Operation Wandering Soul employs Powers's basic structural technique of setting the historical context for his stories in regularly placed interchapters. This novel's interchapters cover a time span that extends from Roman times (the ruler's order that the twin sons of the Vestal Virgin and the God of War be drowned in the Tiber) to the last half of the twentieth century. Their purpose is to illustrate how children have been used by society throughout history. Powers employs this technique in his other novels.