Author Topic: First Line Game  (Read 7637 times)

Sigyn

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First Line Game
« on: September 22, 2008, 10:15:54 PM »
I saw this game one Tor.com and I thought it would be fun to start it here (because I don't know any of the lines they are doing over there). I'll start by listing 10 first lines from various sci-fi or fantasy books. If you know the book it is from, then you post giving the quote, book title, and author. You can then offer another first line for someone else to guess. And please, don't look up the lines on the internet unless you absolutely have to because it is more fun this way. Also, try not to be too obscure.

"I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army."

"The day war was declared, a rain of telephones fell clattering to the cobblestones from the skies above Novy Petrograd."

"Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity."

"The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened."

" "Lot ninety-seven," the auctioneer announced. "A boy." "

"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."

"My father had a face that could stop a clock. I don't mean that he was ugly or anything; it was a phrase the ChronoGuard used to describe someone who had the power to reduce time to an ultraslow trickle."

"Venice, California, in the old days had much to recommend it to people who liked to be sad."

"The worst thing about knowing that Gary Fairchild had been dead for a month was seeing him every day at work."

"When I was eight, my mother lost me to zombies in a one-card draw."

If I had any clue, would I be here?

GreenMonsta

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #1 on: September 22, 2008, 10:54:13 PM »
"Prince Raoden of Arelon awoke early that morning, completely unaware that he had been damned for all eternity."

Too easy but I'll bite.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson.

How about:
"It was an odd looking vine."
"No signs of anything that could cause even a slight case of death"

"He's a paraplegic whats he gonna do, bite us?"

Nessa

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2008, 02:00:14 AM »
"I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army."

Old Man's War by SCALZI!!!


My submission:

It was a dumb thing to do, but it wasn't that dumb.
« Last Edit: September 23, 2008, 02:02:45 AM by Nessa »
"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning."  -  Mark Twain

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Peter Ahlstrom

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2008, 03:03:25 AM »
Urgh, Scalzi and Sanderson were the only ones I knew.

"Mother taught me to be polite to dragons. Particularly polite, I mean; she taught me to be ordinary polite to everyone. Well, it makes sense. With all the enchanted princesses and disguised wizards and transformed kings and so on wandering around, you never know whom you might be talking to. But dragons are a special case."
« Last Edit: September 26, 2008, 03:53:41 AM by Ookla The Mok »
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Skar

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2008, 04:23:30 AM »
" "Lot ninety-seven," the auctioneer announced. "A boy." "
Citizen of the Galaxy, Robert Heinlein

"Skar is the kind of bird who, when you try to kill him with a stone, uses it, and the other bird, to take vengeance on you in a swirling melee of death."

-Fellfrosch

Sigyn

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2008, 05:25:44 PM »
"Mother taught me to be polite to dragons. Particularly polite, I mean; she taught me to be ordinary polite to everyone. Well, it makes sense. Will all the enchanted princesses and disguised wizards and transformed kings and so on wandering around, you never know whom you might be talking to. But dragons are a special case."

Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."
If I had any clue, would I be here?

readerMom

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #6 on: September 23, 2008, 07:25:21 PM »
I think this is this first time I actually knew more than half on these games.  Terry Pratchett's fansite does them sometimes and they always make me feel stupid.
1. Old Man's War, Scalzi
2. ?
3. Elantris, Sanderson
4. The Wheel of Time, Jordan
5. Citizen of the Galaxy, Heinlein
6. Princess Bride, Goldman
7.The Eyre Affair ? (one of the Tuesday Next books), Fforde
8. Sounds familiar but I can't quite remember
9 & 10. No idea.

Sigyn

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #7 on: September 24, 2008, 12:26:57 AM »
Wow, ReaderMom, that was impressive. You should add some more first lines to the game, though.
If I had any clue, would I be here?

Miyabi

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #8 on: September 24, 2008, 02:25:24 AM »
"I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he is the one.  Or at least as close as we're going to get."
オレは長超猿庁じゃ〜。

readerMom

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #9 on: September 24, 2008, 11:23:20 PM »
I know that one too, but I'll keep my trap shut.  My library is upstairs and the computer down, I'll post some tomorrow.

Miyabi

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2008, 12:44:04 AM »
I know that one too, but I'll keep my trap shut.  My library is upstairs and the computer down, I'll post some tomorrow.
I wish I had a library!  My friend has one that is AMAZING!  It's like a loft off to the one side of her house and there are big windows and couches and a fireplace and a TV and nice desk and tons of shelves. :]
オレは長超猿庁じゃ〜。

SarahG

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #11 on: September 25, 2008, 03:38:06 PM »
All sounds perfect except the TV.  A TV has no place in a library.
He ate my horse.

Miyabi

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #12 on: September 25, 2008, 03:49:13 PM »
All sounds perfect except the TV.  A TV has no place in a library.
I like to have a movie playing for background noise when I read. ha ha.  I can't read with dead silence.
オレは長超猿庁じゃ〜。

readerMom

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #13 on: September 25, 2008, 09:32:11 PM »
By library I mean the four overstuffed bookshelves that my husband had to let me to put in the front room because I'm his wife and I would have stuck them in the bedroom if he had vetoed the front room thing.  I keep telling him I can rearrange the furniture so I can fit another one and he gives me dirty looks.  If I come home with one from a garage sale he'll just have to lump it.  The piano is in there too, but no TV. Also no couch, I think I'd like either a used chuch pew or a bunch of bean bags, but neither are in the budget right now.  I keep spending extra money on books.

SarahG

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Re: First Line Game
« Reply #14 on: September 25, 2008, 09:45:26 PM »
You'd fit well in my husband's family.  His parents and aunts and uncles all have bookshelves lining every wall of every room, floor to ceiling, plus stacks filling their basements.

Personally, I don't see much point in owning any books that I'm not sure I'll read frequently.  If I only want to read a book once, I'll get it at the library.  But then again, I spent my childhood moving between continents, so I have an aversion to accumulating possessions - they just make it harder to pack!

As for the TV, I love silence.  If there's anything going on in the background - even classical music - I get distracted.  I like to focus my attention in one place at a time.
He ate my horse.