An army is a horror. It's a horrible thing. They say you might change your mind about that when the country is invaded and your people are suffering wrong, but for me this is all just more horror, more army-horror. Cisco wastes no time in getting to the punch with this novel, and this searing and clear-eyed voice drives the reader like a vengeful officer on a harrowing march through a landscape of nightmare, brutality and absurdity. Low, our protagonist - and (perhaps) the eponymous figure - is a student in a fantastical, dreamlike realm, called up to serve both as soldier and narrator in a convoluted war. Low's position as a 'military narrator' doesn't just serve as an introduction to the alien culture of its world - this is from the off a story about stories, about who gets to tell them and which we hear, and how they shape reality. This theme manifests in many forms, both more direct - such as Low's encounter with an enemy narrator later in the novel, or th
Discussion of horror and whatever else takes my fancy.