Choices, Choices

So here they are: in my typical overwrought fashion, I have managed to find 30 excerpts that might be possible for this upcoming weekend.

And, of course, I am only allowed 4.

It's your chance to cast your vote—I'd love to hear which of these were most interesting to folks outside of my head. (Joanna, for instance, found some of my early potential choices less than interesting. Whatever.) I've marked my current favorites with a "†", but I'm not married to them. Some of these are probably crazy, but all of them are hopefully interesting. And yes, these are edited and reworked; for the demo, that is acceptable. If I've eviscerated your favorite piece of prose, I apologize, but I can't go over 60 seconds. Think of it as a movie trailer, but for a book.

A couple of those guidelines for the selections:

1. At least one should be first-person, and at least one should be third-person;


2. One should feature back-and-forth dialogue;


3. I'd like one non-fiction piece, but probably not more than one (The non-fiction pieces are at the end, beginning with Tolkien's "On Fairy-Stories");


4. If you're tossed up between a British piece and an American one, go American;


5. The excerpt need not be a self-contained story, but it should be engaging and make you want to hear more.

List your favorites in the comments by about 5pm tomorrow (or later today, Friday, May 2, by the time I post this), and you may get a say in my future career!

Thanks in advance, all.

• From East of Eden, by John Steinbeck:†
  

  He could hear her moving quietly about behind the door. A drawer was opened, and the thought leaped in him—she's going to stay.
  
  When her voice came, it was so near that he jerked his head back. “Dear,” she said softly, “I didn't know you would take it so. I'm sorry, Adam.”
  
  His hand trembled, trying to turn the key, and it fell out on the floor. He pushed the door open. She stood three feet away. In her right hand she held his .44 Colt, and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him. He saw the hammer was back.
  
  She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder. The flash and roar smothered him, and he staggered back and fell to the floor. She moved slowly toward him, cautiously, as she might toward a wounded animal. Her eyes inspected him impersonally. Then she tossed the pistol on the floor beside him and walked out of the house.



• From Mythago Wood, by Robert Holdstock:†
  

  Christian crouched back down in the ditch. “It's part boar, part man, elements of other beasts from the wildwood. But it's the old man's mythago. Oh God, how he must have hated us to have imposed such terror on the thing.”
  
  A moment later, he said, “When you run, run for the edge. Don't stop. And when you get out of the wood, don't come back. There is no way out for me, now. I'm trapped in this wood as surely as if I were a mythago myself. Don't come back here, Steve.”
  
  “Chris—” I began, but it was too late. He had thrown back the covering and was running. Moments later the enormous shape passed overhead, one huge, black foot landing just inches from me and passing by in a split second. But as I scrambled from the hole and began to run I glanced back and the creature, hearing me, glanced back too; and in that instant, I saw the face that had been painted across the blackened features of the boar.
  
  The Urscumug opened its mouth to roar, and my father seemed to leer at me.



• From Buttercup's Baby, by William Goldman:†
  

  The country of Despair was hard to find on the map, not because cartographers didn't know of its existence, but because when they visited to measure its borders, they became so depressed they began to drink and question everything, most notably why would anyone want to be a stupid cartographer? Since wars were always changing boundaries, why bother? There grew up, then, a gentleman's agreement among mapmakers to keep the place secret, lest tourists flock there and die.
  
  Everything about Despair was depressing. Nothing grew in the ground and what fell from the skies did not provoke happy conversation. The entire country was damp and dank, and why the locals did not all flee was not only a good question, it was the only question. Locals talked about nothing else. “Why don't we move?” husbands would say to wives, and wives would answer, “God, I don't know, let's,” and children would jump and shout, “Hooray hooray, we're out of here,” but then nothing would happen. There was comfort in knowing that things couldn't get any worse. “We have endured everything,” locals would tell themselves. “Whereas if we pick up and go, say, to Paris, we would get gout and be insulted by Parisians all day.”



• From “Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Friend Colby,” by Donald Barthelme:
  

  Some of us have been threatening our friend Colby for a long time, because of the way he had been behaving. And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just because he had gone too far did not mean he should be subjected to hanging. Going too far, he said, was something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at his hanging. He said he'd think about it but it would take him a while to decide. I pointed out that we'd have to know soon, because Howard, who is a conductor, would have to hire and rehearse the musicians and he couldn't begin until he knew what the music was going to be. Colby said he'd always been fond of Ives' Fourth Symphony. Howard said that this was a “delaying tactic” and that everybody knew that Ives was almost impossible to perform and would involve weeks of rehearsal, and that the size of the orchestra and chorus would put us way over the music budget. “Be reasonable,” he said to Colby. Colby said he's try to think of something a little less exacting.



