The idea that the legend of Magnes the shepherd could be the origin of magnet, et al., and the legend itself has been criticized. Pliny's story is characterized in Gillian Turner's book North Pole, South Pole: The Epic Quest to Solve the Great Mystery of Earth’s Magnetism (2011) as "no doubt embellished by centuries of retelling." In the 1896 treatise Coil and Current; or the Triumphs of Electricity, the authors write: