Leading horses at night
David Friedman
At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
most of the time.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of
_Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
Cambridge University Press.
R.L.
> I am considering a scene with several people riding through the night.
> At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
> practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
> on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
> letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
>
> They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
> most of the time.
How about letting the moon shine at the lumens of plot?
R.L.
Eric Ammadon
>I am considering a scene with several people riding through the night.
>At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
>practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
>on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
>letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
>
>They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
>most of the time.
I think that similar trains of riderless horses or mules are fairly
common, but I can't state that as fact.
Such a scene wouldn't break my WSOD.
--
arggh, is it priate day again?
Michelle Bottorff
> I am considering a scene with several people riding through the night.
> At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
> practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
> on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
> letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
>
> They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
> most of the time.
I've been in the habit of walking around in the dark all my life. When
I went camping as a kid, I didn't use my flashlight, and when I go for
my daily night-time walk I don't even bring one. Most modern people
seem to find this incredible/crazy, but if you read historical accounts,
the idea that one has a 'night vision' that is *ruined* by having a
light along is hardly a new one.
I go out in all weathers and every phase of the moon, and haven't yet
lost track of where the bike path is.
So I'm thinking that the leads would be more bother than they are worth,
and would find their presence far more unlikely than if you just had
your whole calvacade setting off without them. Put the guy with the
magically good night vision in front by all means, but unless there is
something wrong with the other riders, I don't see why they would need
their horses led.
...I'm pretty sure the famous ride of Paul Revere was made at night. If
not, why were they lighting lanterns?
And if he was a mage with magical night vision, it's news to me.
--
Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby
L. Shelby, Writer http://www.lshelby.com/
Livejournal http://lavenderbard.livejournal.com/
rec.arts.sf.composition FAQ http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Eric Ammadon
I think people who live in cities or towns have their night vision
messed up through having adjusted to their local lighting conditions.
For the most part I agree with you about being able to see at night no
matter what phase the moon is in. The stars provide enough to get by
on.
But dang, when it's the dark of the moon _and_ the sky is heavily
overcast, it's pitch black dark to my vision.
Jim Hetley
wrote:
> I am considering a scene with several people riding through the night.
> At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
> practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
> on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
> letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
>
> They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
> most of the time.
>
> --
> Author of
> _Future Imperfect: Technology and Freedom in an Uncertain World_,
> Cambridge University Press.
Horses are herd animals, and generally will follow a leader. Make the
mage's horse an alpha mare or stallion?
Many animals have better night vision than humans. Don't know if this
is true of horses.
Jim
David Friedman
"R.L." <del...@sonic.net> wrote:
That's a possibility, of course. On the other hand ...
The queen needs to get a substantial distance out of town before her
husband realizes she has gone, since she is doing something which he
doesn't want her to do--not because he disapproves but because he thinks
it is too dangerous. She has the assistance of her friend and dressmaker
Alys, who is a mage, but whose talents and training are not specialized
towards secrecy, protecting people, or the like--although, as we have
seen and will see, she has a useful ability at improvisation. I think
she will also be accompanied by one of Alys' friends from the previous
book, who was a fellow student at the College and is now the assistant
librarian--quite a strong mage, although his interests are largely
academic.
Circumstances are such that the King is going to be keeping a fairly
close watch on the Queen, not because he distrusts her but because he
wants to protect her. I thought that departing into the night under
circumstances where travel, or following, was difficult might be a
solution. But I may come up with something better.
Kay Shapero
mbot...@lshelby.com says...
> I've been in the habit of walking around in the dark all my life. When
> I went camping as a kid, I didn't use my flashlight, and when I go for
> my daily night-time walk I don't even bring one. Most modern people
> seem to find this incredible/crazy, but if you read historical accounts,
> the idea that one has a 'night vision' that is *ruined* by having a
> light along is hardly a new one.
>
Grin - reminds me of a meteor watching party I attended which seemed to
be evenly divided between the folks with the flashlights and the folks
swearing at the folks with the flashlights for impeding their vision.
Yeah, I was one of the latter. :)
--
Kay Shapero
address munged, email kay at following domain
http://www.kayshapero.net
R.L.
> In article <1j9kq9z.co6h581jakgccN%mbot...@lshelby.com>,
> mbot...@lshelby.com says...
>
>> I've been in the habit of walking around in the dark all my life. When
>> I went camping as a kid, I didn't use my flashlight, and when I go for
>> my daily night-time walk I don't even bring one. Most modern people
>> seem to find this incredible/crazy, but if you read historical accounts,
>> the idea that one has a 'night vision' that is *ruined* by having a
>> light along is hardly a new one.
