Interestingly, American Book Review ranked it as No. 22 on its "Best first lines from novels" list
Where most of us heard that line...
And, of course, the "The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest."
Posted on 04/05/2023 8:34:50 PM PDT by Saije
Yes.
My friend in the service had an Apple II with this game on it.
I had read the book and it was the only way to navigate.
Hilarious stuff. Good times.
RR was world manager unlike diaper joe in every conceivable way.
Interestingly, American Book Review ranked it as No. 22 on its "Best first lines from novels" list
Where most of us heard that line...
And, of course, the "The Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest."
I always thought it was captivating.
🥰
The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.
“Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping”
“Going up the river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.”
“His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god—He preferred to drop the Maha — and the — atman, and called himself Sam.”
Roger Zelazny, Lotd of Light
“A screaming comes across the sky”
Gravity’s Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
************************
Ah, Neuromancer.Beginning of cyber punk.
“My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.” - Moll Flanders
It’s got to be the longest first line.
- Opening line from my favorite novel of all time, Little Big Man by Thomas Berger.
A far superior book than the movie version with Dustin Hoffman.
It was the best of times it was the worst of times.
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.
True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?
Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few, that made him worth while.
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer”; but that ain’t no matter.
= . = . =
Huckleberry Finn
I don’t know what the longest first line ever published is; but my 38 beats your Moll Flanders by many words and many more characters :-)
“You pigs git.”
(Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry)
This is the best line ever to me...
Today I killed a boy.
First day of spring by Nancy tucker
There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Stubbs and he almost deserved it.
Voyage of the Dawn Treader. C.S. Lewis
Great line from Old Man and the Sea.I actually went to Hemingway;s house in Key West. Beautiful house. He worked in an office set up in the garage and collected polydactyl cats.
I always liked:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
Charles Dickens: A Tale of Two Cities.
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