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Favourite book opening line

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By (user no longer on site) OP   
42 weeks ago

What’s everyone’s favourite book opening line?

I have a few, but one that always replays in my head is ‘The snow on the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the magnitude of our situation’ - The Secret History

I’m obsessed with it!

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

'Call me Ishmael' from Moby Dick

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By *ake_or_deathMan
42 weeks ago

Manchester

'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.' - Neuromancer, William Gibson.

'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.; - One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Grabriel Garcia Marquez.

'Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.' - High Rise, J.G. Ballard.

Among many others.

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By *ilsaGeorgeCouple
42 weeks ago

kent

I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

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By *ilsaGeorgeCouple
42 weeks ago

kent


"'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.' - Neuromancer, William Gibson.

'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.; - One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Grabriel Garcia Marquez.

'Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.' - High Rise, J.G. Ballard.

Among many others."

Ahh, a fellow Ballardian. Hi there

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By *ascaIMan
42 weeks ago

Cheshire Liverpool Manchester

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

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By *aizyWoman
42 weeks ago

west midlands


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life "

You beat me to the Gunslinger opening line!!!

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By *illy IdolMan
42 weeks ago

Midlands


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life "

Gravity's rainbow?

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By *hunky GentMan
42 weeks ago

Maldon and Peterborough

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

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By *ilsaGeorgeCouple
42 weeks ago

kent


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

You beat me to the Gunslinger opening line!!!"

I just knew you’d know that one! Mwah!

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By *ilsaGeorgeCouple
42 weeks ago

kent


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

Gravity's rainbow? "

Maybe. Is it? Who can say. Shhh… you’re not really a Pynchonian. Are you?

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By *aizyWoman
42 weeks ago

west midlands


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

You beat me to the Gunslinger opening line!!!

I just knew you’d know that one! Mwah! "

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse'

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By *ake_or_deathMan
42 weeks ago

Manchester


"'The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.' - Neuromancer, William Gibson.

'Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.; - One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Grabriel Garcia Marquez.

'Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.' - High Rise, J.G. Ballard.

Among many others.

Ahh, a fellow Ballardian. Hi there "

Hello! I'm a huge Ballard fan - in fact I've just started reading the recent Selected Nonfiction volume.

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By *illy IdolMan
42 weeks ago

Midlands


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

Gravity's rainbow?

Maybe. Is it? Who can say. Shhh… you’re not really a Pynchonian. Are you? "

What's not to like about a novel which explores the social and political context behind the development of the V-2 rocket by the German military during World War II

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By *ulieAndBeefCouple
42 weeks ago

Manchester-ish


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

Gravity's rainbow?

Maybe. Is it? Who can say. Shhh… you’re not really a Pynchonian. Are you?

What's not to like about a novel which explores the social and political context behind the development of the V-2 rocket by the German military during World War II"

Did you write the Wiki page Willy?

J

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By *ulieAndBeefCouple
42 weeks ago

Manchester-ish

Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J

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By *illy IdolMan
42 weeks ago

Midlands


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life

Gravity's rainbow?

Maybe. Is it? Who can say. Shhh… you’re not really a Pynchonian. Are you?

What's not to like about a novel which explores the social and political context behind the development of the V-2 rocket by the German military during World War II

Did you write the Wiki page Willy?

J"

Never underestimate a Willy

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By *ddie1966Man
42 weeks ago

Paper Town Central, Essex.

"All characters within are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any person or persons living or deceased."

From the missing first page of the Holy Bible.

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By *essicagraceWoman
42 weeks ago

birmingham

My absolute favourite and a fantastic book to boot.

"The story so far: in the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

Also "I met Charlotte in London one afternoon while waiting for a bus. Just look at that sentence!"

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By *essicagraceWoman
42 weeks ago

birmingham


"Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J"

So nearly went for P&P!!

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By *ob Carpe DiemMan
42 weeks ago

Torquay

The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring- cleaning his little home.

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By *ulieAndBeefCouple
42 weeks ago

Manchester-ish


"Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J

So nearly went for P&P!!"

I quote it regularly in everyday life

'Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?'