>>
>
> Grin - reminds me of a meteor watching party I attended which seemed to
> be evenly divided between the folks with the flashlights and the folks
> swearing at the folks with the flashlights for impeding their vision.
> Yeah, I was one of the latter. :)
So the keys might be, how difficult is the footing, and how good is the
night vision of the observers.
R.L.
Peter Knutsen
> Horses are herd animals, and generally will follow a leader. Make the
> mage's horse an alpha mare or stallion?
>
> Many animals have better night vision than humans. Don't know if this
> is true of horses.
ISTR, vaguely, that horses don't sleep all that much. So if they get by
with 4-5 hours a night, then they'll be active, after a fashion, for at
least some hours while it is dark, and that suggests they have good
night vision. Not necessarily better than humans night vision, but
almost certainly not worse.
--
Peter Knutsen
sagatafl.org
Judy R. Johnson
--
====================================
NEW -- JRJ>Horses evolved to eat grass, which is bulky and low calorie.
So they need to graze long and often. Depending on the amount of
grass that can be gathered per bite (how lush it is), it may take them a
few hours to fill up each time, several times a day. Also, they are
prey animals, which discourages lying down and zonking out.
So adults sleep on their feet, mostly, and maybe lie down for a couple
hours in the wee hours, maybe not at all. Foals lie down a a lot, of
course, but their adults keep watch and just doze, hipshot.
But horses've got pretty good night vision, as might be expected of a
species that is often preyed upon at night. Their vision is adapted to
see behind them quite well, especially with their heads down. However,
they have a large blind spot, so that items may jump into view
unexpectedly, which may startle them.
It's the coachmen who needed to see the road, back when, and the more so
because carriage horses might have their heads forced into unnatural
positions and be wearing blinders in a misapplied effort to keep them
from being startled -- between the blinders and the blind spot they
would no longer be able to see the edge of the road and might fall into
the ditch. So a club meeting at night would be timed for the full moon
(and maybe call themselves the Lunatics?). Rural gatherings and family
visits would be during the full moon, and might be canceled if the moon
was overcast.
Smugglers with pack trains of horses had other problems, but the horses'
night vision was better than their own.
Entwife Judy
Gerry Quinn
media.com>, dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com says...
This seems a situation where, as the author, you can easily stack the
deck by letting the reader learn, much earlier, that some such mage has
a sideline or affinity for magic of the kind that would allow night
vision or some alternative (bat-like sonar, binding the party's path to
the road, or whatever).
Your story must evolve logically, but you get to modify where it
starts.
One can go too far with this, as when Batman always transpires to have
packed in his utility belt exactly the correct gadgets that will save
the day. But subtly done, it seems quite legitimate...
- Gerry Quinn
David Friedman
Gerry Quinn <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote:
Or, in this case, what it includes.
I eventually decided that:
1. The solutions I was imagining felt too much like EFP for my taste.
2. Providing an ingenious solution to this problem, however
entertaining, wouldn't actually accomplish anything useful for the story.
I have now written the relevant section, carrying that plot thread to
its natural stopping point. The sequence is:
1. Conversation between the King and the Queen, where she wants to go to
warn her brother, a powerful noble, that he is being manipulated by the
bad guys, one of whom is his private secretary. The King agrees that
Alessandro should be warned, vetoes the idea of the Queen going herself
as too risky while admiring her courage for wanting to do it, says he
will arrange to send a message--a slower and less reliable solution (as
the Queen puts it, she is the one messenger that the private secretary
can't keep from reaching the duke), but safer.
(break)
2. King notices that it is getting dark outside, sends for one of the
mages from the College (where they are staying as honored guests) to
tell him that the Queen went off some hours ago with Alys to speak with
a mage (living in the village not the college) whom they have been
consulting, and has not yet returned; could they send someone to see
what has happened to her? He's worried (reasonably, given what's been
happening) about risks to her.
3. Someone is sent off.
Petrus looked out the window again, went over to the bed, sat down.
Something rustled. Curious, he folded back sheet and blanket. Under them
was a single folded piece of paper. He opened it.
I am going to do what I told you I should do.
I love you.
I.
4. Queen Isabel and Alys arrive at the mansion where Duke Alessandro is
staying. Bad guys try to keep them from reaching him, fail, due to guts
and ingenuity of the two ladies. Various things happen, ending with
private secretary dead, immediate problem dealt with, risk that
Alessandro will be manipulated into helping to set off a civil war
mostly eliminated.
