Another hot take: the WWIII stuff in some parts is not inherently horribly written, but the concept behind it is quite foolish, (The General Secretary just wants to go to war because world socialism or whatever).
I would dispute that. As a Conventional WWIII-ologist, I can say that I consider it the worst depiction of such a conflict I've read. If it was a normal narrative in an obviously soft setting, and you knew the author was clearly going for a Turtledove-esque parallel to the real World War
2 (because apart from just plopping down big numbers, that's what it's clearly the most inspired by), it may have been all right.
Instead, it's written in the "classic" wikibox/stock photo/exposition/occasional vignette style. Its background up to this point is a total jumble. The numbers are all wrong. There are too
few tanks at first, and of course far too many troops as the 4 million soldiers in the red steamroller sloooooooooowly grind their way past 3 million NATO ones in Neo-Imperial Germany. They make it to the Rhine, and no nukes are launched. They make it past the Rhine and into France (!) and no nukes are launched. Then,
the tide turns!
It doesn't turn because the Soviets are overextended or worn down (the most spherical cow plausible way). It doesn't turn because of some new gimmick or superweapon (what a real Clancy/Bond technothriller would do). It turns because the East Germans, full of "Pan-German Sentiment", switch sides. Then the tide turns, and we get gargantuan numbers of Irish and Rhodesians deployed to continental Europe. After a divergence of election wikiboxes, the same "what about the nukes" happens in reverse. Leningrad and Baku are overrun. No launch. The Allies close in on Moscow, and they finally launch-and it's considered a rogue madman's act instead of, you know, sensible. The Star Wars missile defense shoots down what little makes it up.
It's badly written (IMO), and more importantly, it has very little thought beyond "numbers!" put into it. Since military timelines (especially for one of the most covered and analyzed periods) tend to be overly detailed and nitpicky, it's actually interesting in a way to see the worst elements of political timelines (just plopping in names and numbers and wikiboxes on a total whim) being used as the backbone of such a war. But that doesn't make it good, just interestingly bad.
