{"id":2268,"date":"2010-11-20T12:00:40","date_gmt":"2010-11-20T19:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2010-11-07T12:58:59","modified_gmt":"2010-11-07T19:58:59","slug":"truthseeker-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/2010\/11\/truthseeker-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Truthseeker (part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe src=\"http:\/\/rcm.amazon.com\/e\/cm?lt1=_blank&#038;bc1=000000&#038;IS2=1&#038;bg1=FFFFFF&#038;fc1=000000&#038;lc1=0000FF&#038;t=colliesbestia-20&#038;o=1&#038;p=8&#038;l=as1&#038;m=amazon&#038;f=ifr&#038;asins=0345516060\" style=\"width:120px;height:240px;margin-bottom:8px;margin-right:10px;\" align=\"left\" scrolling=\"no\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>This will be a quick review, I think. I&#8217;ve just finished reading a book by C. E. Murphy titled Truthseeker.<\/p>\n<p>On the whole, I enjoyed the book: Murphy writes well, with vividly described backgrounds, protagonists I can usually identify with on one level or another, and an often interesting fantasy\/spiritual basis for the plot-producing strangeness in the story. This book was no exception in that regard. The fey lands were as vividly portrayed as the &#8220;mundane&#8221; world from which our heroine comes. The use of speaking styles within the story by both heroine and romantic lead both made sense, and was a smile-inducing nudge, for me, of sharing a long-standing love of language with the author. The unusual ability which the heroine possessed was one I&#8217;ve fascinatedly played with in roleplaying games, and I enjoyed the author&#8217;s &#8216;take&#8217; on it. The heroine herself developed more internal strength and personality during the story&#8217;s trials, and her emotions under some startling duress were portrayed (at least to me) beautifully convincingly.<\/p>\n<p>And yet&#8230; and yet. Truthseeker is the first of a two-parter series, and I do not think I will bother to read the second book. I was left, over all, with a vague feeling of (for lack of a better phrase) pleasant &#8216;meh.&#8217; On the whole, technically, the book was good, and I enjoyed those parts. But the romance angle did not grab me whatsoever; I suspect my personal expression of my passions is a tad less coolly intellectual, despite many of my passions being based in intellectualism. More critically for me: the heroine&#8217;s magic was entirely will-based, and I find that particular style of magic unconvincing.<\/p>\n<p>I should probably back up a bit and explain my &#8216;take&#8217; on success based in will power alone. To be fair, it is exceedingly easy to &#8216;armchair quarterback&#8217; such things; to smugly proclaim: &#8220;Oh, no one would do something like that &#8212; it makes no sense!&#8221; when one has, in fact, never actually been up to one&#8217;s ass in alligators, let alone trying to drain a swamp. :) Thus, when reading a book with such a premise, it would be easy for the reader to sniff disdainfully at the heroine not instantly willing things better &#8212; and completely missing how difficult focus can be when jouncing around on horseback on a noisy, disorienting, poorly lit, overwhelming battlefield where multiple people are doing their utmost to stab you to death with their swords.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand&#8230; that&#8217;s not where our heroine started trying to exert her will through her magic. Further, I do have some familiarity with what might be called &#8216;magic&#8217; through will power: I am a former animal trainer. Effectively, training an animal is the exertion of one&#8217;s will power over the animal &#8212; to calmly, patiently, persistently, and unceasingly insist the animal <i>will<\/i> do as you wish. Oh, you have to frame the desired command in a format or language the animal understands, of course. But past that, thinking back on successful training I&#8217;ve done with animals others had given up on or decided were just &#8216;bad,&#8217; I&#8217;d have to say it does sound much like a spell.<\/p>\n<p>Think about it: I first make sure the command I wish to teach the animal is a good one, i.e. it will not cause the animal pain or harm, it will be intelligible to the animal, and is not against the animal&#8217;s best interests &#8212; which I consider to be nothing more than responsible animal ownership. Then I pick a time where I have all day, if necessary, to work with the animal, so if he&#8217;s stubborn or frightened he&#8217;ll have time to work through it, and so I will not become impatient and increase the animal&#8217;s tension. I set up the training location so there are only two options open to the animal: to stay where he started from (which I am careful to make undesirable to him), or to go forward into my chosen outcome. I make sure to have something to reward the animal with, so performing my chosen outcome becomes increasingly desirable to the animal.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, I bring in the animal and give the command &#8212; and I repeat the command with gentle and unflagging persuasion, allowing no anger or impatience to creep into my demeanor despite any struggling by the animal against my will &#8212; until at some point the animal decides it just isn&#8217;t worth fighting me any more, and does as I wish. When necessary I repeat the process every single day without fail, exactly the same way, until following the command is nearly reflexive for the animal.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why I compare it to a magical spell: I get the results I want through preparation of location, gestures, and incantations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This will be a quick review, I think. I&#8217;ve just finished reading a book by C. E. Murphy titled Truthseeker. On the whole, I enjoyed&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,12,1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-review","category-library","category-uncategorized","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2444,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stormtiger.com\/collie\/bestiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}