At some later point, I may mention in passing that the Queen and Alys,
instead of taking roads all the way to their objective (SW of where they
started), rode west to the river on whose bank Alessandro is encamped,
hired a boat, and took it south to his encampment, thus making it less
likely that any pursuers would find them. But how they did that simply
isn't important to what I'm doing at this point, whereas the relation
between the King and the Queen, the personalities of both, how the Queen
and Alys deal with the attempt to keep them from reaching the Duke, and
how he responds to the information his sister brings and what that tells
us about him, all are.
My thanks to everyone who provided information, some of which I may some
day use for something, but as it turned out what I asked for wasn't what
the story needed.
At a tangent, possibly relevant to writing more generally... .
In _Salamander_, the book this is a sequel to, two of the major
characters--the female protagonist and her father--are very powerful and
very skillful mages, and the male protagonist, although not a very
strong mage, is a very able theorist of magery. All of that plays into
the story. In writing the sequel, I didn't want to follow along that
line--having a character who could obviously eliminate the opposition
with a wave of his hand and is kept from doing so by authorial ingenuity
of one sort or another grows old after a while.
So in the sequel, the father is entirely off stage (he may make a brief
and ambiguous appearance near the end), his daughter is a secondary
character, and the mages active on the good guys' side, with one
exception, are not extraordinarily talented or powerful--less so than
several of their opponents. The mage who tries to stop Isabel and Alys
from reaching Alessandro is probably more powerful, and certainly more
trained in using magery for nefarious purposes, than Alys is. She kills
him anyway--because he takes it for granted that she is some sort of a
servitor of the Queen and can be safely ignored. The private secretary
is also a mage, a fact he has been carefully concealing, and presumably
a very powerful and skilled one. At the point when it is clear that he
has been discovered he starts using magery to deal with the problem--we
never know if he is trying to escape or to somehow get back in control
of things. He makes the mistake of ignoring Alessandro for a few seconds
too long while dealing with another threat, and dies as a result from an
entirely non-magical dagger in the back.
Eric Ammadon
Enhanced night vision could be a hardship the fellow must bear as a
result of some accident that requires him to wear dark glasses most of
the time. It seems like something of that sort could be conjured up
with a minimum of handwavium, result of a too-close encounter with the
Salamander, putting the wrong ingredients in a pot of brew (perhaps
some competitor sneakily switched a couple labels), or whatever.
R.L.
/snip/
> Petrus looked out the window again, went over to the bed, sat down.
> Something rustled. Curious, he folded back sheet and blanket. Under them
> was a single folded piece of paper. He opened it.
>
> I am going to do what I told you I should do.
>
> I love you.
>
> I.
>
> 4. Queen Isabel and Alys arrive at the mansion where Duke Alessandro is
> staying.
With a might bound! A traditional solution. ;-)
R.L.
Don Bruder
<ddfr-AB8B6E.2...@newsfarm.phx.highwinds-media.com>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> I am considering a scene with several people riding through the night.
> At least one is a mage who can, to some degree, see in the dark. How
> practical would it be for him to have the horse of the rider behind him
> on a lead, and that rider have the horse behind him on a lead, thus
> letting all of them ride at night even if only one can see?
>
> They would be going for many hours, so might well be at a walk all or
> most of the time.
Better late than never...
In general, horses see better at night than people. Stringing them
together as you suggest would be somewhere between "pointless" and
"overkill", but for the most part, harmless. The simple, authentic
solution is to put the person who can see (whether by magic, natural
ability, or sufficient light) in the lead, and the others will pretty
much automatically follow unless a large gap develops somehow. Even
then, it's quite likely (although not certain) that the "lost" ones
would start hollering for their buddies, and the group could get back
together that way.
The "daisy-chain of horses" you're considering is reasonably practical,
despite being a bit overkill-ish. In the real world, it's relatively
common, although it's usually used more often in daylight, and tends to
be a concept of "I've got X horses and one saddle/bridle set, I need to
get all X horses from where they are to where I want them, and I don't
feel like making X trips to do it". Tie X-1 of the horses together (lead
line from one horse to the next horse's halter, repeat X-1 times, lead
from front horse to you on the horse you didn't tie into the string, and
away you go.
Depending on where you are, leading the string around that way might be
called "lead-lining" or "ponying" them - Which term is more likely to be
used is a regional thing - In Arizona, where I worked a dude-ranch for a
while, it was *ALWAYS* "ponying". In Florida, at a hunter/jumper barn I
worked for, it was always "lead-lining". In Michigan, where I grew up,
it was either one, with a slight tendency toward calling it "ponying".
--
Email shown is deceased. If you would like to contact me by email, please
post something that makes it obvious in this or another group you see me
posting in with a "how to contact you" address, and I'll get back to you.
