{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/59",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "sflovers",
  "thread": {
    "id": 59,
    "subject": "SOLDIER OF THE MIST by Gene Wolfe",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1986-11-07T06:13:03+00:00",
    "last": "1986-11-07T06:13:03+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v11-376-11@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Donn Seeley",
        "address": "donn at utah-cs.arpa"
      },
      "date": "1986-11-07T06:13:03+00:00",
      "subject": "SOLDIER OF THE MIST by Gene Wolfe",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "In Patti Perret's THE FACES OF SCIENCE FICTION, Gene Wolfe's\nportrait shows a long row of books in the foreground with names like\nGREEK DIVINATION and THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS, including a\nprominent 4-volume edition of Herodotos.  SOLDIER OF THE MIST (Tor\n1986) is a fantasy which builds on all this raw material, taking\nplace in 479 BC in Greece and Asia Minor.  The story is interesting\nand exciting and the setting is packed with beautiful details and\nthe plot is deeply entangled in delicate puzzles, but it's only the\nfirst book in a series and as such leaves you in quite a bit of\nsuspense at the end.\n\nThe characters of MIST participate in the events surrounding the\ndisastrous invasion of Greece by the empire of the Persian king\nXerxes.  The text of the novel is purportedly the record of a\nsoldier of the Persian army who was gravely wounded in a great\nbattle: a projectile of some sort penetrated his skull and injured\nhis brain, leaving him with a form of anterograde amnesia (and more\nthan a little retrograde amnesia as well).  By evening his memories\nof morning are already fading, disappearing into the 'mist' which\nhas swallowed his life.  In order to survive, he has taken to\nwriting a diary on a scroll whose title is READ THIS EACH DAY.  With\nhis past in tatters, the soldier has lost his ability to distinguish\nthe mundane from the supernatural, and he records the activities of\nthe gods about him just as matter-of-factly as he describes his\nlunch.  The gods, it seems, are once again scheming against each\nother and the soldier is a pawn in their games.  The soldier walks\nthrough the lives of the mortals he meets leaving behind\nconsternation and wonder, and by the end of this first book we know\nthat the soldier is being prepared for a crucial role in both\nplanes.\n\nAs usual, Wolfe's prose is a joy to read and his characters are\nfascinating.  I don't think this is as major a book as his SHADOW OF\nTHE TORTURER, however.  SHADOW was much more self-contained, using a\nplot which reached a distinct climax before the end of the volume.\nMIST is by its very nature a fragmented story, and it's hard to see\nmore than the building blocks for a plot in it.  Wolfe has assumed a\nvery difficult task in presenting a protagonist who is incapable of\nany action which requires long-range planning...  A minor problem is\nthat I've forgotten much of my Greek mythology -- I found it\ndifficult to keep track of the many gods who appear on the scene,\nsometimes employing different guises and different names (many of\nwhich are 'translated' into English forms which for me bear no hint\nof the original).  The history gave me some trouble too; before the\nsecond volume comes out I'll have to dust off my old copy of\nHerodotos and try to get the historical setting straight.  I won't\nmind the work, though: it's always been a rewarding labor to dig\ndeep into Wolfe's stories.\n\nDig we must,"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}