Five-FiftySix Meme

Bora tagged me with the 5-56 meme. The idea is pretty simple: take ten books and copy the fifth sentence on page 56.

- You can pick and choose the books to find the most interesting sentences.
- At least five of the books should be fiction.
- Try not to use books that are so obscure no one could guess what they are.
- You can give hints, if you so desire.
- Tag some other bloggers to pass the meme along.

I've selected sentences from 10 SF novels. Here are a few hints:

• The books are in chronological order by original publication date. The earliest was originally published in 1953. The most recent was first published in 2000.
• One quote is from a well-known anthology of short stories.
• Two quotes are from novels that were based on a novella that won a Hugo award
• Three quotes are from novels that won a Hugo award
• One quote is from a novel that won a Nebula award
• Nine of the authors have won Hugo awards
• Nine of the authors have won Nebula awards
  

I am actually heading off to New York for the rest of the week, so I'll be posting sporadically if at all until next Monday. That gives you six days to guess the source of the quotes!

1. And quivering in the air above the base of the fall was the last rainbow left on Earth.
   
   
2. In spite of herself, she noticed the masculine odor of him, compounded not unpleasantly of sweat, leather, and an unusual muskiness that must be from close association with dragons.
   
   
3. Mr. Duckworth rode stroke; the drops fell off his paddle like tears of glass on a smooth mirror of the Isis, and . . .
   
   
4. A god who now sought revenge on the race of Men who had devised machines that would banish them from the real world.
   
   
5. Her thighs soak up the kinetic energy and then release it, and once again she is racing toward us, hair streaming straight out behind her, a broad smile of triumph growing larger in the screen.
   
   
6. No telling what the ship might do to him next.
   
   
7. There would be so many opportunities to miss the obvious, so many chances to misunderstand, so many ways of taking the wrong path.
   
   
8. Matrix gone, a wave of sound and color . . . . She was moving through a crowded street, past stalls vending discount software, prices feltpenned on sheets of plastic, fragments of music from countless speakers.
   
   
9. Hackworth had once taken his family out rowing on the pond in the par, and the ends of the yellow oars spun off compact vortices, and Fiona, who had taught herself the physics of liquids through numerous experimental beverage spills and in the bathtub, demanded an explanation for these holes in the water.
   
   
10. In a thicker, stinking haze just above the rooftops, the detritus from a million low chimneys eddied together.

Edited 12-08: Here are are the answers.

And I tag:
Stephanie Svan
Nina Munteanu
Arvind Mishra
Shaun Duke
Jessie Terwilliger

ETA: I changed #9, because I found the book I wanted to use.
Tags:science fiction, meme