Favorite Books Meme

[gfish]

You know the drill. Guess the books from the first sentence as given below.

1: Buu lay in his leafy arbor nest and looked up at the stars in the dark sky.

2: I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning. (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig, datavore and socalistboy)

3: A burning woman stalks the streets.

4: You see, I had this space suit. (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel - Robert Heinlein, rollick)

5: I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. (Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card, tylik)

6: Part of the problem, Nita thought to herself as she tore desperately down Rose Avenue, is that I can't keep my mouth shut. (So You Want To Be A Wizard, Diane Duane, damiana_swan)

7: Strategy is the craft of the warrior. (The Book of Five Rings, Musashi, shadowblue)

8: "I'm telling you, there's more history to this house than any other place on Indian Neck, and that's the truth," Ted Martin said, and took a long swallow of beer. (Interstellar Pig, William Sleator, caitaro)

9: High over the northern hemisphere the scoopship's hull began to sing. (Fallen Angels, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Michael Flynn, morinon)

10: Let's set the existence-of-God issue aside for a later volume, and just stipulate that in some way, self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet and immediately began trying to get ride of each other, either by spamming their environments with rought copies of themselves, or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored.

Comments

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Is #4 Robert Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel"?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Indeed! My dad used to steal plots to tell as stories to my brother and me in the car. (The other one I remember strongly is Pohl Anderson's Tau Zero.) This was a favorite of mine to ask for, and later became a favorite when I was old enough to read the original. The only book with stronger happy early childhood memories is The Hobbit, and the first sentence of that is just too obvious.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I briefly considered "The Hobbit" too, but given that I know the first sentence of it without even looking — me, who sucks at this game — it goes beyond "obvious" and well into "gimmie."

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Five is Ender's Game.

Have you read the short story that preceded the novel?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm glad it was expanded into a full novel, but a lot of his older short fiction is really amazing.

[morinon.livejournal.com]

9 is Fallen Angels by Niven?

[gfish.livejournal.com]

You got it. The book that introduced me to fandom. Light reading, maybe, but still a favorite.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

IIRC, #6 is So You Want to be a Wizard, by Diane Duane.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm glad someone got it! My all-time favorite piece of escapist literature. It still makes me ache wanting that vision of the universe to be true.

[maida-mac.livejournal.com]

Me, too.

Also, thanks to some friends buying them for him, Jake feels the same way.

[tithonium.livejournal.com]

2) zen/motorcycle.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Correct. Did you recognize it, or just assume it would be one of my top 10? :)

[tithonium.livejournal.com]

That's the weird bit. I recognized it, and it's NOT a book I'd expect to recognize.

[shadowblue.livejournal.com]

Excellent choice with #6, although I wouldn't have gotten it myself. I loved that book.

#2 Zodiac, Neal Stephenson? I've got it, I'll check.

#7 The Book of Five Rings? I will check that too.

#10 I know I've read that. But it isn't HHTG. It reads like Douglas Adams, though...

(after checking) oh, I lose.

Also, #8 sounds like a good way to start a book.
In retrospect, #2 doesn't read very Stephensony, I guess.
I should read more.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Right about The Book of Five Rings. Would have been The Art of War, but the first line there is 'The art of war is of vital importance to the state', so, yeah.

[shadowblue.livejournal.com]

Oh, we have a different translation, then. Mine starts "I have named my own Way of the Martial Arts the 'Two Heavens, One Style," and after many years of discipline have thought to describe it in a book for the first time."

[gfish.livejournal.com]

I think I skipped the introduction on that one.

[socialistboy.livejournal.com]

#2 is robert pirsig's *zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: an inquiry into values*

-seth's wife :)

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Yuppers. And hi!

Better late than never???

[caitaro.livejournal.com]

"I'm telling you, there's more history to this house than any other place on Indian Neck, and that's the truth."
Interstellar Pig



this is such a huge bump that it's crazy ;3

Re: Better late than never???

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Correct! And... how on earth did you stumble across this post?

Re: Better late than never???

[caitaro.livejournal.com]

Googling random william sleator book quotes of course :D