Fun Game- First lines of books

The Game goes like this: Posted are the first line of two or three books. If you can name the title of one or more of the books in the post above you then you get to post the next first lines for others to guess.

To get things started here are some books we all are familiar with....

"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one."

"Once when I was six years old I saw a magnificent picture in a book called "True Stories from Nature", about a primeval forest."

To get things started here are some books we all are familiar with....
Don't make any assumptions... I think our other tries at guessing games showed there are some cultural differencies in reading and knowledge, even within the western hemisphere ;-)

Anyway, the first one is from Ender's Game. The second one, I have no idea about.

OK, my contributions -

"Always remember that they come from the desert."

"This is where gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world."

I don't know any of these.

How about

"One fish, two fish. Red fish, blue fish."

;o)

Dr. Seuss. My parents actually has that one and I loved looking in it when I was small.

None's up for ANY of my two? I choose them for diversity + I know these are books (or at least authors) that have been talked about ;-)

Well, I could cheat and google them, but that wouldn't be nice.
;o)

I agree :-)

(I don't know the name of that Seuss book, btw...)

#2
2nd quote is a Terry Pratchett I'm sure, but will have to check my library to see which one...

A quick look at our shared books says you should know the first one as well... but maybe it was some time since you read it :-)

"Always remember that they come from the desert" is from The Lions of al-Rassan.

#9 - I SHOULD HAVE GUESSED!

:o)

try these:

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

Well, I've read both of those, Jim53, but I had to google to be sure of the first, and I had no clue at all about the second, because it's been over 30 years since I read that.

So, I won't post the answers. Nice choices, though.
:o)

#10 - ... as I said ;-)
I was bit of self-ironic when I choose that one...

#11 - Oh, I know I should know both of these!
*think think think...*
(can you hear the grey matter slosh around inside my skull? Or is it only in my imagination?)

*also thinks - "should focus on work, should focus on work..."*

I know, I know... :-)

Eustace.. has got to be The Voyage of the DawnTreader .

Opening Lines:

#1 "Shadow had done three years in prison."

and for something completely over the top

#2 "Her Imperial Highness, Princess Ce'Nedra, jewel of the House of Borune and the loveliest flower of the Tolnedran Empire, sat cross-legged on a sea chest in the oak-beamed cabin beneath the stern of Captain Greldick's ship, nibbling thoughtfully on the end of a tendril of her coppery hair as she watched the Lady Polgara attend to the broken arm of Belgareth the Sorcerer".

(edited for spelling only)

"Shadow had done three years in prison."
American Gods?

BTW I think "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." is Tolstoy...?

I leave finding a new set of starter lines to someone else - I have to work (and I don't have my library with me right now)!
:-)

#13 Busifer> "self-ironic": appreciative groan...

#16 - Well, I have been kind of single minded since I read it earlier this year ;-)

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy

The second line message #2: A guess, Small Gods?

(No new lines from me today, unless I miraculously have free time at home tonight, which isn't likely. Sorry.)

#18 - Nope. But it's pretty close...

Ooh, ooh, ooh.

#1 "Shadow had done three years in prison."

American Gods by Gaiman

#2 "Her Imperial Highness, Princess Ce'Nedra, jewel of the House of Borune

Magician's Gambit by Eddings

#1 "Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo's child, got on the wrong side of the blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me."

#2 "Lessa woke, cold."

OOH, I think I know one!

#21 - Kushiel's Dart, Jacqueline Carey?

#2 "Lessa woke, cold." is from one of Anne McCaffrey's earlier Pern books. Is it Dragonflight?

(fixed tupo)

>22 littlebookworm: Yes!

and >23 Jim53: Yes! (Be careful of those "tupos!")

Well, I got one, so I'll post one new one and let lbw do one too...

"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination."

oh and way up at post 1 - the second is The Little Prince

#25 - Left Hand of Darkness :-)

*Edited to add: that one is one of my all time favourites*

OK, new starting lines (turning SFy here...) -

1. "It was the deep dark, unexplored except for robotic visitors".

2. "Chiriga's nightclub was right in the middle of the Budayeen, eight blocks from the eastern gate, eight blocks from the cemetery".

1. "It started in mud, as many things do."

2. "She wondered why she was afraid to go home."

And a nice softball...

3. "Call me Ishmael."

Well, I can catch the softball, though if I ever read it all the way through it was for school - Moby Dick. No clue on the other two, nor on Busifer's two. But here's a couple lovely first lines:

1. "It's hard to be a larva."

2. "South of base camp, a daisy-clipper skimmed through the flashwood, buffeting the undergrowth into a brilliant display of light."

Also firmly SF.

Oh! and one more, also SF and rather more obscure than it deserves to be.

3. "The man who was not Terrence O'Grady had come quietly."

Please, folks, you have to ANSWER THE PREVIOUS before adding lines of your own! ;-)

Which means the lines in message #28 is the ones to find out.

well I don't know #28's but #29's "It started in mud as many things do." is Tad Willams Otherland

I won't add any lines since 28's haven't been answered

Will leave #28 to be answered by someone else so they can contribute some lines..,

but I think 3rd in #30 is Agent of Change by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - fantastic series btw.

We're having trouble with #28, so I'll contribute a guess that might help someone else finish it off. I have this vague recollection that the "deep dark" quote is C. J. Cherryh, although I looked and it's not Downbelow Station, the only one of hers that I own. Maybe someone more familiar with her work can tell me if I'm right and it's one of her other novels.

