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More favourite opening lines

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  More favourite opening lines Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> - 2018-06-25 17:44 -0700
    Re: More favourite opening lines goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2018-06-26 04:30 +0000
      Re: More favourite opening lines Ahasuerus <ahasuerus@email.com> - 2018-06-26 08:58 -0700
      Re: More favourite opening lines Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-06-27 16:10 +1200
        Re: More favourite opening lines ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-06-27 05:16 +0000
          Re: More favourite opening lines peterwezeman@hotmail.com - 2018-06-27 16:31 -0700
            Re: More favourite opening lines Juho Julkunen <giaotanj@hotmail.com> - 2018-06-28 03:48 +0300
            Re: More favourite opening lines "artyw2@yahoo.com" <artyw2@yahoo.com> - 2018-06-28 09:39 -0700
              Re: More favourite opening lines djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-06-28 17:10 +0000
          Re: More favourite opening lines Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-06-27 17:36 -0700
          Re: More favourite opening lines David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-06-27 19:45 -0500
            Re: More favourite opening lines ted@loft.tnolan.com (Ted Nolan <tednolan>) - 2018-06-28 03:44 +0000
            Re: More favourite opening lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2018-07-01 18:59 -0700
          Re: More favourite opening lines tonynance17@gmail.com - 2018-06-28 05:52 -0700
            Re: More favourite opening lines peterwezeman@hotmail.com - 2018-06-28 10:10 -0700
              Re: More favourite opening lines tonynance17@gmail.com - 2018-07-02 05:51 -0700
                Re: More favourite opening lines Kevrob <kevrob@my-deja.com> - 2018-07-02 09:36 -0700
            Re: More favourite opening lines David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-06-28 16:32 -0500
              Re: More favourite opening lines goldfarb@kithrup.com (David Goldfarb) - 2018-06-29 05:16 +0000
                Re: More favourite opening lines Michael Ikeda <mmikeda@erols.com> - 2018-06-29 11:17 +0000
                  Re: More favourite opening lines Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-06-29 14:16 -0700
                    Re: More favourite opening lines Michael Ikeda <mmikeda@erols.com> - 2018-06-30 12:10 +0000
                      Re: More favourite opening lines Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@excite.com> - 2018-06-30 05:56 -0700
                    Re: More favourite opening lines David DeLaney <daviddelaney@earthlink.net> - 2018-07-12 11:05 -0500
                      Re: More favourite opening lines djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-07-12 19:23 +0000
                        Re: More favourite opening lines Panthera Tigris Altaica <northerntiger@outlook.com> - 2018-07-12 12:57 -0700
                      Re: More favourite opening lines goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2018-07-13 05:18 +0000
                        Re: More favourite opening lines djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-07-14 05:28 +0000
                          Re: More favourite opening lines goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2018-07-16 22:29 +0000
                            Re: More favourite opening lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2018-07-16 20:49 -0700
                              Re: More favourite opening lines djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) - 2018-07-17 04:27 +0000
              Re: More favourite opening lines David Mitchell <david.robot.mitchell@gmail.com> - 2018-06-30 10:00 +0100
              Re: More favourite opening lines "Lee Gleason" <lee.gleason@comcast.net> - 2018-07-01 14:31 -0500
                Re: More favourite opening lines peterwezeman@hotmail.com - 2018-07-01 16:04 -0700
                  Re: More favourite opening lines "Lee Gleason" <lee.gleason@comcast.net> - 2018-07-01 18:49 -0500
                Re: More favourite opening lines D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-07-01 23:12 +0000
              Re: More favourite opening lines tonynance17@gmail.com - 2018-07-02 05:52 -0700
            Re: More favourite opening lines goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) - 2018-06-29 05:10 +0000
              Re: More favourite opening lines tonynance17@gmail.com - 2018-07-02 05:55 -0700
            Re: More favourite opening lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2018-07-01 19:01 -0700
              Re: More favourite opening lines tonynance17@gmail.com - 2018-07-02 05:56 -0700
          Re: More favourite opening lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2018-07-02 05:12 -0700
        Re: More favourite opening lines Moriarty <blues95@ivillage.com> - 2018-06-27 16:40 -0700
          Re: More favourite opening lines Titus G <noone@nowhere.com> - 2018-06-28 15:38 +1200
    Re: More favourite opening lines "Mike Dworetsky" <platinum198@pants.btinternet.com> - 2018-06-26 08:36 +0100
      Re: More favourite opening lines Peter Trei <petertrei@gmail.com> - 2018-06-26 05:39 -0700
    Re: More favourite opening lines Harold Hill <kyle.pellarkosbar@gmail.com> - 2018-06-29 06:23 -0700
      Re: More favourite opening lines Steve Dodds <sdodds@nova-optical.com> - 2018-07-02 07:19 -0600
    Re: More favourite opening lines D B Davis <g@crcomp.net> - 2018-06-30 16:46 +0000
    Re: More favourite opening lines Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2018-07-01 19:12 -0700
    Re: More favourite opening lines Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> - 2018-07-12 23:06 -0500

