Science Fiction Aficionados discussion

I posted a blog with some of my favorite first lines from scifi books, e.g. "This one might be trouble." from Surface Detail, Iain Banks or "It was a pleasure to burn" by Bradbury, Farenheit 451. I then linked with Scifi reddit (SF books) and got some pretty good suggestions. So, what are yours?

http://www.blog.barrykirwan.com/2011/...
http://www.reddit.com/r/printSF

The first two are widely known:
"It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen." George Orwell, 1984
"The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead channel." William Gibson, Neuromancer
And this one from the funniest science fiction novel I've ever read:
"Go, traveler. Go anywhere. The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest." Philip Jose Farmer writing as Kilgore Trout, Venus on the Half-Shell
Ok, so that's technically three lines but I had to include it....Heh

I think you could just about insert any quote from Dune here. Or Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." - It is now a joke that I say this constantly while rock climbing, which was a poor choice in hobby because heights terrify me

Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife — chopping off what’s incomplete and saying: "Now it’s complete because it’s ended here."

A world is supported by four things
the learning of the wise,
the justice of the great,
the prayers of the righteous and
the valor of the brave.
But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.


I keep a journal with all my favorite book quotes, unfortunately, I read Adams' before I started keeping the book. Hmmm perhaps rereading the Hitchhiker series will be my November task....

^ so much for attention to detail. I completely missed the "First Line" qualifier. Oops

J.P. wrote: "The first two are widely known:
"It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen." George Orwell, 1984
"The sky above the port was the color of television tuned to a dead c..."

Yes. I just love those lines.

Here's one that I've always liked, "They caught the kid doing something disgusting out under the bleachers at the high-school stadium, and he was sent home from grammer school across the street. He was eight years old then. He'd been doing it for years."
from The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon. Okay, it's really the 1st paragraph, but it's a good one.

Becky - I don't mind you skipped the first line bit - I'm more than willing to make an exception for Herbert :-)

Kevin - Yep - George Orwell has that ability to sting you right from the start! And Neuromancer's is just awesome, although someone on reddit-scifi pointed out that static isn;t a color :-)

Kurt - fab first line, LOL. It's the second line that makes it even funnier!

JP - by the way I love the 'Kilmore Trout' name. Someone should start another group on scifi naming, because it just ain't that easy!

Because the author of Venus on the Half-Shell was given as Kilgore Trout, a character in Kurt Vonnegut novels, people assumed he was the author. Kurt Vonnegut never liked being associated with science fiction. In reference to his novel Player Piano he once wrote "I have been a sore-headed occupant of a file-drawer labeled ''science- fiction'' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a tall white fixture in a comfort station."

:-) I didn't know taht about him. Actually, his own name would be a good character name in a scifi book...

ha!

i find both Vonnegut and Atwood's opinions on science fiction to be laughable, pretentious, and just eye-rolling overall. but it is hard for me to really hold it against them, as they have both written some of my favorite novels. ah well. i also intensely dislike Orson Scott Card's opinions of other matters, but that doesn't take away from my loving Ender's Saga. sometimes i think some of our more opinionated authors should simply be seen, and not heard from.

Pia, Mark - interesting comment stream. I try not to get interested in who writers actually are, just their writing. It's a bit like actors, sometimes you worship them, until you see them being interviewed... I'm sure there's a good first line could be written about that! I'm also equally keen not to get famous, and Im being quite successful at that at the moment. One of my readers who is a colleague at work said of me: listen to nothing he says, just read what he writes... Oh well...

yep, i actually feel the same way about actors! i often try try to view them in light of their actual work - the roles played, the books written - rather than their personalities or the things they say off the cuff. although sometimes it is very hard... for me at least, particularly with both OSC and mel gibson. but i do try.

As we've been talking about Vonnegut, here's some footage on Youtube where he gives his ideas on how to write a short story. The first few are bland, the middle ones a little more interesting (e.g. be a sadist to your protagonist). Once on Youtube, you can also see what Stephen King has to say about short stories.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQ1wE...#

Vonnegut is not putting down SF or SF readers by denying the label for himself. Like Harlan Ellison, he is correct to do so. They write fiction. If you must be more specific, "fantasist" might work. (This does not mean the same thing as "fantasy writer.") I suspect this would apply to Atwood as well (I've only read one of her novels, and while it is certainly speculative fiction, it is not science fiction. Doesn't she also write magical realism?)

Because he doesn't exclusively write science fiction.

Because he may have used science fictional ideas but they were simply a device that allowed him to write about the human condition; they weren't actually very scientific.

I really don't get any feeling of snobbery from his statement at all. I think you are being too sensitive.

Actually, good science fiction will have real science in it--or things projected from real science if they don't exist yet--and good medical novels will be based on real medicine. Many, in fact, are written by actual doctors, or people involved with science.

I like Vonnegut's writing fine. I've also read a lot about the man. It's not a matter of trying to see good so much as not trying to find things to be offended by.

I have my bookshelves organized the way they are because I like to keep things simple and don't want to micro-manage my collection. It would serve me no purpose, be time-consuming, and get messy fast. I never said that any of these people don't write SF. I said they don't exclusively write SF. I don't consider Stephen King a "horror writer" either (and it drives me nuts when I see everything of his put in that section regardless of its content.)

Pia, I like that one by Bradbury, not read the book, but sets the tone nicely :-)

This one of the reasons why "The Stars My Destination" has been one of my all time favorite books. I love the beginning of the book- it is emblazoned on my mind. I take it from the first line of Chapter One, vs the Prologue :) :

"He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead."