#34 GOOD thought, C J Cherryh does call space the 'dark'. I'm pretty sure that it's Foreigner: - sneaky Busifer, as foreigner is hardly at all about the space travel, but of course the opening scene is the spaceship arriving lost in the dark.

OK, in message #28 the first quote is from a Cherryh-book (first in a series); the other one is from an Effinger-book (first of three).

Anyone?

Yes, qoute number 1 is the start of Foreigner:. Thanks! And... at last!
ANYONE for qoute number 2?

Everyone seem to be stuck on number 2 so I found it on the net:
When gravity fails by George Alec Effinger

Yes, so - then you get to post some lines...?

Thx, here is a couple fantasy books

1. The temperature of the room dropped fast.

2. Jostled from sleep by the bang of a fist against the beechwood oar which pillowed his head, Halddeth started upright, muscles tensed reflexively.

I don't know the first but the second is Master of Whitestorm which I am surprised I remembered cos its been years since I read it

#41 ooh ooh I know #1!! (I just re-read it!)

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud from the Bartimaeus Trilogy.

Both is correct, the first to read this can post the next lines.

1: "It was seven o' clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his days rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips"

2: "When in April the sweet flowers fall, And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all, The veins are bathed in liquor of such power, As brings about the engendering of the flower"

3: "These two very old people are the father and mother of Mr Bucket. Their names are Grandpa Joe and Grandma Josephine"

And now I'm just being cruel with this one...

4: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the mind to correlate all of its contents."

See if you can do it...

#1 is The Jungle Book, right?

Yes, now guess the others and you get a candy floss... a cyber candy floss.

3. is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is it not?

Yes, how are you people guessing these, these opening lines would have my classmates BAFFLED...

#49 - We're OLD, that's how. LOL

#50 - I did not dare say it like that, but that is EXACTLY what I thought ;-)

Bet you can't guess numbers 2 and 4.

#49 Any opening sentance that has the names of 'main' characters is a giveaway - Buckett, Haldeth, Lessa, Ce'Nedra et al are very obvious, sometimes a little tricky to pin the book out of the series, but you've only a choice of a few.

TeenAuthor, we did #2 already in another thread, but we did it in original Middle English. ;o) Hey, I didn't waste spend a whole semester of grad school studying Chaucer for nothing. Or did I?

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=7336#76585

So you figured out #2 eh? Then try and figure out number four!

The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft.

(Touchstone points to wrong book, I think.)

Google is my friend.

You cheated by using Google. Forshame.

Oh, and btw, The Call Of Cthulhu is a short story IN a book I have, that touchstone points to the movie version (which is very good).

Dammit! Was just about to get the Chaucer one! Booooooo I'm too late! Do I still get a point for getting it anyway, all by myself?!

2 points, LadyN, since it was Chaucer.

You get credit, LadyN. I got the Chaucer, too. LOL But I googled the Lovecraft, because no one else was getting it.
All is fair in love and book games, or so I have been told. ;o)

I wasn't planning on taking advantage of my googling and posting the next clues, though. Someone else can do that.

Well, I got one of them (the easiets), so I'll post the first line of one of my very old favorites, which shouldn't be too hard. LadyN and Clam and whoever got the other one need to post some new ones too!

"Brother Francis Gerard of Utah might never have discovered the blessed documents, had it not been for the pilgrim with girded loins who appeared during that young novice's Lenten fast in the desert."

>62 Jim53: Hmm, been many years since I read it, but A Canticle for Leibowitz?

#63> dingdingding we have a winner!

And now for something completely different...

"WILLIE MCCOY HAD been a jerk before he died."

Okay, here's mine.

"124 was spiteful. Full of baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children."

>66 clamairy: Ooh, I know! I know! Pick me! Pick me!

No, I just got one. I'll pass. :)

#67 - Hee hee! Go ahead!

65: Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton

>69 lohengrin: Yep!

From above, the one of mine that didn't get figured out. ^^

"She wondered why she was afraid to go home."

#66 - Beloved!

>65 Morphidae:

Is that "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger?

#72 - Very good, xicanti! :o)

Thanks for my Chaucer points guys!

Here's my offering, from one of my favourites of all time:

"In the period of which we speak, there reigned in the cities a stench barely conceivable to us modern men and women."

75: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. ^^

#75 - Hurrah! Absolutely right lohengrin! I loved that book.

Weird... I posted another message with clues, but it didn't show... would rather not risk double posting, but, I need to get off the computer before my wrist gets really bad...

So, since I've guessed a couple now, here's a couple clues:

1. "She wondered why she was afraid to go home." (Still no one! Wow.)

2. "This is a honeycomb world. It hides a hollow heart."

>78 lohengrin: - I couldn't stand it anymore, so I looked your first one up. It's from Black Sun Rising (Coldfire Trilogy Book 1) by C. S. Friedman.

Since I had to look it up, I won't give a clue - yet.

Wow, listen to those crickets chirp...

#78 OOOH! I KNOW ONE!

2 is The Killing Kind isn't it?

81: Bingo! ^__^

I feel inordinately brilliant, which is kind of tragic if you really think about it.

Since you guessed it, it's your turn to post a line! :)

"Somehow I knew my time had come when Bambie Barnes tore her order book into little pieces, hurled it in the air like confetti, and got fired from the Rainbow Diner in Pensacola right in the middle of lunchtime rush."

This may be hard - I'll give hints if needed.

"Bambie Barnes" and Pensacola sound like Carl Hiaasen, but even if that's right I have no idea which book.

Nope. But it DOES sound like him.

Hint: it's a young adult book.

Hope was Here?

Correct! The book that made me cry on public transportation!