A review by bryce_is_a_librarian
Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe

5.0

I legitimately have no idea how Gene Wolfe does it. How do you create such compelling work simply by demanding your reader's pay attention? There simply isn't a writer who gets such careful reading from me as Wolfe, and all without any obvious tricks. The language is the simple straightforward prose of a midwestern engineer, the plots don't seem to purposefully obfuscate themselves and yet I end up reading and rereading passages closely as anything just because I can never be sure if what I've read is actually what I've read.

Anyway, a fantastic piece of historical fiction with some scenes that are as genuinely disturbing as anything I've ever read and others that are touching in their loveliness all set amid a landscape both brutal and prosaic!! Pretty dang good, I guess! Pretty sure it was written by a wizard.