First Line Trivia (please read the rules)
 

Hi all! I had a new idea for a trivia thread in this forum:

I will start by giving the first line of either a Book, Movie or Song. I will indicate which of those three it is. The next person has to guess what it is. I will confirm the answer as being right/wrong. If you are right, then you post the next "first line".

For example, I could post:

BOOK: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

The answer would be "Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens.

****Now I know that this is a VERY easy trivia to Google the answer too, so please refrain from doing that. If you have to Google, don't answer****

If the line in question goes 24 hours with no answer, the poster has to give the answer and then give the next line over to someone new.

NOTE: For movies, you must give the first line of SPOKEN dialogue. Words appearing on the screen don't count (eg "A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away...." would not count as the first line of Star Wars IV)

Ok, I'll start with an easy one:


BOOK: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

The Gunslinger -Stephen King



Book- "The Palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened."

Close enough to 24 hours, I think :( Was The Eye of the World-Robert Jordan.

Next?

Book: "The Deliverator belongs to an elite order, a hallowed subcategory."

This one should be pretty easy.

The Deliverator?

Ummm, no.

Hint: science fiction

Snow Crash - Neil Stephenson

Excellent choice...


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

I was going to guess "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", but that isn't the correct answer. It felt right, however.

Nope... A little more recent but definately in the same company as Snow Crash and DADOES...

Oh, I already know the answer, Charlatan, but that was because I Googled the text to see if my guess was correct before posting it (I wouldn't have gotten the right answer if I had tried; I only read that book once). Since I cheated, I'm out for the rest of this round. Next person, please?

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

That was giving me difficulty, the first thing that came to my mind was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but after looking through my little library I got the answer.

Neuromancer - William Gibson

I'll give a hint right off the bat because it's a somewhat obscure book. It's Non-fiction.

"A company may have purchased the best security technologies that money can buy, trained their people so well that they lock up their secrets before going home at night, and hired building guards from the best security firm in the business. That company is still totally vulnerable."

Ooh, my guess was SO CLOSE. Close enough that I'm not going to post my guess until someone gets this one right. I'll report back.

Would this be The Art of Deception by Kevin Mitnick? I don't have it anymore to verify, but I believe that sounds familiar.

Yup, you got it right. Redlemon was close with Takedown by Tsutomu Shimomura.

Your question :)

lets keep this easy... I had a book I wanted to do but lets change the pace.

SONG: There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold

That would be "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zepplin.

Book: "Hand to hand combat is an engagement between two or more persons in an empty-handed struggle or with handheld weapons such as knives, sticks, and rifles with bayonets."

art of war? sun tzu?

stairway to heaven was the next song on my playlist when I read that. I so had that!

Sounds like the US Army Field Manual of Combatives, but it's been a few years.

You're right Confederate.

Almost 24 hours, so time to get this started up again:

MOVIE: "Did you hear that? They've shut down the main reactor."

Star Wars: A New Hope

BOOK:

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence (yes that was Googled to get this thread up and moving again)

Time to revive with a new question.

This one is too easy, I'm not sure if the movie starts the same way, but even if it doesn't the beginning is so obviously similiar you could just guess it. So this thread better get moving again.

"Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die."

Fight Club, of course.

Another easy one

Movie: Saigon......Shit.

Hmmmm. Apocolypse Now?

Yeah, it's Apocalypse Now. I thought the start of AN was "I wanted a mission, and for my sins they gave me one", but a quick google proved you right.

AN story: A friend of mine recently submitted his Engineering honours thesis. The first line was
"I wanted a topic, and for my sins they gave me one"
and it finished with
"The honours...the honours..."

MUSIC: "Oh look at how she listens, she says nothing of what she thinks."

Grey Street by Dave Matthews Band

Book: It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.

1984

Book: Cry Havoc, and Let Slip the Dogs of War!

This is a quote from a Shakespeare's "Julius Ceasar," but it's not the first line, is it? Did I misunderstand the rules? Or is there something more contemporary that starts this way?

it is a line from Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar. But is also the 1st line of Ceasar's letters about his campain in Brition. Ill try again

book: I sing of warfair and the men of war

Seems to be the Aeneid, though I've also seen that line translated as, "This is a tale of arms and of a man." I could be off the mark, though.

it is indeed the Aeneid. It is from Robert Fitzgerald's translaton. Your turn

Heh, I was thinking the same thing as RedCometChar. I never liked Fitzy anyway.

Book: "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head."

Confederacy of Dunces

How about, "It was a high bluff, overlooking the dark violence of the swollen river."

Wow, Xell101, I had to Google that because I was curious -- a good opener. I shan't give it away, but it seems sort of tough. I've heard of the other two, of course, but not that one, and I certainly couldn't tell you the first lines of any.

Didn't have to Google it...just had to double-check the book itself to make sure:D

The Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara :thumbsup:

Now, for mine, from another of my favorites...

For some time now they had been suspicious of him.

A day and a half with no guesses?

James Michener's Chesapeake. Anyone who likes traveling and the outdorrs should read Michener. He will be missed.

Let's see, what should I...AH..of course

"I've watched through his eyes, I've listined through his ears, and I'll tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we're going to get."

I will drop a hint tomorrow if I've stumped you. Though I doubt it will elude everyone.

Oh by the way, the quotation marks are actually there to show someone is speaking.

Enders game-

as for my line- its a movie

Your........From Baker

I knew I shoudln't have made it so easy! Crap!

Fire:
Is that "You're...from Baker"?

yes, it is - so do you know it kadath?

I don't. I feel like it should be Blade Runner or something, but it isn't.

I'll give everyone a hint- it is a western

if no one gets it by tommorow night I'll post the answer

ok- no one knows it- so,

Its the first line from "the good, the bad and the ugly" sergio leone's masterpeice

but you have to wade throught about 15 minutes to get to it (including a gunfight that with no dialog)

over to kadath if you want it.....

Book.
"All this happened, more or less."

Let's revive this.....the last one was:

Slaughterhouse-5

this is a book: Once you have given up the ghost, everything follows with dead certainty, even in the midst of chaos.

Just stumbled upon this topic, but that's an easy one...Tropic of Capricorn.

Not as good as Miller's Tropic of Cancer though.

Try this one
Book: "In the tower of the nameless necromancer it is always cold."

If you can google it, good luck, but this was an awesome book.

Mary Gentle, Grunts?

That's it Kadath, you're next.

Hmm.
"Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed."

A book, in case it wasn't obvious.

Nobody else answered it, so I googled and cheated. The answer is Ulysses, by James Joyce.

Here is one from me. Book

" "Man" said Terl, "is an endangered species". "

Thats an easy one.
L Ron Hubbard, Battlefield Earth

How about
Book : "Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith."

Heinlein: A Stranger in a Strange Land.

Book: I am all alone in my pad, man, my piled-up-to-the-ceiling-with-junk pad.

The Fan Man.

Book: Within five minutes, or ten minutes, no more than that, three of the others had called her on the telephone to ask her if she had heard that somethng had happened out there.

Right Stuff?

That's correct, you're up.

Untitled or Archer, start us up again.

Well, since no one is playing, I think I'll start it up again. If Archer decides I'm playing out of turn, feel free to disregard my post.

This should be fairly easy, it's from a book:

Ah, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

Movie(And an easy one):

Full Metal Jacket!

OK, this may be a toughie. I'll give a new one tomorrow if no one gets it. It's a book:

OK, that was a bit tough, but the tnew book just came out, so the whole seires was on my mind. "Lord Foul's Bane" by Donaldson.

Try this one out for size. Also a book, but one of the characters is there by name: