I’ve never wholly gotten over that one, both the iron self-control it must have taken to not explain the punchline in the dialogue, and the fact that it’s a true, fiction-rooted joke that is only funny to an actual reader. It’s painful that I can’t tell that joke to anyone because it takes a book to explain the premise. “Here, read this so I can tell you a funny joke…”

I still snicker at it.

I already did it 35 minutes ago.

I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get up feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a likely wench for my droit de seigneur — I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.

I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon. I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they promised me it was going to be — instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.

- Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road

I had goosebumps the entire time I was transcribing that.

From my “desert island” book, Cryptonomicon:
“God damn it,” Shaftoe says, and lunges heroically for the Semper Fi handkerchief. Julieta digs her fingernails into one of the sensitive spots that she has located during her exhaustive cartographic survey of his body. He squirms to no avail; all the Finns are great athletes. He pops out. Too late! He knocks his wallet onto the floor while grabbing the hanky, then rolls off Julieta and wraps it around himself, a flag on a broken pole, the only flag of surrender Bobby Shaftoe will ever wave.

From The Anubis Gates:
“IHAY, ENDENBRAY. ANCAY OUYAY IGITDAY?”

From The Stress of Her Regard:
“We’re not such divided entities as humans,” came the voice. It laughed, a harsh ringing like bronze bells. “‘What you have done to the least of my brethren, you have done to me.’”
“How,” demanded Byron, “do you dare to quote Scripture?”
“How do you dare to publish poetry as your own?” returned the voice, its rage abruptly very evident. “The great Lord Byron! Secretly sucking away at the Gorgon’s teat! Presuming to despise anyone who hasn’t found their way to it! My poetry may not have been brilliant” -the voice was shrill-”but at least it was my own!”
Byron still had the pistol in his hand, and he laughed now and swept the muzzle across the hillside. “Poetry,” he said good-naturedly, “was the least of the things in which I excelled you.”

From Blaylock’s The Last Coin:

“What was the name of your man down at Pest Control?”
“Biff Chateau.”
“Fancy my having forgotten a name like that.”

I am a firm believer in succinctness within conversation, but in books, it entirely depends on the writer’s ability.

Really, Because someone must.

“overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.”

George R.R. Martin, “The Hedge Knight”:

‘Against the bleak grey sky swayed a tall tall prince in black armor with only half a skull.’

That line has raised goosebumps every time I’ve read it.

The book was Footfall, and the line was “God was knocking, and he wanted in baaaaad”. Spent the whole damn (very long) book setting that one up.

Hiya, Steve. . . I see things seem reasonably well with you!

Best. Geo