Review of Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe’s Soldier of the Mist is the intriguing story of a mercenary soldier living in ancient Greece befuddled by anterograde amnesia.  Each night’s sleep wiping his memory of everything but his youth and instinct, each morning brings a new beginning.  And the perpetual fresh start was evident in the relative lightness of the book’s tone.  Meeting gods, being everyday in a new place, and forever meeting fresh faces (even though he may have already met them), Latro remained optimistic throughout that despite his memory problem he would find his way home.  At the conclusion of Mist he experienced a wake up call, of a sort, however.  Segueing into the next novel, Soldier of Arete (1989) digs itself deeper into Latro’s mind as he attempts to come to terms with the realities of length: the road home, and how he will handle his memory issues if there is no cure.

The scene at the end of Soldier of the Mist a major event in Latro’s life, the opening of Soldier of Arete nevertheless finds the slave-soldier in the same company. Watched over by the faithful child Io and befriended by the trustworthy Seven Lions, he and the army he is owned by continue to make their way across the seas of ancient Greece to worthy destinations.  Witness to a brutal execution at the story’s start, a figurative execution closes the novel, leaving Latro to have acquired a great deal in the middle.  Spending time amongst the Amazons, gleaning memory and scroll trying to uncover plots against his life, pawn to others when his memory fails, and always unaware who is and isn’t a god, his adventures are no less intriguing than Mist.

Review of Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe

Of the variations of loss mankind faces, memory is one of the hardest.  Less physically and more existentially painful, memory deprivation is tantamount to losing one’s self; without the past to inform identity in the present, the mind can find itself in a stranger’s body.  Alzheimer’s an extreme, there are subtler variations of memory loss which nevertheless smear the personal conception of self across a subjective peep show of the remembered past.  Entering this gulf of equivocated identity is Gene Wolfe’s brilliant 1986 novel Soldier of the Mist.  The story of a soldier in ancient Greece suffering anterograde amnesia (the inability to form long term memories), the world through his eyes appears unstable and off-putting.  But as time moves on, the reader realizes the man’s condition is not as far removed from a healthy mind’s perspective of memory and the past as it would seem. 

Writing an account of his day on a scroll before going to sleep and encountering a scroll with the words “Read This” in the morning, Latro the soldier learns and relearns anew every day who he is, long term memory gone.  Struck on the head in battle, he retains hazy memories of his youth and language skills, but little else.  Name and home, for example, are a mystery.  Life literally taken day to day, instinct and the will of others guide his life.  On the losing side of the battle, he begins Soldier of the Mist a slave to the victors. Prized by them, he is allowed to befriend an Ethiopian and a poet, and soon comes into a friendship with a young slave girl—she the biggest help in retaining his notion of self.  After the battle a divine intervention sets him on a group pilgrimage to the Shining Mother. The circumstances of life and the condition of his memory quickly shift the focus, however.  His goals evolving with each stop on the map, it’s meeting the necromancer Eurykles that effects the most change.  Witnessing the resurrection of a corpse in a cemetery one evening, Latro’s perception of the gods, the living, and everything between intertwine to lead him closer to who he is.  Trouble is, he may never remember.

Review of Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

It seems there is no subject too big or too small, too esoteric or too familiar, that Terry Pratchett won’t tackle in Discworld.  His 1989 Pyramids, seventh in the series, sees the author exploring Egypt—just entering the groove that would become more than forty novels in the Discworld setting.  The humor amongst the best Pratchett has produced, the book still leaves something to be desired for plot.  As such, I’m guessing it won the 1989 British Science Fiction Award for historical grounding, wordplay, stabs at theme, and accomplishments to date, rather than consistent storytelling or characterization.

Pyramids is the tale of Teppic, son of Teppicymon XXVII who is king of the desert land Djelibeybi.  Sent to the Assassin’s Guild in Ankh-Morpork for grooming into an “educated young man”, after graduating Teppic finds he’s needed back in Djelibeybi due to a family emergency.  Djelibeybi stuck in a time warp, the state of the kingdom compared to Ankh-Morpork is a shocking experience.  Though determined to follow with tradition, Teppic soon finds what’s best from history may not be the best for his country.