'Obstinate, headstrong girl.'

J

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By *essicagraceWoman
42 weeks ago

birmingham


"Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J

So nearly went for P&P!!

I quote it regularly in everyday life

'Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?'

'Obstinate, headstrong girl.'

J"

I am 100% making an obstinant headstrong bitch xstitch in my life. Bitch cause its gender neutral lol

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By *ulieAndBeefCouple
42 weeks ago

Manchester-ish

When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.

B

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By *stellaWoman
42 weeks ago

London

Iain Banks - The Crow Road.

“It was the day my grandmother exploded.”

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By *stellaWoman
42 weeks ago

London


"I have two favourite lines:

‘A screaming comes across the sky.’

and

‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed.’

If anyone knows the first one, I’ll be your friend for life "

Love Pynchon!!

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By *stellaWoman
42 weeks ago

London

Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut.

"All this happened, more or less.”

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By *ager 2 PleaseMan
42 weeks ago

Birmingham/midlands

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.“

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By *stellaWoman
42 weeks ago

London


"“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.“"

Kafka

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By *ager 2 PleaseMan
42 weeks ago

Birmingham/midlands


"“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.“

Kafka "

Me in the morning.

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

Last night I went to Manderley again

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By *enSiskoMan
42 weeks ago

Cestus 3

"The two thirty-eights roared simultaneously. The walls of the underground room took the crash of sound and batted it to and fro between them until there was silence."

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

“Amerigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her….”

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.“

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By *lynJMan
42 weeks ago

Morden

This is where the dragons went. Here there be dragons . . . and the denizens of Ankh-Morpork wish one huge firebreather would return from whence it came.

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By *inaTitzTV/TS
42 weeks ago

Titz Towers, North Notts

I have two.

One is the opening from When eight bells toll by Alistair McLean. It's a long monograph about the peacemaker revolver, which then suddenly changes direction as the first person narrator, states and that's why I was keeping very still, as one was pointing directly at me.

The other isn't an opening line, but a tagline to a book. The Keep, which is a horror story set during the war. Ultimately it jumps the shark, but the opening is solid.

'Request immediate relocation. Something is murdering my men.'

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By *uri00620Woman
42 weeks ago

Croydon

Not sure it's an absolute favourite but:

"I Lucifer, Fallen Angel, Prince of Darkness, Bringer of Light ... and without doubt Best Fuck in the Seen and Unseen Universe"

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By *oubleswing2019Man
42 weeks ago

Colchester

“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” wrote L.P. Hartley in his 1953 novel “The Go-Between.”

An incredible, poignant and quite sad book.

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By *echnosonic_BrummieMan
42 weeks ago

Willenhall

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

Always applicable.

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By *ittle bill2Man
42 weeks ago

TUCSON

Brown bear brown bear what did you see?

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By *avinaTVTV/TS
42 weeks ago

Transsexual Transylvania


"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Winner!

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By *elisandre300Woman
42 weeks ago

dontbefuckingnosey

Whilst not an opening line this has always stuck with me….

‘…No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away…’

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By *iking 777Man
42 weeks ago

wick

From the dawn of time we came

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By *idlandiaMan
42 weeks ago

Birmingham

"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun."

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By *lynJMan
42 weeks ago

Morden


"I have two.

One is the opening from When eight bells toll by Alistair McLean. It's a long monograph about the peacemaker revolver, which then suddenly changes direction as the first person narrator, states and that's why I was keeping very still, as one was pointing directly at me.

The other isn't an opening line, but a tagline to a book. The Keep, which is a horror story set during the war. Ultimately it jumps the shark, but the opening is solid.

'Request immediate relocation. Something is murdering my men.'

"

The showed "When Eight Bells Toll" on BBC 2 last night.

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By *inaTitzTV/TS
42 weeks ago

Titz Towers, North Notts


"

The showed "When Eight Bells Toll" on BBC 2 last night. "

Now that's one heck of a coincidence. Good film, better book.

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

Once upon a time

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By *teveanddebsCouple
42 weeks ago

Norwich

Africa crouched low on the horizon, like a lion in ambush, tawny and gold in the early sunlight, scared by the cold of the Benguela Current.

