Follett really needs to learn not to use things for shock-value if he's not willing to discuss the consequences; he uses rape of German citizens by the Red Army to advance some strange half-story (which fizzles out immediately because look how amazing Werner really is, raising his "Oriental looking" stepson!), and he never once comments on the feelings that Carla (the victim) would actually be feeling.

He spends so much time studying the history that he forgets women, children, queer, and people of colour are ... also people. And that's infuriating.

He barely even discusses why the NKVD and other secret police are terrible, only making those mentions in passing through Volodya's "I don't like them" moments. He doesn't even comment on the fact that treason is an offence punishable by death; he just lets it happen to Willi Frunze and his wife Alice. No commentary, nothing.

The book is full of details but many of them aren't used in conjunction with how they genuinely would have affected people of all sorts. Joanne's death was absolutely pointless; there was very little story development surrounding it. She could've easily lived, and the story would've been the same (Woody took pictures of Pearl Harbor, got a job -- Joanne's death did very little to halt that). Chuck could've survived, and his death did nothing for the rest of the novel. Walter, even though his death could've meant something, did almost nothing other than push Carla farther into resisting the Nazis (which is good).

And Erik literally had no function as a character. He both saw the light (telling his mother and sister how right they were and how sorry he was) and then immediately rejected it (which is uncharacteristic), and I can't even make sense of that.

It's like Follett creates far too many people for a story all at once when he could make multiple books and then loses sight of who those characters really were. This happens in Fall of Giants over and over again, and it happens more frequently in Winter of the World.