Jump to content

Guess the first line


needle

Recommended Posts

[quote name='polishgenius' post='1653495' date='Jan 18 2009, 21.05']Veniss Underground? I've only read the first chapter of that book but for some reason the meerkat rings a bell.[/quote]

Yes.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Horza' post='1653498' date='Jan 18 2009, 21.07'][b]A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before but there is nothing to compare it to now.[/b][/quote]

Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon.

Backatcha... from an interesting book I haven't seen mentioned here for a long while:

[b]
I was born on a farm on Whileaway. When I was five I was sent to a school on South Continent (like everybody else) and when I turned twelve I rejoined my family. [/b]

That's enough, for now.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='needle' post='1653120' date='Jan 18 2009, 13.30']Damn you Charlie, [i]I cannot get number nine[/i].

I have no idea what I've recced you over the years beyond Cordwainer Smith and the recent ones :(

Even google cheating doesn't work.[/quote]




I shall elucidate then:


Prologue:

Once there was a boy in a house. He was alone because his father was out at work, and his mother had run around the corner to the store. Although the boy was only four, he was a reliable child who knew the difference between toys and accidents waiting to happen, and his mother trusted him to be alone for five minutes.

.......


Chapter One:

I was tired.

I got up, crawled out of the maelstrom of sheets, at 9:30 this morning. I took a shower, I drank some coffee. I sat on the floor with my back to the wall and felt my muscles creak as they carried a burning cigarette from my mouth to the ashtray. And when I first thought seriously about taking a nap, I looked at the clock. It was 10:45.

AM.

I was still sitting there, waiting to die, waiting to fossilize, waiting for the coffee in the kitchen to evolve enough to to make a cup of itself and bring it through to me, when the phone rang.


.........
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='BookWyrm' post='1653412' date='Jan 19 2009, 01.23']H.P. Lovecraft, The Statement of Randolph Carter[/quote]

Correct. I love the ending line in that one as well.
[i]"YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!"[/i]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='williamjm' post='1653497' date='Jan 19 2009, 03.06']Susanna Clarke - [i]Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell[/i]

[b]This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying…. but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice…. but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks…. but nobody loved it.[/b][/quote]


The Stars My Destination
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Vrana' post='1653668' date='Jan 19 2009, 01.30']Correct. I love the ending line in that one as well.
[i]"YOU FOOL, WARREN IS DEAD!"[/i][/quote]

Lovecraft is BRILLIANT!!! :P
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's an amazing book, Eef. Everyone should read it .

Stego's number 9 is : [b]Only Forward, Michael Marshall Smith.[/b]

(Will - Didn't think I'd recced you him, though I remember discussing him.)

Ok,

here's one :

[b]It's about sex, and cruelty, and forgiveness.[/b]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Bellis' post='1653611' date='Jan 19 2009, 05.32'][b]
I was born on a farm on Whileaway. When I was five I was sent to a school on South Continent (like everybody else) and when I turned twelve I rejoined my family. [/b][/quote]
[i]The Female Man[/i] by Joanna Russ.

I'll post a quote when I get home and can look through my books.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='Maester Joergensen' post='1658482' date='Jan 22 2009, 13.51'][b]In the autumn season of the vine, word went forth from among the cypresses and olives and the laden vines of his country estate that Sandre, Duke of Astibar, once ruler of that city and its province, had drawn the last bitter breath of his exile and age and died[/b][/quote]

Oh hey, I recognized one! Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. But I'm at work with no books to quote... I'll get one when I get home.

ETA: Duh, Amazon lets you read the first page of a lot of things, so here you go:

[b]I slipped the poison dart into its slot under the right collar of my cloak, next to the lockpick.[/b]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote name='divisionerror' post='1658538' date='Jan 22 2009, 15.30']Oh hey, I recognized one! Tigana, by Guy Gavriel Kay. But I'm at work with no books to quote... I'll get one when I get home.

ETA: Duh, Amazon lets you read the first page of a lot of things, so here you go:

[b]I slipped the poison dart into its slot under the right collar of my cloak, next to the lockpick.[/b][/quote]


[i]Jhereg[/i]
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually have nothing to add to this thread as far as first lines go. I do want to thank Stego and Needle, as Only Forward will be my next purchase. Just finished reading the prologue and chapter one over at Amazon and I immediately wished that I had the book in front of me, I didn't want to stop.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...