A novel of World War 3 written near the end of the Cold War. Maybe it's because I just read several dryer works of fiction before this one, but I thought the writing was quite good. It bounces back and forth between multiple points of view, from the general commanding the Front to an infantryman private. The result give a good cross section of Russian military men.

All the points of view are Russian military men. Unlike other works of this type, there are no points of view outside of that category. No views from the home front. No opposing forces points of view. No points of view from allied Warsaw Pact forces. There is one brief point of view from a KGB man, which is the closest to a "non-military" point of view. Discount that and the one point of view from fighter pilot, and it's not just all military, but all Army. The result is a very focused story, despite the many points of view. The focus being the main Soviet offensive in northern Europe.

The author, an intelligence officer in the US Army, admits his biases in an Author's Note at the back of the book. He wanted to better answer the question of what Russian soldiers are like, and he was critical of some strategic decisions being made by NATO.

Being a cross-section of many different types of Russian military men, there are a fair number of bullies, misogynists, and racists. I had to remind myself reading this, that those characters weren't being presented as heroes, they were being presented as typical of some Russian soldiers (they also weren't presented as being representative of all Russian soldiers).

In the end, the story is a war story that follows the progress of the war, telling individual anecdotes along the way. There's no overarching plot beyond the course of the campaign.

Oh yeah, and it ends abruptly, because it ends with the end of the war, which is also abrupt.