Yoinked from janusd, BECAUSE I CAN
Fnargh, memes. These are the rules.
1. Go to your bookcase, get 9 of your books from it. It doesn't matter if they're from the same writer, but try and make them from a different series.
2. Post the first line (or two if it's just a word or something really generic) of the first real chapter of the book. Personally, I did the first paragraph unless it looked better otherwise.
3. People can then try and guess what book this is from, and no cheating!
1. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
2. Every story has a beginning. Mine is in Washington, D.C., in 1969.
Washington, D.C., in the sixties, seventies, and eighties was one of the poorest places in the country. Murder was common. Crack cocaine was just getting its start. Life expectancy for kids was worse than in many third world countries. The politicians were corrupt, homelessness was at its peak, and even law-abiding people viewed the police as the enemy.
3. This tale begins a little less than nine months before King Lanius was born. That was when Certhia, King Mergus' concubine, went to Mergus and told him she thought she was with child.
4. "Who is John Galt?" -- "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, sighted by janusd.
5. They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle.
6. It began, as many things do, with a death. And a burial, on a spring morning, with mist on the ground so thick that it poured into the grave and the coffin was lowered into cloud. (Not precisely from the first 'chapter', but it does skip a brief prologue.)
7. Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling...stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness. (Same as above.) -- "Witches Abroad" by Terry Pratchett. Discovered by skunktaur.
8. It was dark beyond darkness, deeper than the depths of night.
She stood -- frozen, motionless -- wrapped in the impenetrable gloom.
From somewhere in the darkness echoes the high-pitched sound of droplets hitting the surface of a pool, but she could not tell in what direction it lay, or how far away it was. The echoes gave the impression that she was in a sealed cavern, but she knew this was not so.
9. A change of seasons was upon the Four Lands as late summer faded slowly into autumn. Gone were the long, still days of midyear where sweltering heat slowed the pace of life and there was a sense of having time enough for anything. Though summer's warmth lingered, the days had begun to shorten, the humid air to dry, and the memory of life's immediacy to reawaken. The signs of transition were all about. In the forests of Shady Vale, the leaves had already begun to turn.
Off you lot go. This should be interesting.
1. Go to your bookcase, get 9 of your books from it. It doesn't matter if they're from the same writer, but try and make them from a different series.
2. Post the first line (or two if it's just a word or something really generic) of the first real chapter of the book. Personally, I did the first paragraph unless it looked better otherwise.
3. People can then try and guess what book this is from, and no cheating!
1. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
2. Every story has a beginning. Mine is in Washington, D.C., in 1969.
Washington, D.C., in the sixties, seventies, and eighties was one of the poorest places in the country. Murder was common. Crack cocaine was just getting its start. Life expectancy for kids was worse than in many third world countries. The politicians were corrupt, homelessness was at its peak, and even law-abiding people viewed the police as the enemy.
3. This tale begins a little less than nine months before King Lanius was born. That was when Certhia, King Mergus' concubine, went to Mergus and told him she thought she was with child.
4. "Who is John Galt?" -- "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, sighted by janusd.
5. They say the world is flat and supported on the back of four elephants who themselves stand on the back of a giant turtle.
6. It began, as many things do, with a death. And a burial, on a spring morning, with mist on the ground so thick that it poured into the grave and the coffin was lowered into cloud. (Not precisely from the first 'chapter', but it does skip a brief prologue.)
7. Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling...stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness. (Same as above.) -- "Witches Abroad" by Terry Pratchett. Discovered by skunktaur.
8. It was dark beyond darkness, deeper than the depths of night.
She stood -- frozen, motionless -- wrapped in the impenetrable gloom.
From somewhere in the darkness echoes the high-pitched sound of droplets hitting the surface of a pool, but she could not tell in what direction it lay, or how far away it was. The echoes gave the impression that she was in a sealed cavern, but she knew this was not so.
9. A change of seasons was upon the Four Lands as late summer faded slowly into autumn. Gone were the long, still days of midyear where sweltering heat slowed the pace of life and there was a sense of having time enough for anything. Though summer's warmth lingered, the days had begun to shorten, the humid air to dry, and the memory of life's immediacy to reawaken. The signs of transition were all about. In the forests of Shady Vale, the leaves had already begun to turn.
Off you lot go. This should be interesting.