Let's Talk About... First Lines

Sep 06, 2006 08:49

“I’ve watched through his eyes, I’ve listened through his ears, and I tell you he’s the one ( Read more... )

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naatz September 6 2006, 14:52:59 UTC
2) "The Aurors on guard at the scene are drinking champagne straight from the bottle -- giddy and rude now that the throng of morbid onlookers has wandered off into the bleak, small hours." - cluegirl's "Fire and Blood", right? {Unless I mixed them up. Again.}

8) "If you are prepared," he said.” -- IYAP by Cybele, probably.

3, 4 and 10 sound familiar. :)

I recognise Ender's Game from the Books, mainly because I did the first-line meme about a year ago. :D

My own first-liner? Hrrm. Depends on whether we talk Origifiction or Fanfiction. In fanfiction, it was one of the Snarry Olympics attempts: "Severus's target was a teenaged boy." In Origifiction {translated from Hebrew}: "If Gil would have listened to the messages that were left in his answering machine, he would've noticed that most of them were some variation of the following message:

[Gil, it's Danny. I don't know what you're thinking when every week you read the same poem, but I can't help you get published, or even get better, if you don't give me any new material.]"

---

Here are some good first-liners that I met:

1. The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit. {Scott Westerfeld: Uglies}
2. Now consider the tortoise and the eagle. {Terry Pratchett: Small Gods}
3. You didn't see their faces from where you hid behind the maintenance grate. {Karin Lowachee: Warchild}
4. In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. {Diana Wynne Jones: Howl's Moving Castle}
5. "Your grandfather," said Vanyel's brawny, fifteen-tear-old cousin Radevel, "was crazy." {Mercedes Lackey: Magic's Pawn}
6. My name is Pellaz. I have no age. I have died and lived again. This is my testament. {Storm Constantine: Wraeththu}

|Meduza|

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medawyn September 7 2006, 02:03:23 UTC
See, I think it's unfair that you got cluegirl's fic, because you know the stories I love. :-)

I'll post the answers for all of them before next discussion - it's fun to see what people recognize!

The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.

I forgot how much I love that first line. So shudderingly image inducing. The rest of those are great too - you picked ones that really make me want to read the books that I haven't on that list.

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naatz September 7 2006, 14:54:03 UTC
I love first liners. :D I bought another Pratchett book {Monstrous Regiment} today, with this opener: "Polly cut off her hair in front of the mirror, feeling slightly guilty about not feeling very guilty abouy doing so."

And Uglies? Pretty. Pretty. Pretty book. :D

|Meduza|

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springandsummer September 7 2006, 02:30:44 UTC
...I can't believe that I missed the Ender's Game reference. I'm reading Children of the Mind for crying out loud.

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