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

Finally, Neal gets back to delivering a good story

Neal Stephenson used to be my absolute favorite author. Bar none. I own literally every one of his books. Cryptonomicon, the Baroque Cycle, and Reamde are some of my favorite books of all time. I own them in every format possible and have read and listened to them all multiple times.

That said, it's been a while since he's delivered a book worth reading. Fall was a disjointed mess that murdered some of my favorite characters in nonsensical ways. Termination Shock was a pile of woke garbage attached to a rambling story based on leftist wet dreams. Polostan was literally his last chance with me.

Fortunately, he made good.

Polostan is the first book in an extremely promising series where Neal is doing what he does best - inserting fascinating hard science into historical fiction with interesting characters.

The book, and story, doesn't quite reach the great level, but it is very good. Not quite getting over that "great" line is due to the story focusing heavily on Dawn/Aurora (who is fascinating) while the supporting cast, mostly interesting so far, all having very brief bits. They are generally cleverly written and compelling, but the circumstances of the time and place in history leads to short, and abruptly ended, stints spent with them. I'm assuming far more time will be spent on other characters as the story develops and moves out of such a perilous locale.

January LaVoy is a competent and skilled narrator and works extremely well for the main character. She has good vocal range and timing while delivering the appropriate emotion and accent to all of the voices. She does fall a bit short with masculine voices, but this is common even for the most skilled female narrators and isn't a failing.

Some of the negative criticism I've seen could have been taken verbatim from the initial reviews for the Baroque Cycle, and are, in my opinion, just as invalid now as they were then. This is the first book in a large story and the standard single-novel tropes just aren't going to apply. The story will develop across multiple books and expecting a clear-cut beginning, middle, and end is not rational. This IS the beginning.

Overall, it is a very promising start to another fascinating story from Stephenson. I'm looking forward to the next installment!

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

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.

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.

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.

Off to a good start - waiting for book 2

Spoiler warning - not a good enough writer to compose a review absent spoilers. With that out of the way, I'll start with saying that, on any given day, both Neal Stephenson is my favorite living author and that the Baroque Cycle is in my top 5 works of all time. So I'm sure that colors this review. I'd agree with an opinion that I read that Polostan is similar to Quicksilver. That isn't much of a surprise given that they are both opening installments in a "trilogy". (printed trilogy, however many Audible titles for Baroque Cycle) The comparison holds in that the narrative is split into different timelines for Dawn/Aurora and the realities of the political/social/economic settings are illustrated with the good and the bad of both the USA and USSR in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. Also that,the author creates and sketches some memorable characters including some that are of historical significance in our reality. For much of the story Dawn/Aurora, also reminded me of Nell in the Diamond Age, in that she is swept along with little agency (no surprise, i guess, given Dawn/Aurora's age similarity) and both are a bit of a cipher at the start. Its mainly that, with what I think is intention of the author, I never really got the sense of what Dawn/Aurora really believes about the tenants of capitalism/marxism. Because she does display courage, ability to think on her feet, and complete tasks assigned to her. I just never know if she is really doing it out of belief or sense of duty and/or self preservation. Another difference is that, so far, she is really the only point of view character with only a couple of exceptions, notably the book's opening. That is an area of slight disappointment - I find the author's tangents as fun as some find irritating. There are a few tangents present, but at shallower angles, and so serve to move the story along a bit more than in other of the author's works. Another difference is there are also no other point-of-view story lines so far ala Jack Shaftoe/Daniel Waterhouse/Eliza, so far. I do feel that this book is not as strong as Quicksilver as an introductory title so give 4 stars. I recently listened to Pynchon's Bleeding Edge. So my opinion of January LaVoy's performance may be influenced by the painful narration of that title. The narrator, here, crafted enough differences in characters voice's that the story was easy to follow in the dialog sections and overall was a very pleasant listen. I eagerly await book 2 of Bomb Light.

Great series setup

Both the story and the narration are top notch. Neal Stephenson is a great author and paired with this narrator it takes a great book and makes it even better.

Not what I was thinking…

Very good book and well written, but not like any of his other books! And I have listened to all of them a few times