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#494389

On Sunday, July 1, 2018 at 10:01:34 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, June 28, 2018 at 6:52:34 AM UTC-6, tonyn...@gmail.com wrote:
> 
> > It was a pleasure to burn.
> 
> Fahrenheit 451
> 
> > She was a girlygirl and they were true men, the Lords of Creation, but 
she pitted her wits against them and she won.
> 
> The Ballad of Lost C'mell?

Yes to both!
- Tony

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#494385

On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at 11:16:27 PM UTC-6, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
 
> ===
> No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth
> century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by
> intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that
> as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were
> scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with
> a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm
> and multiply in a drop of water.

It's worth reviewing how that one continues as well...

With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little 
affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible 
that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to 
the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to 
dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to 
recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men 
fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and 
ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds 
that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects 
vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and 
slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth 
century came the great disillusionment.

> ===
> I am a very old man; how old I do not know. 

And this one.

Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more: but I cannot tell because I have never 
aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I 
have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty 
years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that some 
day I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. I do not 
know why I should fear death, I who have died twice and am still alive; but yet 
I have the same horror of it as you who have never died, and it is because of 
this terror of death, I believe, that I am so convinced of my mortality.

John Savard

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#494277

On Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 2:10:40 PM UTC+10, Titus G wrote:
> In article <1c035105-9ba7-4fc8-95a8-aa9d60928054@googlegroups.com>,
> Moriarty  <blues95@ivillage.com> wrote:
>  > This topic has been done periodically over the years. I bring it up
>  > again because last week I read this opening paragraph(*):
>  >
>  > "It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army
>  > of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano
>  > Tacsis brought two hundred men."
>  >
>  > What a hook! Another other recent examples that people would care to 
> share?
>  >
>  > (*) Mark Lawrence "Red Sister". Highly recommended.
> 
> Today.The opening line of Chapter 1 (*) (after the Prologue), read:
> 
> No child truly believes they will be hanged. Even on the gallows 
> platform with the rope scratching at their wrists.......

Mark Lawrence certainly has a way with words that draws the reader in.  Or repulses them, depending on grimdark tolerances. Light and fluffy, he isn't.

-Moriarty

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#494288

On 28/06/18 11:40, Moriarty wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 2:10:40 PM UTC+10, Titus G wrote:
>> In article <1c035105-9ba7-4fc8-95a8-aa9d60928054@googlegroups.com>,
>> Moriarty  <blues95@ivillage.com> wrote:
>>   > This topic has been done periodically over the years. I bring it up
>>   > again because last week I read this opening paragraph(*):
>>   >
>>   > "It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army
>>   > of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano
>>   > Tacsis brought two hundred men."
>>   >
>>   > What a hook! Another other recent examples that people would care to
>> share?
>>   >
>>   > (*) Mark Lawrence "Red Sister". Highly recommended.
>>
>> Today.The opening line of Chapter 1 (*) (after the Prologue), read:
>>
>> No child truly believes they will be hanged. Even on the gallows
>> platform with the rope scratching at their wrists.......
> 
> Mark Lawrence certainly has a way with words that draws the reader in.  Or repulses them, depending on grimdark tolerances. Light and fluffy, he isn't.

