# Best First Lines in SF **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 5, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138 "2000-12-05T15:06:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/1 "2000-12-05T15:06:09Z")
Great last lines make you remember a story, great first lines make you want to read it. Some of my favorites are posted below. Have fun guessing and post your own. - “To you, the third-level intellect who has been guided to this imperishable container and who is able to break the Seal and to read this tape, and to your fellows, greetings.”\* _“There are dragons in the twin’s vegetable garden”_ _The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel._ (note that this line is now outdated: To a whole generation, a television, tuned to a dead channel is a very pretty shade of blue) :eek: _\ played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician–but he was a scientist._ _It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen._ _It walked in the woods. It was never born. It existed._ _According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children had their lives planned out from scratch. Napoleon was figuring how to rule France when he was a barefoot boy in Corsica, Alexander the Great much the same, and Einstein was muttering equasions in his cradle. Maybe so. Me, I just muddled along._ _This is my favorite book in the whole world, although I have never read it._ _A burning woman stalks the streets. Ten stories tall, her naked body a whirling holocaust of fire._ _“It is blood, Doctor?”_ _The Axe Boy lived downstairs._ _The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory._ Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/2 "2000-12-05T15:19:10Z")
> [@](#): > > The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. Neuromancer, William Gibson. [quote] It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. [quote] 1984, the author of which for some bizarre reason I can’t remember. (Someone kill me now, before I get any worse.) Mine: _There was a wall._ ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/3 "2000-12-05T15:21:09Z")
Preview is my friend… ::AHEM:: > [@](#): > > It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. 1984, the author of which for some bizarre reason I can’t remember. (Someone kill me now, before I get any worse.) Mine: There was a wall. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/4 "2000-12-05T15:23:38Z")
You guys are going to wear me out. I stayed up an extra couple of hours last night contemplating first lines in this thread by **uniball** : [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=49454](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=49454) I guess I was the only one interested, but some of those lines I _would_ like answers to! “\ played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician–but he was a scientist.” I _know_ this one!!! Arrrrgh! Give me a minute… “It walked in the woods. It was never born. It existed.” I answered this one on the other thread. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/5 "2000-12-05T16:43:21Z")
> [@](#): > > The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory. Only Neil Stephenson possesses that kind of wit. _Snow Crash_ ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/6 "2000-12-05T16:46:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Space…the Final Frontier. **versus** > [@](#): > > A long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away… Didn’t say it had to be _print_ media. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/7 "2000-12-05T23:13:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \ played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician–but he was a scientist. Well, I got home and went right to to shelf to see if this was indeed “Lewis Padget” as I had been thinking. Bingo. _Time Locker_. I’ll never get any of the others. No bells at all. Please post answers, as I am curious to know if I’ve read any of the works. Probably not, especially if they drift into anything more recent than the early 60s. ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/8 "2000-12-05T23:23:10Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > \*\*Great last lines make you remember a story, great first lines make you want to read it. Some of my favorites are posted below. Have fun guessing and post your own. > > _“There are dragons in the twin’s vegetable garden”_ > > _It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen._ > > _This is my favorite book in the whole world, although I have never read it._ > > Fenris \*\* Those are from: A Wind In the Door 1984 The Princess Bride Here’s one of my own: “A curious custom,” said the Barbarian, “to cut off your king’s head every five years. I wonder your throne finds any takers.” Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2000, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/9 "2000-12-05T23:55:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by divemaster \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \ played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician–but he was a scientist. > > Well, I got home and went right to to shelf to see if this was indeed “Lewis Padget” as I had been thinking. Bingo. _Time Locker_. I’ll never get any of the others. No bells at all. Please post answers, as I am curious to know if I’ve read any of the works. Probably not, especially if they drift into anything more recent than the early 60s. > \*\* Correct, it’s one of only 5 Gallagher stories by Lewis (Moore and Kuttner) Padgett. Dammit, I wish they’d written more! Answers _will_ be posted, but probably not 'till Thursday. That gives couple of days for people to guess. (and, like I said, post their own). Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/10 "2000-12-06T03:43:13Z")
I can’t think of any! George Orwell wrote **1984** , BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/11 "2000-12-06T03:49:56Z")