I wanted to include some follow up sentences, but as with painting a house, I would have wanted to include more and more until I had input the entire book ;p

SubterraneanCatalyst wrote: "This one of the reasons why "The Stars My Destination" has been one of my all time favorite books. I love the beginning of the book- it is emblazoned on my mind. I take it from the first line of Ch..."

Yep, it's a terrific book. The Catalog of Cool calls it the 1st 3-D novel, and goes on to add that "Buck Rogers would have had a nervous breakdown in this 25th Century."

i recently re-read The Stars My Destination and i still love it! great book.

Alfred Bester wrote another fantastic book besides The Stars My Destination. The other being The Demolished Man which won the first ever Hugo award. I strongly recommend it. He also wrote a sensational short story called "Fondly Fahrenheit."

I am partial to the (often cited when interesting first lines are being discussed) opening to Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren:

"to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind."

(For those who don't already know about it, the first words' beginning seemingly in the middle of a sentence is intentional by the author, and the format is actually integral to the plot.)

Thanks everyone, these are all fantastic. Pub;isher Gollancz has just been releasing old favourites including a load of Bradbury's work and others (I just bought Hyperion which somehow I've never read yet). Just finishing Deepsix by Jack McDevitt, his first line, set in a quote: "On that final day, we stood bent against the wind at world's end, and watched the churning hell-lit clouds."

Wow, I immediately thought of Orwell and I see that many beat me to it. Well done.

"It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen." George Orwell, 1984

Thanks Christopher, I think Orwell and Bester are in the lead at the moment :-)

"Compared with a spaceship in distress, going to hell in a handbasket is roomy and slow!"

Death Wish by Robert Sheckley, its a short story but I still enjoy the line. I have a real affinity for short scifi stories from the old magazines.

Thanks Becky, nice one!

SubterraneanCatalyst wrote: "This one of the reasons why "The Stars My Destination" has been one of my all time favorite books. I love the beginning of the book- it is emblazoned on my mind. I take it from the first line of Ch..."

I've had that problem when telling people the first line of that book as well. At least, I want to include everything up to "... but now he was adrift in space for one hundred and seventy days, and the key to his awakening was in the lock. Presently it would turn, and open the door to holocaust." Best opening passage ever.

And actually, the prologue's not too bad either:
"This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living, and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it."

...and five minutes later, I've finally stopped reading the damn book.

mark wrote: "...He also wrote a sensational short story called "Fondly Fahrenheit."

I haven't read that story in over 40 years, yet I still remember it clearly. That's the mark of a great story!

Ok, you've all convinced me to buy the book! :-)

I've read Demolished Man but never Fondly Fahrenheit short story I don't think. I'll have to search around to see if I have read it lol.

Here's another one:
The Consul awoke with the peculiar headache, dry throat, and sense of having forgotten a thousand dreams which only periods in cryogenic fugue could bring.

Hyperion, Dan Simmons.

A sure touch!

Everywhere I turn I see that book title, I guess I should get around to reading that.

I just bought it, it's next on my list to read :-)

My favourite author for openings is Cordwainer Smith. If you haven't read his work you really should. He only wrote one novel and a couple of dozen stories, but they are all jewels. Here's some of my favourite openers (all more than one line, sorry):

"She was a girlygirl and they were true men, the lords of creation, but she pitted her wits against them and won. It had never happened before, and it is sure never to happen again, but she did win."
- The Ballad of Lost C'mell

"We were drunk with happiness in those early years. Everybody was, especially the young people. These were the first years of the Rediscovery of Man."
- Alpha Ralpha Boulevard

"You already know the end - the immense drama of the Lord Jestocost, seventh of his line, and how the cat girl C'mell initiated the vast conspiracy. "
- The Dead Lady of Clown Town.

"Perhaps it is the saddest, maddest, wildest story in the whole long history of space. It is true that no one had ever done anything like it before, to travel at such a distance, and at such speeds, and by such means."
- Drunkboat

Incidentally - I also love the titles of the stories...

Sffgeek wrote: "My favourite author for openings is Cordwainer Smith. If you haven't read his work you really should. He only wrote one novel and a couple of dozen stories, but they are all jewels. Here's some of ..."
Yes to both. He's one of my favorite science fiction authors and his titles were excellent too.
One of the better short story titles is "I See a Man Sitting on a Chair, and the Chair Is Biting His Leg" by Harlan Ellison and Robert Sheckley.

Sffgeek wrote: "mark wrote: "...He also wrote a sensational short story called "Fondly Fahrenheit."

I haven't read that story in over 40 years, yet I still remember it clearly. That's the mark of a great story!"
"All reet! All reet! It's time to beat the heat"
I read that story I don't know how long ago yet I can remember that line. Don't ask me why....Heh

Good, we need some humorous first lines too :-)

I'm not sure, but didn't see this one mentioned:
"On my naming day when I come 12 I to gone front spear and kilt a wyld boar he be parbly ben the las wyld pig on the Bundel Downs and how there hadnt ben none for a long befor him nor I aint looking to see none agen."

FromRiddley Walker, Expanded Edition by Russell Hoban.

Gosh, a helluva first sentence!

I also like "to wound the autumnal city" - the first sentence of Dhalgren by Samuel R Delany, but it might be a case of liking it more once the book is read rather than on the first read.

Riddley Walker is pretty good, Russell Hoban imagined what would happen to language many years after some kind of 'end of the world' scenario.

I know it's been done in quite a few films as well, but usually not as well as this guy :-)

"All right. He's dead. Go ahead and talk to him."

Distress by Greg Egan.

Sounds like Greg :-)

I rather like the opening line of Neuromancer by William Gibson.

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

Agreed, and a fab book to boot!