• From “The Blue Flame of Vengeance,” by Robert Howard:
  

  The man's face was long, smooth-shaven and of a strange dark pallor which together with the sunken cheeks lent him an almost corpse-like appearance—until one looked at the eyes. These gleamed with vibrant life and dynamic vitality, pent deep and ironly controlled.
  
  The stranger's clothing was severely plain. His hat was a black slouch, featherless. From heel to neck he was clad in close-fitting garments of sombre hue, unrelieved by any ornament or jewel, only broken by a wide silk sash of Oriental workmanship knotted about his waist. Its color was a sinister virulent green, and from it projected a dark hilt and the black butts of two heavy pistols.
  
  “How came you here?” asked Jack bluntly. “And how is it that I saw you not until you spoke?”
  
  “I came here as all honest men come, young sir,” Solomon Kane answered in a deep voice. “on my two legs—as for the other: men engrossed in their own affairs see neither their friends—to their shame—nor their foes—to their harm.”



• From Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett:
  

  Teppic's mother had been a pleasant woman and as self-centered as a gyroscope. She'd liked cats. She didn't just venerate them—everyone in the kingdom did that—but she actually liked them, too. It was traditional in river kingdoms to approve of cats, but he suspected that usually the animals in question were graceful, stately creatures; his mother's cats were small, spitting, yellow-eyed maniacs.
  
  His father, the pharaoh, spent a lot of time worrying about the kingdom and occasionally declaring that he was a seagull, although this was probably from general forgetfulness. Teppic had often speculated about his own conception, since his parents were rarely in the same frame of reference, let alone the same state of mind.
  
  But it had apparently happened and he was left to bring himself up, mildly hindered and occasionally enlivened by a succession of tutors. The ones hired by his father were best, especially on those days when he was flying as high as he could, and for one glorious winter Teppic had as his tutor an elderly ibis poacher who had in fact wandered into the royal gardens in search of a stray arrow.



• From Ivanhoe, by Walter Scott:
  

  The new champion struck the shield of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus defied to mortal combat.
  
  “Have you confessed yourself, brother,” said the Templar, “and have you heard mass this morning, that you peril your life so frankly?”
  
  “I am fitter to meet death than thou art,” answered the Disinherited Knight.
  
  “Then take your place in the lists,” said Bois-Guilbert, “and look your last upon the sun; for this night thou shalt sleep in paradise.”
  
  “Gramercy for thy courtesy,” replied the Disinherited Knight; “I advise thee to take a fresh horse and a new lance, for by my honor you will need both.”
  
  The trumpets no sooner gave the signal than the champions charged with the speed of lightning, and met with the shock of a thunderbolt. The lances burst into shivers up to the very grasp, and it seemed that both knights had fallen, for the shock had made each horse recoil backward upon its haunches. But the riders recovered their steeds and each received a fresh lance from the attendants.



• From Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner:
  

  There is no one behind the broken window; only eddies of snow drift across the bare floorboards. The owners of the coats of arms have long since abandoned the claims to the house they crest, and moved up to the Hill. No king rules there any more, for good or ill. From the Hill, Riverside is a tiny splotch between two riverbanks, an unsavory quarter in the prosperous city. The people who live there now like to think of themselves as evil, but they're really no worse than anyone else. And already this morning more than one drop of blood has been shed.
  
  The blood lies now on the snow of a formal winter garden, now trampled and muddy. A man lies dead, the snow filling up the hollows of his eyes, while another man is twisted up, grunting, sweating frog-ponds on the frozen earth, waiting for someone to come and help him. The hero of this little tableau has just vaulted the garden wall and is running like mad into the darkness while the darkness lasts.



• From Thomas the Rhymer, by Ellen Kushner:†
  

  “I am the Queen of Elfland, Thomas.”
  
  “I know,” I heard myself say, my voice thin and tinny in my ears.
  
  “I am not made for your earthly lust,” she said, her white teeth sharp, her eyes cruel with pity. “You were best turn now and walk away.”
  
  I took a step towards her. Her horse was calm and still, cropping grass. She leaned low over the saddle bow.
  
  “Will you have one kiss of me? It will be dearly bought.” Light danced on the sweetness of her lips. “Dare to kiss my lips, and know that your body follows.”
  
  I smiled crookedly, the breath hard in my throat. “That is to be hoped for, is it not?”
  
  “Is it? You will be mine, Thomas. Let me be sure of you.”
  
  I pulled her to my mouth, and tasted fruit and flesh undreamed of. She quenched my thirst, and at the same time filled me with hunger I knew would never leave me. For just one moment my mind cleared as I thought, I am lost.



