NoRose
28024
619
13
Enough sci-fi here to qualify? Great books, nonetheless!
Jan 7, 2025 7:47 AM
NoRose
28024
619
13
Enough sci-fi here to qualify? Great books, nonetheless!
YippeeKayakOB
“A merry little surge of electricity piped by automatic alarm from the mood organ beside his bed awakened Rick Deckard.” – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner)
Pirsquar
"When Red wins, she stands alone.
Blood slicks her hair. She breathes out steam in the last night of this dying world." - This is How You Lose The Time War
ItsActuallyDavidNow
“… and then the dragons attacked.”
jesusisherelookbusy
“I always get the shakes before a drop. I’ve had the injections, of course, and hypnotic preparation, and
it stands to reason that I can’t really be afraid. The ship’s psychiatrist has checked my brain waves and
asked me silly questions while I was asleep and he tells me that it isn’t fear, it isn’t anything important —
it’s just like the trembling of an eager race horse in the starting gate.”- Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein (1959)
pfshfine
"The building was on fire, and it wasn't my fault."
Besteger
I simply knew Dresden would be down here, somewhere.
sleix
"I'm pretty much fucked." -- The Martian, Andy Weir.
SumOneElse
"On one otherwise normal Tuesday evening I had the chance to live the American dream. I was able to throw my incompetent jackass of a boss from a fourteenth-story window. " - Larry Correia, Monster Hunter International.
If the title didn't give it away, the narrators boss started the fight by revealing he wasn't human.
SumOneElse
If anyone's curious, the whole book is available as a free sample from the publisher (who will happily sell you the next 10ish books after hooking you): https://www.baen.com/monster-hunter-international.html
TamGarTrinKi
I still don't understand how so many people like Catcher in the Rye. I kept waiting for the story to start, then the book finished.
ObiHaiv
Thank you. I thought it was just me, like, people "like" the book because they think that they are supposed to "like" the book.
CapESzed
"I first met him in Piraeus" from Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantakis.
stevencloser
So, there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians.
danteTheVirtualAdept
Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king.
danteTheVirtualAdept
Ok technicqlly the first sentence after the prologue, bit still.
Pheehelm
They've got The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe on there, but Voyage of the Dawn Treader is even better: “There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.”
DutchBoeremeisie
Oh, that is fantastic.
MaverickTitan
All the Narnia books are a great read, but yeah, Dawntreader has the best opening line.
AyatollahBahloni
"His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before." - Isaac Asimov, _Foundation_.
knightoftempest
"Sam Vimes sighed when he heard the scream, but he finished shaving before he did anything about it."
MaverickTitan
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
The Crow Road.
fdlFan
"Trouble began, and not for the first time, with an apple." -- Sir Terry Pratchett, _The Sea and Little Fishes_. (Technically it's a short story, not a novel, but it's too good to leave out.)
Suomijuusto89
It's surprising to see The Hunger Games on that list, mainly because some of those books, at least in translation, are incredibly dry reading. (excluding the hunger games)
ItsActuallyDavidNow
“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5
waspy17
Now is the winter of our discontent.
danteTheVirtualAdept
Oh yeah, Shakespeare opening scenes tend to be straight fucking bangers.
Scugwuh7
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
The Gunslinger, Stephen King.
So simple, but so evocative. It's the entire plot of the first book of the series, condensed into a statement that embodies the implacable nature of the protagonist better than maybe every word that comes after.
emu314159127001
He sites some of his influences as writers like Theodore Dreiser, that he referred to as muscular cats, but he clearly also learned his Hemingway, so here's the pinnacle, functional and minimalist while still being evocative. Great writing on a scrap of paper
MzHartz
"No shit, there I was." Dragon by Steven Brust
derklempner
"Many years later as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
loveismakingmafruma
It was a dark and stormy night - A Wrinkle in Time.
Just finished reading it with my little one again and that first line made us shiver and cuddle.
bikergeek6249
Borrowed from the novel _Paul Clifford_ by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.
loveismakingmafruma
Good to know! :)
bikergeek6249
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulwer-Lytton_Fiction_Contest
ChetinBey
: “The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” The Gunslinger by Stephen mothafuckin’ King
SonnyVabitch
Call me Ishmael.
InTheBeginningWasTheNerd
Ishmael Jones?
qtRaven
SonnyVabitch
This is glorious!
giraffpappa
"It was a dark and stormy night"
QuakThat
Missing William Gibson Neuromancer, "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
wadatahmydamie
Another great line: She had the kind of legs that kept her butt from touching her shoes.” - Noir, by Christopher Moore
coderanger
Scrolled looking for it and was also disappointed.
Lycanthian
Johnny Mnemonic is the a short story prequel to Neuromancer (which itself is part of the sprawl trilogy). Johnny mnemonic got a film adaptation staring Keanu Reeves who later of course played Johnny Silverhand in cyberpunk 2077. I so want a good Neuromancer movie with Reeves, just more Reeves in Cyberpunk settings.
RyanH42
I wonder how they'll depict that in the tv show.
QuakThat
They're making a Neuromancer tv show?
RyanH42
Yeah, on Apple.
TinyOctopus
These are three of tiny octopus' favorite opening lines.
AnonOmis1000
You liked Catcher in the Rye?
Radijsjes
Which books are they from?
TinyOctopus
Jonathon Livingston Seagull, The Last Unicorn, and Catcher in the Rye.
teardropivyyearofthetiger
I caught the Catcher Reference- but it’s been so long, I wasn’t 100% sure, need to read it again
NoRose
The film 'The Last Unicorn' traumatized me as a child, so of course, I have a signed copy of the illustrated book as an adult. Thanks for the remembrance.
ElbowDeepInAGoblin
There was a theater run and book signing some years back. Apparently the author was screwed out of fair profit from the film for near of a decade, but the rights moved to better people and they let him on tour and gave him his cash. Awful stuff humans do to each other sometimes. Almost makes you want to awake one morning to find yourself transformed in your bed into a gigantic insect. https://youtu.be/FSGStjLA7jM
NoRose
I went to the theater run and got the illustrated book. Had the opportunity to be retraumatized as an adult. The movie is just fucked up and Mia Farrow was an amazing unicorn.
billyjonas
MahadmaGaudi
maybe a spoiler:
also the last line
DutchBoeremeisie
Ka, like a wheel.
pfshfine
Every time this infographic is posted on here, I'm always baffled this wasn't included.
DeepThought42
My favorite of all times
Scugwuh7
I didn't see yours and literally just posted the same. You have excellent taste!
billyjonas
Long days and pleasant nights to you
DutchBoeremeisie
Oh man, goosebumps. I might have to re-read the entire series now.
FluffykinsTheDestroyer
Please sir, might I have a morsel of sauce so I may drink upon thyne font of knowledge?
billyjonas
The gunslinger, the first in the dark tower series by Stephen king.
FluffykinsTheDestroyer
Thanks a whole bunch!!! I've heard of the dark tower series but I've never had the chance to check it out. I'm definitely gonna have to now!
NoRose
My greatest brag in life is that I have the first additions of each book in the series. I hunted them down as soon as I had disposable income. It's that good. (oh, and I guess my other joy is that I have a kid, but man, these books...they kept me up at night for only good reasons)