Polostan

Volume One of Bomb Light

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: January LaVoy

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon, the first installment in a monumental new series—an expansive historical epic of intrigue and international espionage, presaging the dawn of the Atomic Age.

The first installment in Neal Stephenson’s Bomb Light cycle, Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.

Set against the turbulent decades of the early twentieth century, Polostan is an inventive, richly detailed, and deeply entertaining historical epic, and the start of a captivating new series from Neal Stephenson.

Entertaining from Start to Finish

The story left me hanging and wanting more. I love the heroine, and Neal Stephenson’s tale is chock full of scientific history and witty tale-telling of Russian, American, and European relations in the forties and fifties. I thoroughly enjoyed part one of Stephanson’s new trilogy.

intergenerational

Very recognizable characters, good if subtle humor. History with intentions of more to come. SCORE.

loving the characters and plot

kept me wondering what was gonna happen, I'm left wanting more. I relate to dawn a bit and Im curious how her story will play out. the writing detailing the how America once was especially during the century of progress left me daydreaming what it must of been like, to see all those modern technologies that we now find common,seeing it all for the first time. I wonder if dawn will continue to be a communist or if she'll have a change of heart. I wonder what will happen when she sees the fall of Soviet Union, if she even survived to see it fall. she reminds me of the elder women in my family the ones who went through similar things while in their youth, women who survived trials and tribulations as youths and had to make decisions that affected them and their descendents til this day.

Mid 20th century spy thriller

Neal Stephenson’s Polostan is the first installment in his Bomb Light trilogy. Ther main character is a young woman with an American mother and Russian father. She flipflops between the United States and Russia during the first half of the 20th century, growing up with cowboy anarchists in Montana as well as the early years of the Russian revolution. Eventually ending up in DC conducting intelligence operations for her father who manages a US Communist organization, she needs to skip town and ends up back in Russia where she is picked up and groomed (harshly) for the nascent KGB.

Stephenson focuses on a basic spy thriller, but with a dash of technology that hints at future engagement with nuclear weapons and perhaps space activity. This tale is not a novel in the strictest sense, but rather a story, as Stephenson is a master storyteller, that is less about the destination and more about the journey.

The narration is solid with good character distinction. Pacing is brisk.

Depends on sequel

Ok. Not the best but depends on sequel which lowers overall rating . Would be nice to have more in a single