4 stars rounded up, because the whole is more than the sum of its parts.


This monumental novel without a doubt pulled me out of my comfort zone and yet I enjoyed it in spite of the fact that:

* I don't like multiple sex partners and sex explicitly considered as "only sex" or a recreative activity in my fiction, and this book have them in abundance.

* I abhor what Vadim, Dan (and Hooch) are. On this matter I make my own Simsala's review.


The only thing that really was in detriment of my enjoyment was the underlying ideology, Whereas it's, in its essence, perfectly reasonable, it's displayed with a puerile manichaeism that irritates me. Talking about MCs and most important secondary characters, were Soviets the only cruel, perverse and unscrupulous torturers and genocidal, while Brits and Yanks were -and are- killers, yes, but clean and aseptic, little less than white little doves? Oh yeah?

But, at long last, I could withdraw myself, although with effort, of all those factors that upset the stomach to the convinced pacifist that I'm, and I basked in the many doses of good sex, the marvelous emotional intensity of the characters and relationships and, even if in a most rational level, I appreciated also the crude semblance of these creatures defined by war and organized violence. ( )