Subject: SOLDIER OF THE MIST by Gene Wolfe

From: Donn Seeley <donn at utah-cs.arpa>
Date: Fri, 07 Nov 1986 06:13:03 +0000

In Patti Perret's THE FACES OF SCIENCE FICTION, Gene Wolfe's
portrait shows a long row of books in the foreground with names like
GREEK DIVINATION and THE GREEKS AND THE PERSIANS, including a
prominent 4-volume edition of Herodotos.  SOLDIER OF THE MIST (Tor
1986) is a fantasy which builds on all this raw material, taking
place in 479 BC in Greece and Asia Minor.  The story is interesting
and exciting and the setting is packed with beautiful details and
the plot is deeply entangled in delicate puzzles, but it's only the
first book in a series and as such leaves you in quite a bit of
suspense at the end.

The characters of MIST participate in the events surrounding the
disastrous invasion of Greece by the empire of the Persian king
Xerxes.  The text of the novel is purportedly the record of a
soldier of the Persian army who was gravely wounded in a great
battle: a projectile of some sort penetrated his skull and injured
his brain, leaving him with a form of anterograde amnesia (and more
than a little retrograde amnesia as well).  By evening his memories
of morning are already fading, disappearing into the 'mist' which
has swallowed his life.  In order to survive, he has taken to
writing a diary on a scroll whose title is READ THIS EACH DAY.  With
his past in tatters, the soldier has lost his ability to distinguish
the mundane from the supernatural, and he records the activities of
the gods about him just as matter-of-factly as he describes his
lunch.  The gods, it seems, are once again scheming against each
other and the soldier is a pawn in their games.  The soldier walks
through the lives of the mortals he meets leaving behind
consternation and wonder, and by the end of this first book we know
that the soldier is being prepared for a crucial role in both
planes.

As usual, Wolfe's prose is a joy to read and his characters are
fascinating.  I don't think this is as major a book as his SHADOW OF
THE TORTURER, however.  SHADOW was much more self-contained, using a
plot which reached a distinct climax before the end of the volume.
MIST is by its very nature a fragmented story, and it's hard to see
more than the building blocks for a plot in it.  Wolfe has assumed a
very difficult task in presenting a protagonist who is incapable of
any action which requires long-range planning...  A minor problem is
that I've forgotten much of my Greek mythology -- I found it
difficult to keep track of the many gods who appear on the scene,
sometimes employing different guises and different names (many of
which are 'translated' into English forms which for me bear no hint
of the original).  The history gave me some trouble too; before the
second volume comes out I'll have to dust off my old copy of
Herodotos and try to get the historical setting straight.  I won't
mind the work, though: it's always been a rewarding labor to dig
deep into Wolfe's stories.

Dig we must,