Book Review: World War 1990

I’ll be taking a short detour from D+15 to present a book review. The other day a book review on Fuldapocalypse.com happened to catch my eye. Coiler, the author of that website, is a prolific reviewer of World War III fiction who posted a review for World War 1990: Battle of the Three Seas by William Stroock. This was the sixth installment of Stroock’s World War 1990 series of alternative history books, set on…you guessed it….a world war taking place in 1990. I’ve read the entire series, having just recently finished the latest installment. So, given the subject matter of this blog I thought a quick review of the first book of the series would be worthwhile.

World War:1990 starts off two weeks into a global war. Warsaw Pact armies have been halted in West Germany and NATO leaders are contemplating a counter-offensive to eject the Soviet, Polish, and East German forces from the Federal Republic. There is no real background presented to give readers an idea of the conflict’s origins or events in the previous two weeks. They are simply dropped in at a point where British and French leaders are pushing hard for the counteroffensive to begin, while the US President George H.W. Bush vacillates. Meanwhile in Moscow, Mikhail Gorbachev is resisting strong calls from the Politburo to break the deadlock in Germany with nuclear weapons. In order to relieve the pressure there and satisfy the hardliners, Gorbachev orders an invasion of Alaska to open a new theater of operations in the conflict. Soviet airborne forces land in Nome to secure the town’s port and airfield. Somehow the local residents manage to defeat the elite paratroopers and sink a ship filled with heavy equipment meant to reinforce the Soviets on the ground. The point of view moves next to the Northern Flank where NATO naval and air forces are taking the war to the Soviet doorstep. A series of large battles take place with both sides taking heavy losses. The US Navy even loses a carrier, but the Soviet offensive in Norway is blunted. From there the point of view oscillates between the political decision and subsequent military preparations for a US-led liberation of Eastern Europe, code-named Operation Eastern Storm. Bush had made his decision.

 I was expecting a respectable degree of realism, a believable plot and seamless flow from World War:1990. Sadly, I found a heaping pile of disappointment instead. Or maybe my expectations were simply on a Porsche level, and World War: 1990 turned out to be a ’98 Civic with bald tires.

The book is best described as a stimulating concept doomed by unskilled execution. Let’s begin with plot issues. It’s 1990 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of West Germany has been stopped. While the Soviet Union licks its wounds, fighting erupts in other theaters. That is all well and good. What is not acceptable is the scattered and senseless background information the reader is given. We learn the ‘what’ and ‘how’ but Strook inconveniently forgets to include the ‘why.’ Without a deep enough backstory its like diving into a novel at the midway point and reading from there. The Soviet airborne unit vs Nome civilians storyline is borderline Alien Space Bats. The characters lack development, and aren’t realistic. Neither is the outcome. In some scenes, the author gives detailed descriptions of Soviet paratroopers playing Nintendo games. Stroock seems to have better knowledge of Tecmo Bowl than of Soviet airborne units and operations! The point of view then shifts to the Norwegian Sea. Strook’s writing really falls apart here. His lack of military knowledge becomes glaringly apparent in the passages describing the trials and tribulations of the USS.Stirling, a fictional Spruance class destroyer. He is not very well versed on Spruance class destroyers, their capabilities or US naval terminology and tactics of the time period. For example, the skipper and XO of the Stirling are conveniently always on the bridge during battle scenes. US ship commanders fight the battle from CIC. In the real world when sailors and officers are talking about their fellow US Navy ships, they say something along the lines of “Here comes the New Jersey” or “We’re coming parallel to the Eisenhower.” In this book, Strook has them saying “Here comes USS New Jersey.” and such. It doesn’t feel right, mostly because it is not.

The characters are all cardboard and the dialogue not realistic at all. Most of them are modelled on the real world political and military leaders of the time period. The politicians all come across in their predictable, stereotypical manners. There’s little presented to allow the reader to compare them to how they acted or came across in real life. The military characters are just sad. It becomes glaringly obvious early on that Stroock has never served in the military, nor has he researched the subject very well, despite his claims otherwise.

The author is a history professor at Raritan Valley Community College in Somerset County, New Jersey. I know this school quite well, having taken a number of summer courses there as an undergrad. I met many excellent professors and instructors there, some of whom continue  teaching there today. Two men who had quite positive influences on me were both history professors. So, when I found out that the author of this book was an adjunct history professor at RVCC, I decided to give his book a try. I’m almost sorry that I did. If William Stroock teaches as badly as he writes novels, the students at RVCC are in serious trouble.

The book is filled with typos and bad grammar. I can excuse bad grammar, however, there is no excuse for misspellings and such in this day and age. His editors must have been some of his students. The real horror is found in mistakes so obvious that they will make you cringe or groan. Like when he describes a “Mig-27 Flanker.” If you’re writing a military novel, there’s no excuse for making a basic foul up like that.

The internet is a wonderful thing and has advanced our world in countless ways. On the flip side, the internet has also opened an avenue for unpolished, mediocre (using the term very lightly) authors like Stroock to pedal their half-baked manuscripts to an audience and fan base that really cannot discern a good technothriller from slop. Alternative history is all the rage now. Believable military techno-thrillers are also now enjoying a surge in popularity. Strook probably assumed he could write a novel on how World War III could have played out in 1990 and it would be guaranteed money in the bank. Well, he thought wrong.

To make a long story short, I recommend you avoid World War: 1990 and the rest of the series at all costs. I feel bad about being so critical about this man’s work, but I can’t help it. The book is so bad that it’s insulting to any and all readers of the genre.

I give it one mushroom cloud out of five.