Based on the hit thread - lets find some of the best opening lines of novels -
A couple that I remember -
“Once there was a dead man…” (Larry Niven, A world out of time)
“It was starting to end, after what seemed like an eternity to me” (Roger Zelazny, Nine Princes in Amber)
I’m really surprised no one’s yet chimed in with:
Stephen King, The Gunslinger.
Since the classic lit ones (Metamorphosis, Lolita, Anna Karenina etc. etc. etc.) are probably going to get mentioned at some point, I’m going to give mad props to the opening narration of Legend of Mana:
And, of course, the unforgettable opening narration to Bad Dudes:
The President has been kidnapped by ninjas!
Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?
“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.”
Blood Rites: A Novel of the Dresden Files
by Jim Butcher
If you want to illustrate starting a story in the hairy middle of things, this is the opening you want. By the end of the first page you know that the hero is running down a burning hallway, carrying a box full of puppies, and being chased by demons. At the bottom of the first page, he starts to slip.
I defy anyone not to turn the page.
I don’t pretend that it’s great literature, but it is one hell of a hook.
“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”
Though honestly one grows sick of quick punchy sentences featuring mayhem.
“The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette.”
(The Princess Bride, William Goldman
“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether
that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”
Which of course means we must include…
“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know
is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents
were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of
crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
-The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger
"Two tires fly. Two wail.
A bamboo grove, all chopped down
From it, warring songs…
…is the best that Corporal Bobby Shaftoe can do on short notice - he’s standing on the running board, gripping his Springfield with one hand and the rearview mirror with the other, so counting the syllables on his fingers is out of the question."
Neal Stephenson, not to be outdone, starts *Cryptonomicon *with an opening haiku.
We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.
Followed by –
I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive…” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”
That sort of drags you into the novel right from the jump.
From * Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Dream*, by Hunter S. Thompson.
Ummm, that would be because you had the very first response to the OP.
No snarkiness intended, I just get a little irritated with the I can’t believe no one has mentioned [my personal favorite movie/book/food/Buffy character/Star Trek episode/etc.] meme which pops up in every “What is your favorite…” thread on the Dope. It just seemed a little early for it in this one.
As far as my contribution goes, I have to fully agree with Contrapuntal. That is a classic.
Also, In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
1984 by George Orwell. It’s the best science fiction sentence ever.
There’s always the opening line of Paul Clifford. You probably haven’t read the book, but you know the line…or at least the first 7 words…
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
Was that the one where the demon monkeys were pelting him with flaming poo?
Which makes me want to write a story set in a South Bay suburb of Los Angeles:
“It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in Torrance…”
My personal favorite:
“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” — Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers
I like the opening sentence of Neuromancer: “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
I always wonder if people reading it for the first time in the last ten years know what colour that is.
The first TV I had as a kid was a B&W television, no remote control. But for the life of me I can’t think of what a “dead channel” is. My first thought on reading that sentence was “static?”
So you’re the other person besides me who read that!
That’s exactly it. The sky is the colour of that weird black/grey static you got on channels that weren’t broadcasting (or if you didn’t have cable).
“The place stank. A queer mingled stench that only the ice-buried cabins of an Antarctic camp know, compounded of reeking human sweat, and the heavy, fish-oil stench of melted seal blubber.” - Who Goes There, by John W. Campbell (the novella that inspired the movie “The Thing”)