qos: (Library Dragon)
qos ([personal profile] qos) wrote2005-04-15 09:23 pm

The Stories You Come Back To meme

Between the two of them, [livejournal.com profile] pathdancer and [livejournal.com profile] rocket_jockey have got me all riled up and determined to do this. Blame them!


First Lines from the Stories I Come Back To.
Guess them if you can!

1. Far away, where the swallows fly when our winter comes on, lived a King who had eleven sons, and one daughter named Eliza. The eleven brothers were Princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast and his sword by his side.

[livejournal.com profile] pathdancer correctly identified Hans Christian Anderson's "The Wild Swans"

2. It was just past midday, not long before the third summons to prayer, that Ammar ibn Khairan passed through the Gate of the Bells and entered the palace of Al-Fontina in Silvenes to kill the last of the khalifs of Al-Rassan.

[livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_ recognized one of my very favorite books The Lions of Al-Rassan, by Guy Gavriel Kay.

3. The Old Republic was the Republic of legend, greater than distance or time. No need to note where it was or whence it came, only to know that. . . it was the Republic.

[livejournal.com profile] athenian_abroad recognized Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Wars, even though I omitted the actual first sentence: "Another time, another galaxy."

4. After the war was over, they bound him under the Mountain. And so that there might be warning if he moved to escape, they crafted then, with magic and with art, the five wardstones, last creation and the finest of Ginserat.

[livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_ also recognized the other Guy Gavriel Kay book: The Summer Tree.

5. The story of Terisa and Geraden began very much like a fable. She was a princess in a high tower. He was a hero come to rescue her. She was the only daughter of wealth and power. He was the seventh son of the lord of the seventh Care.

[livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_'s lady Jess recognized Stephen R. Donaldson's The Mirror of Her Dreams.

6. From the Great Above she opened her ear to the Great Below.
From the Great Above, the goddess opened her ear to the Great Below.

[livejournal.com profile] saskia139 recognized Wokstein and Kramer's translation of "The Descent of Inanna".

7. Mine is a story that must be told. And a story that must be heard, because those who presume to tell it do not know it. Or want to.

[livejournal.com profile] kateri_thinks gets extra points for recognizing The Moon Under Her Feet because she just received it from Amazon after taking my recommendation and ordering it!

8. Damn it, I don't have time to lie here. Whatever comes, there's more for a king to do than squat like a mushroom and maunder on eternity.
Dignity be damned, it's a tedious bore.

9. There was a Master come unto earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne.

[livejournal.com profile] rocket_jockey got Illusions, by Richard Bach.

10. The Emperor was two hundred years old, and even with the rejuvenation chamber few lived more than two hundred years in Atlantis.

[livejournal.com profile] saskia139, the only other person I know who has actually read this book, recognized The Romance of Atlantis.

11. Having harbored two sons in the waters of her womb, my mother considers herself something of an authority on human foetuses.

12. My lifelong involvement with Mrs. Dempster began at 5:58 o'clock p.m. on 27 December 1908, at which time I was ten years and seven months old.

[livejournal.com profile] athenian_abroad also correctly identified Fifth Business, by Robertson Davies.

[identity profile] badhairs.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:46 am (UTC)(link)
??!?? What's that LAST one?!??

--Stuart Dempster.

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
I'll reply on your LJ to not spill the beans.

[identity profile] iswari.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
What is this meme? My tired brain is confused. Are these only sturies, or also regular books?

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
One is a "story" and the rest are novels.

[identity profile] athenian-abroad.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
#3 is Star Wars (the Alan Dean Foster novelization, right?)
#12 is Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, of course

The rest I leave to the readers of fiction.... ;-)

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 05:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Right and right!

Have you read more Robertson Davies?

[identity profile] athenian-abroad.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 07:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I've read the Deptford trilogy (the second book, The Manticore is my favorite) and Rebel Angels.

[identity profile] quietearthling.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 12:09 am (UTC)(link)
The Manticore is my favorite, too.
(deleted comment)

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
#1 is right.

As for the others: Nyah-ha! Revenge! ;-)

[identity profile] saskia139.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)
#6 is the Descent of Inanna, in the Wolkstein/Kramer version.

#10 is The Romance of Atlantis--you knew I'd get that, right? *g*

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-16 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes! At least, I hoped you would get it!

I need an icon made from Salustra's face on the cover. . .

[identity profile] rocket-jockey.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
#9 sounds a lot like Illusions by Richard Bach

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 01:54 am (UTC)(link)
Because it is!

[identity profile] kateri-thinks.livejournal.com 2005-04-17 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Wait! Wait! Wait! I know #7! (because someone recommended me the book and it just arrived from amazon yesterday...! It's The Moon Under Her Feet!

And I think that #12 is Boy Staunton...?

(I knew #s 1, 3, 6, and 9 as well -- but wasn't fast enough to comment. And this #4 is niggling at me . . .thinking more...)

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_storyteller_/ 2005-04-18 01:56 am (UTC)(link)
It's been a long time.

2: The Lions of Al-Rassan by GGK

4: Is also GGK but I can not place it from memory. But I know it is from the The Fionavar Tapestry so I am assuming it is from The Summer Tree. The first novel in the series.

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-18 02:28 am (UTC)(link)
Right on both counts!

Had I known you were a GGK fan??

*makes another check mark next to [livejournal.com profile] _storyteller_'s list of fine qualities*

Lions is one of my all-time favorite books, and Jehane is particular favorite among my heroines.

[identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/_storyteller_/ 2005-04-18 02:06 am (UTC)(link)
Jess says that number 5 is from the Mordant's Need Series, It's the first line of The Mirrior of her Dreams. By Stephen Donaldson

[identity profile] qos.livejournal.com 2005-04-18 02:30 am (UTC)(link)
Jess is right!

She is obviously a woman of good taste in more than one area.
;-)