Siege: A Novel of the Eastern Front, 1942

by Russ Schneider

The events are real, the characters are fictional, the suffering and sacrifice are authentic–and unforgettable

On January 21, 1942, more than five thousand exhausted German soldiers– fragments of retreating units–found themselves surrounded in the arctic northern Russian town of Cholm. Trapped in an area barely two kilometers wide, the freezing, starving men held out for 105 days, repelling endless infantry attacks and dozens of tank assaults. Fifteen hundred Germans died before relief finally arrived on May 5, but for those still able to fight, an even worse ordeal lay ahead–the siege of Fortress Velikiye Luki.

Following the fates of three ordinary Germans through these epic struggles, Russ Schneider captures the ferocity and titanic cruelty of a war that pushed men to the very edge of madness. Millions perished on the Russian Front during World War II. Siege is a searing testament to the forgotten men who strove valiantly, if in vain, against impossible odds.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Military History

476 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published October 26, 2004

About the author

Russ Schneider has been a backpacking, rafting, and fishing guide with Glacier Wilderness Guide in West Glacier, Montana, since 1993. He has also served as an editor for many of Falcon's how-to books. His numerous books include Backpacking Tips, Best Hikes Along the Continental Divide, Fishing Glacier National Park, and Hiking the Columbia River Gorge.

Reviews

[Hoodie Ninja · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good information. But a lot was drawn out, like whole pages describing the sunset...

[Chuck · Rating 1 out of 5]

This novel was a real slog. The author knew nothing about how to write a novel. Just about everything an aspiring novelist is told not to do, he did. It's a shame too, because there's a story worth telling in the novel. The author just does a poor job of telling it.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got about halfway through this and had to stop. It's awkwardly paced, though it is full of good historical details.

[Jeff Dawson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love World War Two history whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. However, this book was one of the worse I have ever read, and that says a lot! Why? I’ve read and reviewed over two-hundred books on the topic.

The book starts out with the life of Russian prisoner who thinks he’s going to work on another railroad project and die. Instead he finds himself and few comrades chained in a bunker to repel the Fascist invaders. He meets his demise at the end of a German flamethrower. While that was captivating, there is so much useless narrative, the impact of his death is overshadowed by the author describing every miniscule detail one could think of. And that is the problem with the entire work. There is, if I was to guess, maybe fifteen percent dialogue where we get wo connect with the characters.

The next phase is when the Russians launch a counterattack and encircle Cholm. Once again, instead of focusing on the battle, the author spends an inordinate amount of time describing every little useless detail in ad-nauseum! His descriptions of how men were dying was so trying, it was difficult to feel any empathy for either side. And when the siege is finally lifted, it isn’t. Horrible timeline to say the least. And that is all through the story.

Phase three is the encirclement of Velikiye Luki. Just more of the same non-descript descriptions of men being crushed, smashed, disemboweled, blown to bits, flattened by debris, limbs severed by shrapnel, etc.

And the end? Had to be one of the worse I’ve ever read.

Recommendation: No one.

Two star push!

[Ashay Guevara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll make this short...Russ Schneider has the innate ability to translate the combat experience of soldiers in a horrific situation; the fact that they are soldiers of the Third Reich adds a complex level of disgust for their politics but pity for the individual soldiers. I'm as anti-fascist as they come, but I actually felt a tinge of sorrow for the rank and file Wermacht infantryman sent to die in the Soviet Union for insane Nazi racial theories. The late Russ Schneider was talented beyond belief in synthesizing the macro and micro of the Eastern Front and making it vivid. Pretty horrific for readers not accustomed to visceral depictions of warfare.

[Chris Poulter · Rating 3 out of 5]

A challenging read about the Russian front in 1942. I felt the book suffered from bad editing, however I believe it may have been published posthumously which may well explain this. Some chapters were engaging and brought the action and horrors of the conflict to life, where as others were long and rambling and added little, except to make the novel longer.
If you have an interest in the battles of the Eastern Front then it's well worth the effort as factually it's almost correct despite the epilogue going off into the realms of fantasy. It's not one for the casual reader though!

[Ian · Rating 2 out of 5]

As others have said, there is a good story in this book, and it is full of interesting historical detail, but unfortunately, at core Russ Schneider is just a poor writer. The prose is awkward grammatically, meandering, imprecise and generally inadequate to convey the flow of the story. Whether you enjoy, or can even stick it out through this book depends on whether your interest in the subject matter is enough to overlook these flaws. In my case it was, but only just barely, and I was glad to finish it...

[Martinxo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough book to read. It's a brutal story, the writing is somewhat dense and could do with some kind editing. I wonder if Schneider read Grossman's 'Life and Fate'?

[Jeff Jellets · Rating 5 out of 5]

Expertly captures the bleak despair and grim horrors of war on the Eastern Front.

In Siege, author Russ Schneider chisels a bitter portrait of the pain, desperation and miserable resignation faced by combatants on the Eastern Front during World War II. The book focuses on a pair of villages where German troops are ultimately encircled by an advancing Russian military and must eke out a shadowy existence as winter comes and the noose of the encirclement tightens. Though fictionalized, the book is as grittily realistic as they come, and the verisimilitude that Schneider loads into the text’s plot, technology and characters is extraordinarily effective and heightens the delivery of the novel’s emotional punch.

This may not, however, be a book for the casual reader; its heft is more like that of a classic and the subject matter raw and heavy, like an iron weight, and evocative of the themes and emotional impact of Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun. Schneider’s writing style is also quite heavy, often understated, and demands the reader’s full attention. At times, he can move dizzyingly across time and landscape, like a macabre bird, across space from the main story to the some other dark corner of the conflict. These digressions are startlingly powerful – none more so than the chapter on the Cholm police unit or in the recounting of the last mournful radio messages from the dying remnants of the German forces at Stalingrad – and convey the enormous canvas of the war as it swallows millions of soldiers and civilians into an overwhelming abyss.

It is quite sad that the author passed away in 2000 at just 43 years-of-age; the strength of Schneider's craft is quite evident and he quite effectively echoes the voice for this generation of soldiers, suffering in unending gyre of miserable extremes. For military buffs, Seige is a book to be eagerly sought out and captured.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gritty eastern front novel.

[Cam Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bleak, stark, cold, very vivid war novel.