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.

Please use an editor!

This could have been a half or a third as long and still carried the story. I'd have stopped reading it if it weren't for the narrator.

Even so, I kept drifting off because the story is so slow

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

Different!

It’s always interesting when an author takes a departure from their usual milieu, and Stephenson proves, to hopefully no one’s surprise, who can likely do almost any genre well. This one feels like a spin off of The Americans, a high compliment indeed.

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!