bloguldesefe

Good book with some good Eastern Front combat, but the MC is too super smart, super lucky, super brave, super admired, superhero, to be 100% believable - definitely less than other ww2 German veterans memories. Also, a lot of the book in non-combat (him in Germany and Italy).

Terribly boring, bad characters, lame world except the grand idea, no good story. Terribly done female character (dumber than a really dumb child). Except the idea of a ring world and the pupeteer race, this book has nothing to offer. Why is it so famous? Beats me...

The military part (the battles) is very good, but the rest of the plot is 4th grade (elementary school) level simplistic, basic, black&white crap... I really felt my intelligence as a reader was very strongly underestimated and offended.

Very good writing and style, but also very lame story (the space devoted to a certain sea crit broke the book for me, and i really did not expect, or want, sea adventures)

There might be (or not) a story there, but no matter how hard I tried, i could not get past the writing in order to find it. It is the most un-musical, un-artistic, impossible to enjoy writing.
What do I understand by good writing, to make myself clear? Either art in words, like Gene Wolfe or Patrick Rothfuss, or ”straight to bussiness” (but still not just words), like Stephen King or PK Dick.
This is neither, and the opposite of both.
Did not like it? No, actually hated it.
Before buying it, please read the first pages...