Soldier of the Mist

Soldier of the Mist is a triumphant departure into the realms of fantasy by an acknowledged master crafts- man. It follows Wolfe's Free Live Free, which The New York Times selected as one of the six distinguished SF books of 1985. The Washington Post said of Free Live Free, "It is humorous, loving, loyal and true. From an author whose sensibility is normally complex and serenely chilling, it reads like a present from the heart." Soldier of the Mist is the first book of a major work from the author of The Book of the New Sun.

From the distant future, Wolfe has turned to the fantastic historical world of Greece, in 479 B.C., when the gods walked the Earth. Latro, a mercenary soldier from the north, has suffered a head wound in battle and has been separated from his com- patriots. He has not only lost the memory of who he is and where he is from, he has also lost the ability to remember from day to day and must live out of context in an eternal present, every day rediscovering the shreds of his identity and the nature of the world around him, aided only by a written record that he attempts to continue daily and must read every morning.

But in recompense for his unhappy condition Latro has received the ability to see and converse with invisible beings, all the gods and goddesses, ghosts and demons and werewolves, who inhabit the land and affect the lives of others, all unseen. Everyone knows that supernatural creatures are constantly around them and some- times, under special circumstances, can perceive them but Latro is now constantly able to penetrate the veil of the supernatural, which is both a triumph and a danger.

Based upon diligent historical research and extraordinary imagination, Soldier of the Mist is in every way a ground-breaking novel, set in a world of fantasy and adventure and mystery that promises further de- velopment in future books.