War of the Rats

You'll read below how War Of The Rats is racist, badly written and bland. I read a hundred books a year, and I can tell you these last three reviewers could not possibsly have read War Of The Rats. The characters are drawn so wonderfully and sympathetically that your heart breaks for them, Russian as well as German. In fact, an earmark of the novel is how evenhanded Robbins treats both sides of the terrible conflict of Stalingrad. The descriptions of the city are gut wrenching, the fighting is created with a deft touch, and the people living and dying in this book are authentically drawn characters. Plus, the writing is crisp, imaginative and skillful. So please, disregard these next few reviewers and read past them, to the eighty of so others who have loved this novel and said so. You will be cheating yourself if you listen to the naysayers, who, for whatever reason, did not get it, and lost the opportunity to enjoy a wonderfully transporting novel.

Harsh comments made concerning Mr. Robbin's research efforts being, shall I say, "lacking"... are unfair. He is NOT a "gun person" -- and doesn't claim to be one -- but he is quite the detail-oriented historian. His forte is with events of the past. That he made mistakes with respect to shooting and facts about Mausers or Mosin-Nagants is forgivable. He relied on the (obviously-flawed) "expert advice" of an "ex Special Forces" chap who led him completely astray with regard to uphill/downhill shooting, and so on. Yes, yes... I know... while the ".410" designation is actually a caliber and not a gauge, he errantly called a shotgun a rifle. Frankly, all of Page 81 and the first part of Page 82 should be rewritten. As a matter of fact, the author is AT THIS TIME making diligent efforts to correct his mistakes, lest he offend even more shooters, but there are thousands of copies of the current printing in circulation and these corrections won't show up until the next printing.This is actually a story of humanity. True, it is "sniper heavy," but that too is correct; snipers played a very significant role in the battle for Stalingrad, and that Mr. Robbins chose such individuals as vessels through which he could tell his story was right, fitting, and just. In "War of the Rats," you have a scholarly member of German academia, Thorvald, pitted -- and quite reluctantly at that -- against a Siberian hunter, Zaitsev. Makes for interesting reading, I must say, and I learned more about the hardships endured by both opposing forces -- not only in Stalingrad but along the entire front and throughout the war itself -- than I'd ever known before. Mr. Robbins did what he set out to do... that being, to tell a story. To educate. To relate a harsh piece of history to anyone with a desire to learn. We owe it to those who went before us, in harm's way, and paid the ultimate price, to learn WHY. "Why" there was a war. "Why" there was a Hitler. "Why" there was a Stalingrad.

Set in the hell of the Battle of Stalingrad, Mr. Robbins give us a novel that poignantly explores what it means to preserve one's humanity in a bitter struggle for survival. Not a simple "war story" or a Tom Clancy-like obsession with the technical details of warfare--although plenty abound in this book--"The War of the Rats" vividly confronts us with real people caught up in a desparate effort to cling to life and love. Robbins brings us an intimate portrait of the human condition set against the broader canvas of the devastation of war at its most brutal . His characters are real; the narrative is gripping; and the satisfaction one feels on reading the book is immense. Robbins brings home, through the device of a sniper duel between the master snipers of the Red Army and the SS, what Stalingrad meant to those who fought the battles and bled and died in the greatest single confrontation of World War II. Despite whatever minor technical flaws one may find in the novel, Robbins is a master of his craft. His achievement will be come a classic of the genre alongside "The Red Badge of Courage" and "All Quiet on the Western Front."