Polostan

Bomb Light, Book 1

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.

©2024 Neal Stephenson (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

New hero!

 The construction of the main character Dawn Rae in the light of the history she grew up in and the forces that shape her nature, abilities, suffering and viewpoint, show a consistency that Stevenson has always created in the characters he puts forward

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.

an alchemy of the past

if you liked the Baroque cycle, you will like this book. it is, in many ways, like starting that series over but at a different point in time. it has the same depth of history mixed with a thrillers plot points. instead of drawing from swashbucklers and seralgios, it draws from Bonnie and Clyde and cold War thrillers. you can hear NS's voice in just the way a developed author's voice should come through. like a new conversation with an old friend.

Good setup for a new series

It reads like an interesting prequel to a series with a lot of potential. The novel is basically setting the backstory for Dawn/Aurora, who will be the protagonist for the rest of the series. Overall, it is an interesting read, but on its own, not especially compelling. But I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

Another wonderful story from Neal Stephenson

I really enjoyed this book - though not science fiction, which I love, it has the patented Neal Stephenson attention to detail that is so much fun.

Interesting history.

I couldn’t stay interested in the story, no matter how many times I returned to it. And I didn’t like or resonate with any of the characters. I usually love Neal Stephenson books but not this time.

Political Intrigue, Science and Polo in the Cold War

This is a great start to a series, can’t wait for the next installment. Dawn/Aurora is a fascinating character and the political machinations set amongst the scientific discoveries and culture of the 1930s makes for Neal Stephenson at his best. (I’m just waiting for Enoch Root, a Waterhouse or a Shaftoe to make an appearance)

10/10 on rich character, cracking plot and action, and profound scientific and political history!

What a character is Aurora!!! Stephenson has grown and leveled up; hard for me to say, since I love his entire body of work so much. But he excellently treats this history of the USSR (and underground history from the US Great Depression.)

(You can read a novelization of the same period and an American woman and her offspring, like Aurora an American communist (but Aurora is learning the hard way) in Sana Krasnikov’s _Patriots_, also set in both Magnetogorsk and back in the USA, so coincidentally similar to the events and settings of Polostan!)

Aurora strikes me as an improved, deeper treatment of the heroine America Shaftoe from Cryptonomicon.)

I love this whole novel.

I believe Dick is Richard Feynman, which means he is 15 years old when Aurora meets him.

Fantastic capture of Physics and realistic, accurate capture of the scientific process and zeitgeist in the 1930s, leading up to the invention of the atomic bomb. I suspect that’s where this series is going. I’m all in!

One tragic flaw in this audiobook: unforgivable mispronunciations of the Russian names, throughout. Like nails on chalkboard.

A period fiction adventure story

This is a well-written, exciting, and action packed book written with a nod here and there to Stephenson's nerdy audience. But it's not science fiction, and I missed that. It's period fiction set in the early to mid 20th century. Half of it takes place in the Soviet Union which is entirely unpleasant (read: historically accurate). For such a long book, not a whole lot actually happens. I hope this is setting up a good sequel in this Bomb Light series. We'll have to wait and see. If this setup ends up being brilliant, I might come back and increase the star rating on this review.

The ending

Did not see it coming and it was delightful. Thank you Neal! You’ve been my favorite author since you first started writing. Cryptonomicon is my top and both read and listened to it multiple time’s. I managed hedge funds, am a software developer, and a crypto investor so it was prophetic for me. But this one is special for a different reason. On Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale on a motorcycle quest across the country, where the Hohokam would hike to the top on their vision quests, I received a clear message of my life purpose. “An Usher for the Divine Feminine.” Took 20 more years to begin to understand. So I really appreciate seeing a man take the chance to dive into feminine consciousness and create a female hero in a patriarchal world. Brandon Sanderson is wonderful at it too so if anyone loved this book for similar reasons you should check out Skyward or Yumi or Tress or one of my favorites, Mistborn. Love you dude and thanks for providing some of the best grist for my imagination mill.