by Ralph Peters
First published 1991
The Soviet Union stands on the edge of collapse in 2020. Central Asia burns with conflict as the decaying empire faces its final crisis. Into this chaos rides America's Seventh Cavalry, the last hope for preventing total disaster. Colonel George Taylor leads his high-tech cavalry regiment into a war unlike any fought before. Advanced weaponry clashes with ancient hatreds across the steppes of Kazakhstan. Taylor and his soldiers must navigate not just enemy fire but the complex politics of a dying superpower. The mission tests every principle they hold about duty, honor, and sacrifice. As the cavalry charges into the new millennium's first great war, they discover that saving their former enemy may cost them everything they value about America itself.
Genres: science-fiction, military-fiction, adventure, action, 21st-century, alternate-history
Vibes: fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: duty-honor-sacrifice, enemies-to-allies
Setting: Kazakhstan, Central Asia
Period: 2020
434 pages · Hardcover · Atria/Pocket Books