20100501

Not as exciting as Orlando, I guess

I'm catching up on online-journal entries right now and decide to do another one of those meme things, also taken from Lucy's LJ.

Pick 20 movies/anime/video games/literary works/etc. and put their summaries from Better Than It Sounds and WITHOUT CHEATING have your friends guess:

1. A confused young man starts to understand his life for the first time after he has an operation, only to have it slip away from him after his favorite animal dies.

2. A reclusive, unloving hermit is forced to go on a quest to rescue the rest of her kind after a jive-talking butterfly hints that they've been taken prisoner by a lightly carbonated energy drink. Over the course of her adventures, she learns how to love, but eventually gets better.

3. A satire of Victorian society in which a lawyer travels to other dimensions, and is arrested for trying to start a new religion. Oh, and the women of the protagonist's homeworld can accidentally stab people by sneezing.
(Victoria should know this. She recommended the book to me.)

4. Young man fights in the Second World War, goes home, gets married, is abducted by aliens, goes home, dies. Not necessarily in that order.
(Pretty sure Kate knows this. My highschool classmates' seen me carry this around, near the end of my junior year, I believe.)

5. Mentally-challenged man rescues ham from poor white trash out to avenge family honor.
(Okay, freshman year high school literature. You guys know this one.)

6. Humanity is saved by the common cold.

7. In a totalitarian world, a man has philisophical discussions with himself, has sex whenever he is alone with his girlfriend for longer than ten minutes, then gets tortured.

8. Extraordinarily Empowered Girls kill zombies with bells.
(I'm pretty sure this book was also pointed out by Victoria at some point.)

9. German college student's asshole professor sends him and his class off to World War 1; he and the rest of his class all die.
(High school literature, soph. year. Malvina really likes the other book the author wrote.)


10. The son has his girlfriend and identity stolen by the long lost brother he never knew he had. Except the brother is actually him.
(I think you've read this, Lucy, based on my recommendation. The author is something of a favorite.)
(Lucy, you're on the right track.)


11. Elderly brother and sister adopt an orphan who loses her temper, lets her imagination run away with her, holds a grudge, and generally gets into trouble. Everyone is charmed.
(Kate, you own this book.)

12. In The Future, there's no crime, poverty, war, disease or old age, and everyone gets to have lots and lots of sex. But the Noble Savage says it's bad. Two other people, who are among the smartest people on earth, go on a quest to stop being happy.

13. A squadron of insane soldiers try to not die in the war. Paradoxical bureaucracy gets in the way of that.
(Senior year in high school. Everyone who had the same lit class as me should know this.)


14. Guy kills old lady and her sister to prove his ideas. Turns out he was wrong.

15. A teenage girl is drafted into her grandfather's job, which conflicts with her efforts to save a handsome young man from his new guitar.

16. Boy named after a mouse helps locals improve their drug-filled sandpit, despite unfriendly wildlife. The government disapproves.
(Think: classic sci-fi.)
(...and sand?)


17. A centuries-old war hero, accompanied by a cocoon and their daughter the Internet, travels to to the home of a young girl, where he marries her after discovering that trees are actually pigs.
(Victoria should know this. One of the other book in the series was recommended to me by her.)

18. Television turns people into idiots. One guy rants at length about this.
(Okay not the best summary possible. Um...freshman year high school literature. Author is a favorite. Think...fire?)

19. A baby is switched at birth, which causes great problems later on. Meanwhile, a cynic with a fondness for antique cars, a rare book dealer, a Granola Girl, a man who breaks things, one of the last witch-hunters in Britain and the witch-hunter's landlady attempt to prevent four rather sinister bikers from causing The End Of The World As We Know It.

20. Young man suffers from mental illness, hallucinates, desecrates a grave, then murders his family.
(Hint: It's a play. You guys know this. Yes, all of you. At some point. Should've heard of this.)


(Wow I haven't laughed like that in a while. What were these people thinking when they summarized the books?)

5 comments:

Annie said...

Currently, the big excitement in Orlando is trying to find an apartment where I won't get knifed in the parking lot.

Let's see... 1. Flowers For Algernon, 2. The Last Unicorn, 6. War of the Worlds, 7. 1984, 15. Soul Music, 19. Good Omens, and I think 12 is Brave New World, but I haven't read that one yet so I'm not sure.

Lucy said...

lol I'm glad I've pointed you in the direction of something amusing.

Other than stuff Anna's guessed already:

14. Crime and Punishment

Also you read some interesting books, Susan XD Not that I didn't know this already..

Lucy said...

Oh duh 20. is Hamlet! and 9 is All Quiet on the Western Front? and 13 has to be Catch-22 now that I think about it. Blanking out on 10. but it sounds like something of Gaiman's xD

Lucy said...

Ok, I went and cheated for #10. I don't remember much from that book, so no wonder I didn't get it.

Annie said...

Blogger ate my last comment, apparently. So here goes again: is 18 Fahrenheit 451?

I can't believe I didn't get 20. Especially considering how often I've watched the 1st season of Slings and Arrows recently, which revolves around a production of that play. *facepalm*