Polostan - Neal Stephenson

Polostan

By Neal Stephenson

  • Release Date: 2024-10-15
  • Genre: Mysteries & Thrillers
Score: 4.5
4.5
From 76 Ratings

Description

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.

Reviews

  • Wait for the other books

    3
    By mikeromo
    I mean, this is just the first third of a typically long Stephenson book. It’s fine but you how his books are, they take hundreds of pages to kick in. This the kick-in. A good one, to be sure…but just be warned, I guess.
  • A compelling read. It is always startling to see an iconoclast out game the system.

    5
    By Retired Snake Eater
    Russian over think is their weakness easily exploited by a Polly-math female. May she meet up with Patton in the sequel and dupe the Russian again. LeBoudin
  • Very interesting angle into this period and places in time

    3
    By cybrquack
    Great, well-researched story. Bit of a dry lift-off but I expect that from this guy and it’s typically worth the wait. The ending is very abrupt and doesn’t really make any points about the ‘why’ of the story. It just stops.

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