• From The Gunslinger, by Stephen King:
  

  The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
  
  The desert was the apotheosis of all deserts, huge, standing to the sky for what looked like eternity in all directions. It was white and blinding and waterless and without feature save for the faint, cloudy haze of the mountains which sketched themselves on the horizon and the devil-grass which brought sweet dreams, nightmares, death. An occasional tombstone sign pointed the way, for once the drifted track that had cut its way through the thick crust of alkali had been a highway. Coaches and buckas had followed it. The world had moved on since then. The world had emptied.



• From “On Fairy-Stories,” by J.R.R. Tolkien:
  

  I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure. Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold. And overbold I may be accounted, for though I have been a lover of fairy-stories since I learned to read, I have not studied them professionally. I have been hardly more than a wandering explorer in the land, full of wonder but not of information.
  
  The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of the traveler who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost.



• From “On Fairy-Stories,” by J.R.R. Tolkien:
  

  Fantasy is a natural activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific veracity. On the contrary. The keener and clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If ever men could not perceive truth, Fantasy would languish until they were cured.
  
  Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done, be put to evil uses, even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors' own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made in the image and likeness of a Maker.



• From No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty:
  

  When I actually sat down to write my first novel back in 1999, I discovered that my ideas about novel writing were woefully mistaken. You don't need a plot before you write a novel, nor do you need an evocative sense of place or a winsome, engaging cast. You don't need coffee.
  
  What you really need is a secret weapon.
  
  You need a superpowered, diabolical device that will transform you into a bastion of literary accomplishment. And I'm happy to report that this implement is just waiting for you to pick it up.
  
  Without hyperbole, I can say that this tool is the most awesome catalyst that has ever been unleashed on the worlds of art and commerce. Nearly every beautiful and useful thing you've ever touched or witnessed was born in its mighty forge. It's portable, affordable, and nonpolluting.
  
  It's also invisible.
  
  What you need to write a novel, of course, is a deadline.



• From “A Reflection on White Geese,” by Barry Lopez:
  

  The staging of white geese at Tule Lake in northern California in November is one of the most imposing—and dependable—wildlife spectacles in the world. At first one thinks of it only as a phenomenon of numbers—it's been possible in recent years to see as many as three hundred thousand geese here at one time. What a visitor finds startling, however, is the great synchronicity of their movements: the long skeins of white unfurl brilliantly against blue skies and dark cumulonimbus thunderheads, birds riding the towering wash of winds. They rise from the water or fall from the sky with balletic grace, with a booming noise like rattled sheets of corrugated tin, with a furious and unmitigated energy. It is the life of them that takes such hold of you.



• From “A Presentation of Whales,” by Barry Lopez:
  

  The sperm whale is the most awesome creature of the open seas. Imagine a forty-five-year-old male fifty feet long, a slim, shiny black animal with a white jaw and marbled belly cutting the surface of green ocean water at twenty knots. Sunlight sparkles in rivulets running off folds in its corrugated back. At fifty tons it is the largest carnivore on earth. Its massive head, a third of its body length, is scarred with the beak, sucker, and claw marks of giant squid, snatched out of subterranean canyons a mile below, in a region without light, and brought writhing to the surface. Imagine a four-hundred pound heart the size of a chest of drawers driving five gallons of blood at a stroke through its aorta: a meal of forty salmon moving slowly down twelve-hundred feet of intestine; producing sounds more shrill than we can hear—like children shouting on a distant playground.



• From “Against Abolishing Christianity,” by Jonathan Swift:
  

  Another Advantage proposed by the abolishing of Christianity, is, the clear Gain of one Day in Seven, which is now entirely lost; beside the Loss to the Publick of so many stately Structures now in the Hands of the Clergy; which might be converted into Theatres, Exchanges, Market-houses, and other publick Edifices.
  
  I readily own there hath been an old Custom, for People to assemble in the Churches every Sunday, and that Shops are still frequently shut; in order, as it is conceived, to preserve the Memory of that antient Practice; but how this can prove a Hindrance to Business, or Pleasure, is hard to imagine. Are not the Taverns and Coffee-Houses open? Is not that the chief Day for Traders to sum up the Accounts of the Week; and for Lawyers to prepare their Briefs? But I would fain know how it can be pretended, that the Churches are misapplied. Where are more Appointments and Rendezvouzes of Gallantry? Where more Meetings for Business? Where more Bargains driven of all Sorts? And where so many Conveniences, or Incitements to sleep?

EDIT: So I combed through ditched all those choices that were unworkable, wouldn't be appropriate, or I just wasn't good on with further reading. A wise friend wrote the following message by email: "Are you spending too much time picking and not enough practicing? Pull the trigger, man!" Yes, I suppose I am...