I thought Joe Abercrombie's grimdark adult novels were brilliant fun so 
your opening line from the prologue, the word grimdark and your 
recommendation tempted me to look at Red Sister. So far, so good. The 
immediate comparison (for me) was the brilliant first book of Rothfuss' 
two book trilogy where gifted peasant falls out with spoilt privilege at 
training establishment although the worlds and authors tone are far 
apart. I really enjoy the old wise person skilled at interpreting and 
manipulating motive, attitude, behaviour (Ann Leckie's Ancillary series 
did this well as does Vernor Vinge) and the Abbess is a delight.

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#494221

Moriarty wrote:
> This topic has been done periodically over the years. I bring it up
> again because last week I read this opening paragraph(*): 
> 
> "It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an
> army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent,
> Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."  
> 
> What a hook! Another other recent examples that people would care to
> share? 
> 
> (*) Mark Lawrence "Red Sister". Highly recommended.
> 
> -Moriarty

"In five years, the penis will be obsolete," said the salesman.

John Varley, Steel Beach.

-- 
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

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#494222

On Tuesday, June 26, 2018 at 3:36:23 AM UTC-4, Mike Dworetsky wrote:
> Moriarty wrote:
> > This topic has been done periodically over the years. I bring it up
> > again because last week I read this opening paragraph(*): 
> > 
> > "It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an
> > army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent,
> > Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."  
> > 
> > What a hook! Another other recent examples that people would care to
> > share? 
> > 
> > (*) Mark Lawrence "Red Sister". Highly recommended.
> > 
> > -Moriarty
> 
> "In five years, the penis will be obsolete," said the salesman.
> 
> John Varley, Steel Beach.

Lets not forget the obvious:

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984.

Of course, the image that evokes has changed 180 since it was written.

pt

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#494320

On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, Moriarty wrote:
> This topic has been done periodically over the years.

Bill never realized that sex was the cause of it all.

-- 
-Harold Hill

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#494390

On 6/29/2018 7:23 AM, Harold Hill wrote:
> On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 8:44:33 PM UTC-4, Moriarty wrote:
>> This topic has been done periodically over the years.
> 
> Bill never realized that sex was the cause of it all.
> 
Bill the galactic hero.  Harry Harrison

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#494352

Someone parked their TARDIS in front of my house (not that there's 
anything /wrong/ with that). They left its blue door unlocked and 
cracked open. They obviously wanted me to take a joyride in it.
    A short trip to future seemed safest. Because any messes made can be
easily undone when you return to the present.
    My plan was simplicity itself. Set the TARDIS for a short jaunt one 
year into the future, take a look around the inside of my future house, 
and then return to the present...
    The front door of my house one year into the future still opened and
allowed me access to the living room. Everything looked about the same,
except for the copy of _A Rambling Wreck Update_ (Schantz), which sat on
the coffee table. It began with a great opening line:  
 
    It was Angus McGuffin's last day on earth, but he didn't realize it 
    until too late.

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/14826596-a-rambling-wreck-update

✍

Thank you,

-- 
Don

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#494383

Here's one:

Nikki stepped into the conical field of the ultra-sonic cleanser, wriggling so 
that the unheard droning out of the machine's stubby snout could more effectively 
shear her skin of dead epidermal tissue, globules of dried sweat, dabs of 
yesterday's scents, and other debris; after three minutes she emerged clean, 
bouncy, ready for the party. She programmed her party outfit: green buskins,
lemon-yellow tunic of gauzy film, pale orange cape soft as a clam's mantle, and 
nothing underneath but Nikki -- smooth, glistening, satiny Nikki.

John Savard

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#494797

On 6/25/2018 7:44 PM, Moriarty wrote:
> This topic has been done periodically over the years. I bring it up again because last week I read this opening paragraph(*):
> 
> "It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent, Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men."
> 
> What a hook! Another other recent examples that people would care to share?
> 
> (*) Mark Lawrence "Red Sister". Highly recommended.
> 
> -Moriarty

"It was time to whip the God."

Lynn

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