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Polostan Book 1

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About this listen

'Inventive' THE TIMES

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

Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn Rae Bjornberg is raised in post-Revolution Leningrad by her 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 gun-running 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 20th 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 20th Century Action & Adventure Espionage Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Political Spies & Politics Thriller & Suspense Russia

Critic reviews

'Inventive' THE TIMES

Praise for Neal Stephenson:

'He makes reading so much fun it feels like a deadly sin' New York Times

‘Stephenson’s reputation as a sci-fi titan is deserved’ Sunday Times

‘Ingenious and sometimes prophetic’ Telegraph

'[A] speculative-fiction virtuoso' Booklist

'Stephenson excels in marrying geek-speak with riotous action' Guardian

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Very much setting up for a multi-instalment story arc. Rambling story that starts to get interesting and then we have to wait for book 2. I’m a fan of Neal Stephenson but wish he could get a narrative into a single novel.

Meh -so I’ll read the next one, I guess…

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Engaging narration. Story felt a bit weak. Felt a bit formulaic and “done before”, which is not normal for Stephenson. Nice and short by his standards though.

Engaging Narration

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similar themes and tricks to earlier books by Neal Stephenson, But still great fun. Not so much alternative history or sf so far. great fun historical details, the period is a playground for the authors considerable talent. Sometimes he can be overly verbose, but this seems almost a disciplined epic.

great fun again!

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I am a huge Neal Stephenson fan, but not of all his work. As with a few of his other novels, this feels like he has absorbed multiple volumes of history and, by God, he's going to make us learn all of it too. As always, he does create compelling characters to help us along and Dawn is most definitely one of those. Able to fit in everywhere and with everyone, Dawn appears, Zelig-like, at multiple events of interwar history. She becomes simply a plot device to introduce us to people like Patton, Beria, etc. If the book told more of her story (which would have been great btw, especially the missing time as an anarchist train robber in Wyoming) then it would be a much more satisfying experience. Neal Stephenson does, as far as I can tell, bring events like the Bonus Army to life accurately, but that alone is not good enough to make this one his best.

Great narration though. I would not have got through this without it.

It is a history lecture first, novel second

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Well told story with interesting characters throughly enjoyed - would recommend this listen. Wonder what happens next.

Not what I expected but very enjoyable

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