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

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By *abtastic Mr FoxMan
42 weeks ago

A den in the Glen

"In the beginning..."

Can't remember the author's name or title of the book but it has been the #1 fictional best seller for years.

Not sure if it has made it on to Richard and Judy's book club thing yet.

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien.

"In a distant and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part...

See...

Great A'Tuin the Turtle comes, swimming slowly through the interstellar gulf, hydrogen frost on his ponderous limbs, his huge and ancient shell pocked with meteor craters."

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

Once upon a time... Loved all those books.

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By *octor ProdMan
42 weeks ago

working Overseas

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

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By *abonTedCouple
42 weeks ago

Midlands & Cheltenham

Suzanne pushed Terry up against the flock wallpaper and traced the lines of perspiration down his neck with her index finger. And in her broken Brazilian accent asked “Will you be wanting anything from the pick n mix today”. Terry shook his head definitely.

The book what I’ve never not written yet

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By *enSiskoMan
42 weeks ago

Cestus 3


"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."

I haven't read the book, but I enjoyed the film.

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By *wist my nipplesCouple
42 weeks ago

North East Scotland, mostly

In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf.

Also

This is a book with no pictures.

And finally

Ho ho for the robbers, the cops and the robbers, ho ho!

Classics

Mrs TMN x

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By *uri00620Woman
42 weeks ago

Croydon

Once upon a time, there was a prost-itute called Maria. Wait a minute, ‘Once upon a time’ is how all the best children stories begin and ‘prost-itute’ is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let’s keep that beginning. - Eleven Minutes

I'm pretty much fucked. That's my considered opinion. Fucked. - The Martian

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago


"Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J"

I was just about to write that one. P&P one of my three favourite books of all time

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By (user no longer on site) OP   
42 weeks ago


""In the beginning..."

Can't remember the author's name or title of the book but it has been the #1 fictional best seller for years.

Not sure if it has made it on to Richard and Judy's book club thing yet."

Oh, I get it! You’re making fun of my religion! Love it

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By *ycanNightsMan
42 weeks ago

Workington

"A young boy puts a feather into his mouth..."

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By *abtastic Mr FoxMan
42 weeks ago

A den in the Glen


""In the beginning..."

Can't remember the author's name or title of the book but it has been the #1 fictional best seller for years.

Not sure if it has made it on to Richard and Judy's book club thing yet.

Oh, I get it! You’re making fun of my religion! Love it "

And my one!

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By *orphia2003Woman
42 weeks ago

Tonypandy.

“Some of these guys will go on walking long after the laws of biochemistry and handicapping have gone by the boards. There was a guy last year that crawled for two miles at four miles an hour after both of his feet cramped up at the same time, you remember reading about that?

The long walk: Stephen King.

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

"There was a hand in the darkness and it held a knife." -- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago

[Removed by poster at 05/02/24 19:58:01]

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago


""In the beginning..."

Can't remember the author's name or title of the book but it has been the #1 fictional best seller for years.

Not sure if it has made it on to Richard and Judy's book club thing yet."

“….Back in 1955

Man didn't know 'bout a rock 'n' roll show

And all that jive”

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By (user no longer on site)
42 weeks ago


"Favourite opening line:

'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife'

I also have a soft spot for 'Marley was dead, to begin with'

J

So nearly went for P&P!!

I quote it regularly in everyday life

'Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?'

'Obstinate, headstrong girl.'

J"

I often use it to quote as well

Someone I know because of their choices had a tumultuous end of year, my quote was ......

Mr Bennet - 'I am heartily ashamed of myself, Lizzy. But don't despair, it'll pass; and no doubt more quickly than it should.'

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By *teveknawMan
42 weeks ago

Scotland

It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size

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By *orny-DJMan
42 weeks ago

Leigh-on-Sea


""All characters within are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any person or persons living or deceased."

From the missing first page of the Holy Bible."

Tell me you're a Red Dwarf fan without telling me

'Marley was dead'.

Or maybe

'No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own;'

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