"Teach This" Response #2: Seeker

Seeker – a Young Adult Science Fiction novel

Summary of the Story

The night fifteen-year-old Quin Kincaid takes her Oath, she will become what she has trained to be her entire life. She will become a Seeker. This is her legacy, and it is an honor. As a Seeker, Quin will fight beside her two closest companions, Shinobu and John, to protect the weak and the wronged. Together they will stand for light in a shadowy world. And she'll be with the boy she loves - who's also her best friend. But the night Quin takes her Oath, everything changes. Being a Seeker is not what she thought. Quin learns that she will be using ancient artifacts and sacred knowledge as an assassin. Her family is not what she thought. Even the boy she loves is not who she thought. And now it's too late to walk away (Dayton front sleeve).

          Arwen Elys Dayton’s book Seeker, first in a planned trilogy, is a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, adventure, and steampunk. I found its settings somewhat unusual for a book which features a form of time travel, as it incorporates scenes from a Scottish estate to an opium-riddled Hong Kong to a noir London featuring steampunk-style airships. The weapons used by Seekers are introduced in a sharp and immediate way; I realized as I read those passages that I had already formed a picture of them in my mind’s eye. These time-slip warriors use a whipsword (made of an oily black and malleable material, it responds only to its owner’s hand and may form all manner of deadly blades) and an athame (a stone dagger with the ability to literally slice through time and space, as it opens the gateways through which the Seekers travel).  Seeker is told via a four-person narrative that frames the action with four distinct personae. Seeker’s interesting main cast of characters includes:

Name	Description
Quin Kincaid	Fifteen years old; she and Shinobu have trained along-side John for several years, with the hopes of becoming a Seeker. Quin believes that to be a Seeker is a time-honored tradition and sees it as a calling. She and the other apprentices receive their training on the Kincaid family’s Scottish estate; her father Briac is their primary instructor
Shinobu MacBain	Quin’s cousin; the son of Scottish father Alistair MacBain (another Seeker instructor) and his Japanese mother, Shinobu has been in love with Quin for years
John Hart	Sixteen years old; having started his training later than Quin or Shinobu, his motives for undertaking the Seeker training differ greatly from those of his friends. Although earnest in his desire to take the Oath, John’s real mission is to reclaim his family’s honor and fulfill his promise made to his mother on her deathbed
Maud	Introduced as “The Young Dread”; the Dreads’ roles in the story are somewhat murky – they appear to have remarkable abilities (accelerated healing, super-keen eyesight and hearing, and an almost superhuman speed and stealth) and share the Seekers’ capacity to slide through time. Their role is described as part overseer of the Oath’s overseer and part judge

Why Teach This Text

This was another book suggested by the local librarian, given its multi-faceted and thought-provoking themes of betrayal, teen angst/relationships, drug abuse as a means of escape, depression, and familial struggles. Seeker provides an interesting plot and settings, dynamic characters, and a unique literary style that I liked – a four-person perspective. Each chapter was voiced by one of main characters. Bucher and Hinton highlight these elements of literature as means of any genre evaluation (29-36). Another feature of Seeker that lends itself to readability, in my opinion, is that it has two strong, independent and resilient female protagonists in the characters of Quin and Maud. Seeker must resonate with its intended audience: the book averaged four out of five stars in its on-line reviews from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Dayton even had a movie deal before Seeker was published (Biedenharn). As an aside, the author is married to Sky Dayton, founder of the internet service provider EarthLink (Wikipedia).

With respect to the idea of betrayal, all four main characters experience this early on in the book. Quin learns that her father is a brutal and manipulative villain, her uncle a liar, and her boyfriend’s reasons for being at her family’s estate are shrouded in even more horrific secrets. Shinobu’s father has kept important family issues from him. John’s family history hides details from him that threaten to turn his quest into a nightmare, while Maud experiences treachery at the hands of the very people into whose care she was placed. When the estate is attacked and Quin is gravely wounded, Shinobu escapes with Quin through a portal to Hong Kong. There, we watch both as they descend into alternate means of escape: Quin chooses to undergo a sort of “therapeutic amnesia” instead of coming to grips with what has happened, while Shinobu uses opium and near-death experiences instead of facing the horrors of their Seeker experiences. Although these examples, indeed the book, detail dark events, I believe they serve as excellent starting points for class discussion. While these issues are ugly, they are unfortunately relevant and realistic to young adult readers.

Activities/Assignments

1. 1.     Have the students design a trip that takes them from Scotland to Hong Kong to London. In their itinerary, they should include the number of miles traveled and mode of transportation, along with the estimated time and cost of such a journey. This will be a good test of logic, logistics, and planning, because they will have to stay within a pre-determined budget
2. 2.     Given the battle that plays out over London, create a news article describing the scene as a reporter may have seen it from street view. The focus may be as an interview with someone who witnessed the events, as a reporter on the scene as the events occur, or as a sort of “day after” report. Students could opt for a medium of choice (video, written word, magazine article, or a combination). This is designed to foment their creative thinking abilities, as well as their writing skills
3. 3.     Seeker shows Quin’s family unit to be quite dysfunctional and almost Dickensian in nature. Her father has essentially raised her and the others to be paid assassins. Briac is a villain. Write an essay in which you argue for Briac’s life. In this instance, I want to prod and provoke students to see a different perspective. We are taught, and even encouraged, to take the hero/ine’s point of view of the story. What happens when that trope is upended?
4. 4.     As Maud and the other Dreads descend into the cave, they see ten carvings on the wall:  a horse, a fox, a ram, a boar, a stag, an eagle, a bear, a dragon, a wildcat, and three interlocking ovals (Dayton 356). These represent each of the Seeker family bloodlines. Have students run a Google (or search engine of choice) search for one of these symbols, looking for how the results tie in with a Seeker’s mission. For this idea, I want students to make connections to what they read and apply some critical analysis. In addition, this would serve as a vehicle designed to get them accustomed to citing their sources
5. 5.     Shinobu and Quin flee the estate after the attack. They have only seconds to prepare for the journey and no time to really gather supplies, mementos, or even clothes. Imagine a scenario in which you and your family must leave your home quickly. What items would you take with you, and why? This could be used as a means of tying in current events, such as a natural disaster, political refugees, etc.

Works Cited

Biedenharn, Isabella. “The Sequel to Seeker.” Entertainment Weekly, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 11 Jun. 2016.

Bucher, Katherine, and KaaVonia Hinton. Young Adult Literature: Exploration, Evaluation, and Appreciation. 3rd ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Dayton, Arwen Elys. Seeker. New York: Delacorte Press, 2015. Print.

Wikipedia contributors. "Sky Dayton." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 4 Jun. 2016. Web. 11 Jun. 2016.