinks into your skin, and holds on just long enough to derail the course your entire life
I don’t know what time it is when I wake up. This time last year, I would’ve known the second I heard my alarm trilling: 7:30 AM on a Monday, enough time to hit the snooze once, slip out of bed, turn on the coffee pot my roommate and I weren’t allowed to have in our dorm, and get ready to leave for bio at 8:40.
Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O’Neal
Disability: Mobility Issues, Uses Wheelchair
They say truth is the path to all ends, but maybe I really shouldn’t have told Madame Francine. She looked like a squashed frog. I mean, she might have kicked me out because of the kitchen incident, but I’m pretty sure it was the frog thing.
Could anyone blame me? I could only listen to that particular speed so many times. It’s not like I didn’t know. I was unsuitable for marriage and no respectable family would want me to teach their children. Good thing I had a better plan in mind than being the wife or governess.
Of course, that plan didn’t include getting drenched on a train platform or being sent home with the most insipid of my former classmates as company, without the recommendation that would get me into the university.
By Winged Chair by Kendra Merritt
Disability: Blindness
Davies.” Edgerton’s aid appeared in the doorway to his office, moving almost silently.
Kate had been sitting at attention on the bench just opposite. She stood promptly, walking into the office. She stopped at the prescribed 3 feet from the desk and saluted. “Sir, guard Davies reporting.”
She could feel the way her hair had come loose during the day, untitled, and how the sweat pool in the small of her back, under the uniform. Kate did her best to stay calm, wondering why he called her in, taking comfort in the formalities.
Wards of the Roses by Celia Lake
Disability: heart disease
There was nothing quite like the first tick of a new heart.
The silver TICCER stuttered to life and Anna’s palm, it’s metal pulse of metronome moving in time with her own clockwork cart.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Grandpa Thatcher threw down his instruments with a clatter.
Anna’s gaze snapped to the surgical table, were their young patient motionless, open chest open. “What is it?”
“His condition is more severe than I thought.” Thatcher leaned forward to get a better look. “Glasses.”
Hands shaking, Anna pushed Thatcher’s spectacles up on the bridge of his nose. Complications and surgery were more common than not, but her grandfather’s desperate tone still hit Anna at her core. She set her teeth at the memory of the last time, this boy before them had gone under her knife. She’d held that scalpel steady but pressed too hard splitting skin, severing arteries. Warm blood ran over her fingers, and Thatcher’s voice boomed across the table as he pushed her way, reclaiming control.
The boy had lost an arm that night, and Anna had lost her nerve.
Tarnished Are the Stars by Rose Thor
Disability: Deafness / Hard of Hearing
Prologue
Half-dreaming at the surface, Ea wakes in an instant, her reflexes always on high alert. But it is only a wild and lusty chase. The young couple leap, splashing back down and then, twirling in their bubbles, joined together belly to belly. Ea, admires their dance. Some things never change.
Others do. Within three generations, this pod had racially blended into a new tribe that mixes spinner grace with bottle nose strength. Like all the old, Ea finds the young more beautiful every day, but she would not go back. Time goes so fast now anyway, calves barely weaned, and now mating, dusks and dawns racing each other as if the whole ocean had accelerated to a new rhythm. She does not mind, because it means reunion comes closer, with the ocean and with one whose heart still beats in hers. Since the seasons blurred, the moons lost their meaning and it is not for her to dictate the spawning of fish or coral. It is odd, at this time of her life, to miss the ritual she so resisted when she was young. Perhaps none of this would’ve happened if she had not. Everything broke apart, but Ea no longer blames herself. What happened was bigger than any fault of hers.
Pod by Laline Paull
Disability: degenerative neuromuscular disease
Part One
In the void where stray Adams float and time is relative, all is frozen and silent. Nothing lives in deep space. There are no voices.
Except for the silent transmissions of the to galactic Galactica collective.
Have You heard about the rope child on the primitive wilderness planet?
Huh?
Which planet?
Here is what it looks like.
It’s natives call it “Earth” (or “diqiú”) (or “bhūmi”)(the indigenous sapients lack a unified language).
Disembodied thoughts, converged. Stars remain eternal and uncaring, pins in cosmic space-time. But abstractions crisscrossed the dark energy matrix of the galactic spiral faster than the speed of light. They formed an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of silent conversations.
The originators of the news shared and swapped mental snapshots of a boy in a wheelchair. Here is the rogue child’s corporeal form, they explained. The local natives gave him a spoken name: “Thomas.”
Majority by Abby Goldsmith
Clarification
There are no affiliate links in this post. I don’t make a cent off of the books listed on this page. Usually I pull these titles at random.
Many thanks to Kit of Metaphorsandmoonlight.com for her Sci-fi/Fantasy books with Disability Masterlist where I found most of these titles.
Do You Want to Read More?
Do these first lines hook you? Do you want to read more? They are here for your enjoyment. And to entice you to buy more books.
Obviously these books do not necessarily feature limb loss or limb differences. If you know of a science fiction story whose main character lives with LL or LD, please mention the title and author in the comments.
If you liked this post, check out previous First Lines posts.