This is a hard review to write. It was compelling and interesting and gripping. There were tiny flashes of grim humor. But it was not a fun or light read at all.[return][return]At first I was put off that our protagonist was a civilian, but over the course of the book, it makes the way that he gets caught up in the experience more about the experience, without the complications of being stuck in the war. Instead of science fiction being the focus and war being just something that happens, science fiction makes it more general instead of being about a specific time that we can think of as safely past. [return][return]It makes me want to go read Catch-22. I didn't even like Catch-22 last time I read it. [return][return]Don't be worried that it appears to be first in the series. It's a complete story, and I can't even imagine how the next book will pick it up.