Whether you’re a fan of comics artist Dylan Horrocks, or you’ve enjoyed The Aviator, a large A3 collector’s edition of the cover would look good on your wall, wouldn’t it? So here’s how you get one…
Try this little quiz: a challenge for lovers of good books. The first paragraph of Chapter Three of The Aviator – where the airship’s AI pilot wakes up after a forced shutdown – is a mash-up of lines from ten literary works. Nearly all of them have something in common, and three are linked by way of pun.
The first person to name all ten works and the links between them wins an exclusive A3 poster of The Aviator cover, signed by its creator, the brilliant comics artist Dylan Horrocks (and the author).
TO ENTER: either buy a copy of the book (links here), or download the free text samples available from Amazon, Apple iBooks, Smashwords and Diesel, or the publisher’s web site (see sidebar). Read the paragraph mentioned above and post your entries as a comment to either the blog post at The Burning World introducing the competition, or on the announcement on The Aviator’s Facebook page.
Note: If you don’t have an ebook reader, or ebook reader software on your computer, tablet or phone, download Amazon’s Kindle reader software, which is free and available for Mac/PC/Android/iOS. Or you can read the free sample text online at Smashwords.
The competition will CLOSE AT MIDNIGHT ON NOVEMBER 30TH (NZ time). In the event that no-one has successfully named all ten works, the poster will go to the person who gets most correct. I won’t be giving away any clues…
Anyone who shares this post on Facebook or Twitter will go in to win a free signed copy of the paperback version of the book!
Good luck!
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First lines of famous works:
1. Vonnegut – first line Slaugherhouse 5
2. Dickens – David Copperfield
3. George Orwell – 1984
4. Bible – Genesis
5. Keats – Ode to a Nightingale
6. Joyce – Portrait of the Artist
7. AA Milne – When I was one
8. Dylan Thomas – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
9. Ogden Nash – Portrait of the artist as a prematurely old man
10. Thomas Pynchon – Gravity’s rainbow
As to the links between them (beyond being first lines)… many of them are about shaping or reshaping identity (of an individual or a world).
I must confess to having used google as an aid to memory on a couple, and as a total cheat on others (Ogden Nash’s poetry is not at all familiar to me, and I haven’t read Gravity’s Rainbow though I have read another Pynchon novel – and recognised the line from a pub quiz). But Vonnegut, Dickens, Orwell, the bible, Keats and Milne were all familiar
Good effort, Matt. There are two (small) errors in your list. Correct them, and the poster’s yours.
And you really should read Gravity’s Rainbow. A magnificent book.
I worked hard at this yesterday as thought the comp finished at midnight last night. I should read things properly.
1 – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter House Five
2 – Charles Dickens,David Copperfield
3- Bible Gen 1.2
4- Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
5- James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
6- AA Milne, When We Were Very Young
7- Dylan Thomas, The Peaches
8- Ogden Nash, Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man
9- AA Milne, When We Were Very Young
10- Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Link – beginning starting and continuation of life.
Version two
1 – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughter House Five
2 – Charles Dickens,David Copperfield
3 – George Orwell 1984
4 – Bible Gen 1.2
5 – John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
6 – James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
7 – AA Milne, When We Were Very Young
8 – Dylan Thomas, The Peaches
9 – Ogden Nash, Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man
10 – Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Link – beginning, starting and continuation of life and life forms
1. Kurtz Vonnegut , Slaughterhouse-Five
2. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
3. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
4. Bible, Genesis 1:1-2 1
5. John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale
6. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
7. A A Milne, Now We are Six
8. Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
9. Ogden Nash, Portrait of the Artist as a Prematurely Old Man
10. Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
At the beginning and end of life we all start and finish the same way and are molded and shaped by our environment.
Judgement time. The first completely correct version was posted by Denise right on the deadline. Congrats! I’ll organise your poster in the next week, and make sure you have it in time for Christmas! Matt’s excellent effort wins him a signed copy of the book, by way of compensation for getting in first and getting so close…
Fantastic! I enjoyed doing the research