Watching the Soldiers
They first appeared at the time of the golden skies. Mikhael saw them marching across the cloudless heavens: bright skins glinting like frosted glass, feet flashing in buoyant rhythm with each step, and hair flowing like filaments of sunlight. And by their sides marched great beasts with scales of rich leather and eyes like soft golden flames, beasts with powerfully muscled bodies and gentle faces. Although the marchers seemed as impossibly distant as stars, Mikhael felt the soft breeze of their breaths on his face, and he heard their strange, incomprehensible call filtering through the air.
Illustration by Shaun Tan
Praise for "Watching the Soldiers"
Dirks Strasser's "Watching the Soldiers" is an elegantly written story examining the idea of war versus the grand fiction of it... Strasser's examination of the theme brings forth haunting images which will settle into your mind and heart and guide you to draw from them the inescapable conclusion: In wartime, we are all prisoners, of the war itself and of our illusions.
Tangent
... a tale of universal truth and heartfelt emotion. It also serves very nicely as a timeless fable. Dirk Strasser... has captured the ambiance of Eastern Europe in a story of extraordinary power.
Borderlands 4
Dirk Strasser was a tyro during '93, delivering two novels and three pieces of short fiction. His piece in Borderlands 4 was particularly good.
Eidolon - The Year in Review
Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 8th Annual Collection (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling).
Honorable Mention in Year's Best Science Fiction 14th Annual Collection (edited by Gardner Dozois).
Tangent
... a tale of universal truth and heartfelt emotion. It also serves very nicely as a timeless fable. Dirk Strasser... has captured the ambiance of Eastern Europe in a story of extraordinary power.
Borderlands 4
Dirk Strasser was a tyro during '93, delivering two novels and three pieces of short fiction. His piece in Borderlands 4 was particularly good.
Eidolon - The Year in Review
Honorable Mention in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 8th Annual Collection (edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling).
Honorable Mention in Year's Best Science Fiction 14th Annual Collection (edited by Gardner Dozois).
Publication History
"Watching the Soldiers" has been published several times, including in Polish in Nowa Fantastyka as "patrząc na żołnierzy" and in the German anthology Die Zeitbraut as "Der Vorbeimarsch der Soldaten". Read some of my thoughts on magic realism and this story.
Buy a copy of Aurealis #17 - The Art of Peace and War.
Buy a copy of Aurealis #17 - The Art of Peace and War.
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