Michelle Bottorff
> having a character who could obviously eliminate the opposition
> with a wave of his hand and is kept from doing so by authorial ingenuity
> of one sort or another grows old after a while.
I haven't run into that problem yet.
I was discussing overpowered characters with my eldest son the other
day, and he claimed that Cabal, from my fantasy alternate history, was
an "overpowered" mage, and that Arouj and Kheyr from Black Flag were
"overpowered fist-fighters".
But Cabal can't eliminate *anything* with the wave of a hand. His
magical abilities are "walking" ley-lines, a teleportation type ability
that is confined to points along certain pre-dermined paths, and the
ability to imbue metal items that he smiths himself with protections
and/or compulsions of various sorts, all very limited and specific in
application, and all needing a great deal of advance preparation.
As for Arouj and Kheyr, they've been training in martial arts all their
life, and they still can't jump three times their own height (at least,
not in full gravity), let alone run on water. (Clearly they should have
been studying calligraphy instead.)
So why would my son consider these to be overpowered characters?
Well, it's all relative, right? Cabal has two magical abilities instead
of one, and he is also physically an impressive specimen and is highly
intelligent. That makes him "overpowered" compared to the other mages
in the same story, who have only one magical ability each, and athough
some are physically powerful, and some are pretty smart, I can't think
of any of them that are both.
Likewise, Arouj and Kheyr are going to be stronger, faster, and better
trained than pretty much anyone they meet AND they work really well as a
team. If I want to give them a challenging fight I have to stack the
deck against them.
My son also told me he suspected Kide, from Pavane, was overpowered,
because "He's got social influence, and he knows how to use it."
But I'm not too worried, because so far I haven't had any diffculty in
coming up with a suitable challenge for any of these people, and if just
having awesome characters is a crime, it's a crime that appears to pay
really, really well.
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
Heh. To me, you can't be "overpowered" until Doc Smith is worried about
your tendency to power fantasies.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
David Friedman
mbot...@lshelby.com (Michelle Bottorff) wrote:
> But I'm not too worried, because so far I haven't had any diffculty in
> coming up with a suitable challenge for any of these people, and if just
> having awesome characters is a crime, it's a crime that appears to pay
> really, really well.
I don't think it's a problem for a single book, but I think it is a
problem if the same character remains, and remains overpowered, through
a series.
It isn't quite the same issue, but consider the problems Charteris gets
into through having the Saint repeatedly get into obviously impossible
situations and then out of them. By the third or fourth time, it's hard
for the reader to believe that the hero is really at serious risk. It
got to the point where the author was joking about the subject with the
reader via the character, telling the bad guys that they may think they
have got him, but since he is the hero of the story he is obviously
going to get away.
Dan Goodman
> > This seems a situation where, as the author, you can easily stack
> > the deck by letting the reader learn, much earlier, that some such
> > mage has a sideline or affinity for magic of the kind that would
> > allow night vision or some alternative (bat-like sonar, binding the
> > party's path to the road, or whatever).
"Bat-like sonar" is something humans can do without magic -- though not
nearly as well as bats. Google on "Echoes of Bats and Men" for a start.
--
Dan Goodman
Journal at:
dsgood.livejournal.com
dsgood.dreamwidth.org
dsgood.insanejournal.com
Brenda Clough
> Eric Ammadon wrote:
>
>>> This seems a situation where, as the author, you can easily stack
>>> the deck by letting the reader learn, much earlier, that some such
>>> mage has a sideline or affinity for magic of the kind that would
>>> allow night vision or some alternative (bat-like sonar, binding the
>>> party's path to the road, or whatever).
>
> "Bat-like sonar" is something humans can do without magic -- though not
> nearly as well as bats. Google on "Echoes of Bats and Men" for a start.
>
You probably do it yourself, without being aware of it. Many people can
feel the 'loom' of a wall in the dark.
Brenda
Dan Goodman
I'm aware of it.
Michelle Bottorff
> In article <1j9zgfe.y7yrk018jka2sN%mbot...@lshelby.com>,
> mbot...@lshelby.com (Michelle Bottorff) wrote:
>
> > But I'm not too worried, because so far I haven't had any diffculty in
> > coming up with a suitable challenge for any of these people, and if just
> > having awesome characters is a crime, it's a crime that appears to pay
> > really, really well.
>
> I don't think it's a problem for a single book, but I think it is a
> problem if the same character remains, and remains overpowered, through
> a series.
I'm not so sure.
At least, I think that for me as a reader it all depends on how it's
handled.
As a writer I only have one series where it might apply, so far, and
I've only just barely (last friday) completed the first draft of the
second book, and haven't sent it out for feedback yet.