Got one! “The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. \ felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness: \” ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/12 "2000-12-06T04:40:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gunslinger \* > George Orwell wrote **1984** , BTW. Oh, THANK YOU! I never did manage to remember it, but refused to look it up. ^\_\_^; ---
**Author:** ![zev\_steinhardt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/97f17d/32.png) [@zev\_steinhardt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zev_steinhardt)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/13 "2000-12-06T05:17:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gunslinger \* > \*\* > George Orwell wrote **1984** , BTW. \*\* Are you sure? I thought it was Eric Blair! 😃 ::ducks for cover:: Zev Steinhardt ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/14 "2000-12-06T13:49:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Fenris \* > > _According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children had their lives planned out from scratch. Napoleon was figuring how to rule France when he was a barefoot boy in Corsica, Alexander the Great much the same, and Einstein was muttering equasions in his cradle. > Maybe so. Me, I just muddled along._ That’s Robert Heinlein, Time for the Stars. Here’s one: “You see, I had this space suit.” ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/15 "2000-12-06T14:48:39Z")
I didn’t mean to shoot the cat. Telempath, by Spider Robinson ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/16 "2000-12-06T15:02:04Z")
In a book I just bought, I found one of the greatest first lines I’ve ever read. I have no idea if the rest of the story holds up to this line, but this line alone is worth the price of the book: \* Once upon a time, when men and women hurtled throught air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins, when pearly-fleshed and jewelled apparitions of Texan herdsman and houris shimmered in the dusk on Nicaraguan hillsides, when folk in Norway and Tasmania in dead of winter could dream of fresh straberries, dates, and passionfruits and find them spread next morning on their tables, there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy.\* If the rest of the story is as good as this opening line, I’ve got a new addition to my “all-time favorites” list. Fenris ---
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2000, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/17 "2000-12-06T15:19:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zev\_steinhardt \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by Gunslinger \* > > \*\* > > George Orwell wrote **1984** , BTW. \*\* > > Are you sure? I thought it was Eric Blair! 😃 > > \*\* Don’t you dare call him that! Well, if 1984 if SF, then this is: “A screaming comes across the sky.” ---
**Author:** ![Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Myron\_Van\_Horowitzski](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myron_Van_Horowitzski)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/18 "2000-12-07T04:30:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ethilrist \* > \*\*I didn’t mean to shoot the cat. > > Telempath, by Spider Robinson \*\* But, but… That’s actually from Spider Robinson’s “By Any Other Name,” which I expound upon in this thread: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41970](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=41970). Did he expand it or something? I must look into that… “There was a wall” is LeGuin’s _Dispossessed_ “It walked in the woods” is Sturgeon’s “It,” the granddaddy of all “the thing” stories. ---
**Author:** ![dave99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/45deac/32.png) [@dave99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dave99)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/19 "2000-12-07T07:38:32Z")
> [@](#): > > “A screaming comes across the sky.” \*\* I’m just guessing, I’ve never read it but… “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon? I asked for it at a book store and pronounced the name ‘pine-khun’. The girl at the counter looked at me liked I was the dumbest shit-sack ever to crawl the earth. “The name is pin-shawn, and we don’t have it.” ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2000, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138/20 "2000-12-07T14:14:03Z")
Answers, for those who’re interested: - “To you, the third-level intellect who has been guided to this imperishable container and who is able to break the Seal and to read this tape, and to your fellows, greetings.”\* Children of the Lens, E.E. “Doc” Smith _“There are dragons in the twin’s vegetable garden”_ A Wind in the Door, Madyline L’Engle _The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel._ Neuromancer, William Gibson _Gallagher played by ear, which would have been all right if he had been a musician–but he was a scientist._ The Proud Robot, Lewis (Kuttner and Moore) Padgett _It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen._ 1984, George Orwell _It walked in the woods. It was never born. It existed._ It, Theodore Sturgeon _According to their biographies, Destiny’s favored children had their lives planned out from scratch. Napoleon was figuring how to rule France when he was a barefoot boy in Corsica, Alexander the Great much the same, and Einstein was muttering equasions in his cradle. Maybe so. Me, I just muddled along._ Time For the Stars, Robert Heinlein _This is my favorite book in the whole world, although I have never read it._ Princess Bride, William Goldman and S. Morgenstern _A burning woman stalks the streets. Ten stories tall, her naked body a whirling holocaust of fire._ Metropolitan, Walter Jon Williams _“It is blood, Doctor?”_ The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag, Robert Heinlein _The Axe Boy lived downstairs._ Bones of the Moon, Johnathon Carroll _The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory._ Snow Crash, Neal Stephanson Fenris \*\* [/QUOTE] [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-first-lines-in-sf/44138.md?page=2)