Siege: my personal opinion

[Feldwebel Crin]

Before I say anything, I should direct you to here and here. They are the original threads, but no one has really given it a full look.

Russ Schneider's Siege is a look at two battles of the Eastern Front through the eyes of three fictional characters and General Scherer at different points. At Cholm, 5,000 routed German soldiers are trapped in the small town, where a security division was posted. It is here that Scherer takes command. For a large part, Russian assaults against the city were unorganized, with the exception of the final May Day attack, which grinds the German perimeter to less than a mile wide. At last, the garrison is relieved that month. Even so, Scherer will soon face another tragedy at Velikiye Luki, where casualties spiral up to 99 percent.

Let me say that as soon as I read the prologue I was hooked. The first-person account of the GULAG prisoner being sent to his death at the Stalin Line could have been a great short story by itself, but the point where the hapless prisoner dies is the introduction of the characters. Unlike many war novels that I have read, the characters are fleshed-out and believeable. Kordts and Freitag are unlikely friends relying on each other during the frozen hell of Cholm and facing death at Velikiye Luki. Schrader joins the story at Velikiye Luki and is the witness to the horror of the battle.

I'll post the other parts of my review later. Good? Bad? Have a better review? Think I should jump off a cliff? Why aren't you posting then!!

[Feldwebel Crin]

Russ Schneider's descriptive style is nothing short of amazing. At many times, he uses a repetitive sentence structure, especially when desctribing the minutiae of the soldiers' lives. At certain times, this can get annoying, and I tear myself away from the pages to say: "What the ****!?" Even so, those are just little quirks of his writing style.

When the battle sequences come, Russ Schneider tells them gory, pulling no punches for the ordinary reader. Men get blown to bits, torn up by MG – 42 bullets ricocheting off a T34 hull, and turn black while being chewed up by a flamethrower. At one point, Freitag, Scrader, and their squad silently creep out of a surrounded medieval fortress to break out of Velikiye Luki. The squad behind them stumbles into a Russian patrol, and the two fire at each other point-blank. As Schrader and Freitag duck into a crater, a flare shoots up and illuminates the combatants. Russ Schneider writes that they are beating each other with rubble, using knives, and firing submachine guns at one another. Both the Germans and the Russians fire indiscriminately, and the carnage is immense. The surviving combatants scatter like cockroaches before being torn apart.

Okay, that's part two of my review. I will have the last part up soon.

[GameGeezer]

Wow, sounds cool, I'll check it out!

[Feldwebel Crin]

This is the last part of my review of Siege.

The general feel of the book is doom, of the hapless soldier. No tanks to support him; just trying to survive and get home. Yes, the book has the "we're all gonna die" attitude, but the vivid characters advance the story along nicely. Near to the end, many of the soldiers reckon death as a nice escape from the torture of war. In each Winter of the book, the feeling is generally more depressed. Kordts, the main character, develops periods of numbness, which to him were a relaxing break from the pain in his cheek.

In Velikiye Luki, there is a large feeling of hopelessness as the winter sets in and the Germans are surrounded. The way Russ Schneider depicts this is horrifying, but nevertheless great. Everything really folds out like a horror story, with the monster being War itself. There is no doubt that this novel is anti-war, but it is not just an excuse to say "war is bad". This is a great story, period. Only time can tell if this becomes a classic, but I will recommend it to anyone who wants a good read.

[Psycho]

I just read that book about two months ago. Didn't enjoy it as much as his other books but still pretty good. Yes the stories are usually pretty bleak. I get kinda bored sometimes with the seemingly trivial stuff but still enjoy his stories overall. Have you read his other books? I have one that is a nonfiction (I think) I haven't read. I really enjoyed the two fiction books Demyansk and Madness Without End. They are similar to Siege but have many stories instead.

[Feldwebel Crin]

I have looked for them, but the books are increasingly hard to find. I have read Gotterdammerung, though.

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by Feldwebel Crin

I have looked for them, but the books are increasingly hard to find. I have read Gotterdammerung, though.

Yeah that was the 3rd one. Is that one fiction or nonfiction?

[Feldwebel Crin]

Nonfiction. It is about the Battle for Berlin.

[Bloodstar]

Originally Posted by Feldwebel Crin

Before I say anything, I should direct you to here and here. They are the original threads, but no one has really given it a full look.

Russ Schneider's Siege is a look at two battles of the Eastern Front through the eyes of three fictional characters and General Scherer at different points. At Cholm, 5,000 routed German soldiers are trapped in the small town, where a security division was posted. It is here that Scherer takes command. For a large part, Russian assaults against the city were unorganized, with the exception of the final May Day attack, which grinds the German perimeter to less than a mile wide. At last, the garrison is relieved that month. Even so, Scherer will soon face another tragedy at Velikiye Luki, where casualties spiral up to 99 percent.

Let me say that as soon as I read the prologue I was hooked. The first-person account of the GULAG prisoner being sent to his death at the Stalin Line could have been a great short story by itself, but the point where the hapless prisoner dies is the introduction of the characters. Unlike many war novels that I have read, the characters are fleshed-out and believeable. Kordts and Freitag are unlikely friends relying on each other during the frozen hell of Cholm and facing death at Velikiye Luki. Schrader joins the story at Velikiye Luki and is the witness to the horror of the battle.

I'll post the other parts of my review later. Good? Bad? Have a better review? Think I should jump off a cliff? Why aren't you posting then!!

Let me tell you something, Russ Schneider was the guy who sent me his book called "Madness Without End" in 1995. I wrote to him and he was kind to send me a book, free of charge! He told me that I will buy book from him later...
Later I've hear that he died at age 43, that was when I ordered Siege opened the book and saw that he died at age 43....

Siege is great book, I still didn't finished it, first part is better... But, "Madness without hell " is even better book!!! It is collection of short storys from Eastrern Front, he uses imagination and fiction with some reality, great book!

I am glad that someone else have found out this great author, sadly passed so young.


Mario