> It isn't quite the same issue, but consider the problems Charteris gets
> into through having the Saint repeatedly get into obviously impossible
> situations and then out of them. By the third or fourth time, it's hard
> for the reader to believe that the hero is really at serious risk.
This "problem" never makes sense to me as described.
I *never* believe the hero is going to die.
However I'm afraid I can't use the Saint books as an example to discuss
further. I know I read some when I was... um... eight or nine? But I
can't actually remember anything about them.
Eric Ammadon
>Eric Ammadon wrote:
>
>> > This seems a situation where, as the author, you can easily stack
>> > the deck by letting the reader learn, much earlier, that some such
>> > mage has a sideline or affinity for magic of the kind that would
>> > allow night vision or some alternative (bat-like sonar, binding the
>> > party's path to the road, or whatever).
>
>"Bat-like sonar" is something humans can do without magic -- though not
>nearly as well as bats. Google on "Echoes of Bats and Men" for a start.
Sorry to quibble your bits, but that's Quinn's comment, not mine.
Ilmari Karonen
> David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
>> into through having the Saint repeatedly get into obviously impossible
>> situations and then out of them. By the third or fourth time, it's hard
>> for the reader to believe that the hero is really at serious risk.
>
> This "problem" never makes sense to me as described.
>
> I *never* believe the hero is going to die.
You do have a point: while authors sometimes do kill off their heroes,
it does tend to be tricky to pull off, at least before the last few
chapters in the last book of the series, especially if there's only
one hero who's also the sole viewpoint character. It's much easier in
books or series with multiple protagonists, of course.
But I think the real issue is that, while the *reader* may know that
the hero must eventually triumph, because they know there's another
book in the series, the hero him/herself (or at least the narrator, if
distinct) should generally have some reason to believe that the
situation might present a challenge to them.
In a way, I think it's about keeping up the fourth wall. If the hero
knows they can't fail no matter what, because they're the hero (or has
every reason to assume it, because they had no trouble whatsoever
handling the n+1 previous similar situations), why should they care
about the problem? And if they don't care, why should the reader?
Another way of looking at it might be that it depends on the type of
the book. If the story is about the hero applying his well-known
skills to methodically solving a problem step by step, there's no
problem with repeating it: we know Hercule Poirot is going to solve
the case, because he's an excellent detective, and the only suspense
is in how he does it and whodunnit. But if the formula of the stories
involves the hero discovering their superb and heretofore unsuspected
abilities, and thereby triumphing against all expectations, then after
a few iterations the hero may have accumulated so many of those superb
abilities that any halfway sensible person's expectations start to be
heavily stacked in their favor. Which can make the formula harder and
harder to follow.
--
Ilmari Karonen
To reply by e-mail, please replace ".invalid" with ".net" in address.
Michelle Bottorff
> But if the formula of the stories
> involves the hero discovering their superb and heretofore unsuspected
> abilities, and thereby triumphing against all expectations, then after
> a few iterations the hero may have accumulated so many of those superb
> abilities that any halfway sensible person's expectations start to be
> heavily stacked in their favor. Which can make the formula harder and
> harder to follow.
I can't recall ever using that particular forumla.
David Friedman
Ilmari Karonen <use...@vyznev.invalid> wrote:
> Another way of looking at it might be that it depends on the type of
> the book. If the story is about the hero applying his well-known
> skills to methodically solving a problem step by step, there's no
> problem with repeating it: we know Hercule Poirot is going to solve
> the case, because he's an excellent detective, and the only suspense
> is in how he does it and whodunnit. But if the formula of the stories
> involves the hero discovering their superb and heretofore unsuspected
> abilities, and thereby triumphing against all expectations, then after
> a few iterations the hero may have accumulated so many of those superb
> abilities that any halfway sensible person's expectations start to be
> heavily stacked in their favor. Which can make the formula harder and
> harder to follow.
>
Good point.
_Harald_, my first novel, fits your first pattern, although since it's
only one book it doesn't raise the problem of keeping it up.
_Salamander_ is in part a variant of your second. The really overpowered
character knows perfectly well how powerful he is. But almost everyone
else in the book doesn't, because they think he died some forty years
earlier, and the reader only discovers what's going on part way through
the book.
There is a second character who arguably is also overpowered, although
not by nearly as much. She knows what she can do but doesn't fully
appreciate how much better she is than those around her, at least
initially, in part because she is a rather modest seventeen year old
girl (I'm guessing--could be a year older or younger) brought up by very
talented parents. She hasn't, prior to the beginning of the book, had
much basis for comparison.
In the sequel, the former character is (so far, and very likely through
to the end) entirely off stage. The latter is an important secondary
character, but not central enough to raise problems.