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d_audy 's review for:
Polostan: Volume One of Bomb Light
by Neal Stephenson
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Historical fiction with a scientific angle, in other words classic Stephenson
He’s back with another ambitious series, apparently unconnected to his earlier novels but set between his Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon, during the Great Depression.
What’s a bit unprecedented for him is that this first volume is relatively short for the author, and almost entirely devoted to the back story of his protagonist, a young woman with most unusual life that brings her from Leningrad to a pony ranch in Wyoming to Magnitogorsk in Stalin’s USSR. There are a few secondary characters, but she’s really the focus of the novel.
The series seems set to be to the early Atomic age physics what the Baroque Cycle was to calculus and finance, but there’s mysteriously relatively little of it in this opening volume - it enters the scene almost surreptitiously - and it remains to be seen what future entries will be made of.
Dawn, also known as Aurora is a fascinating and intriguing character who isn’t without recalling some traits of the main female character of the Baroque Cycle. Stephenson displays both his usual qualities and quirks. It’s a rich but dense read, and it’s not a bad idea to brush up on you history of 1933-34 America and Russia, as the author puts Dawn in the middle of events without giving much context (she doesn't have much either, especially not outside the communist interpretation).
It’s a good read, a new Stephenson is always cause for rejoicing, but it's one that feels mostly like a prologue and it might be well to wait for the context of later books in the series to pass final judgement on it, and what it was trying to accomplish as for now the shape of things to come remains a bit nebulous at one closes down this first novel.
He’s back with another ambitious series, apparently unconnected to his earlier novels but set between his Baroque Cycle and Cryptonomicon, during the Great Depression.
What’s a bit unprecedented for him is that this first volume is relatively short for the author, and almost entirely devoted to the back story of his protagonist, a young woman with most unusual life that brings her from Leningrad to a pony ranch in Wyoming to Magnitogorsk in Stalin’s USSR. There are a few secondary characters, but she’s really the focus of the novel.
The series seems set to be to the early Atomic age physics what the Baroque Cycle was to calculus and finance, but there’s mysteriously relatively little of it in this opening volume - it enters the scene almost surreptitiously - and it remains to be seen what future entries will be made of.
Dawn, also known as Aurora is a fascinating and intriguing character who isn’t without recalling some traits of the main female character of the Baroque Cycle. Stephenson displays both his usual qualities and quirks. It’s a rich but dense read, and it’s not a bad idea to brush up on you history of 1933-34 America and Russia, as the author puts Dawn in the middle of events without giving much context (she doesn't have much either, especially not outside the communist interpretation).
It’s a good read, a new Stephenson is always cause for rejoicing, but it's one that feels mostly like a prologue and it might be well to wait for the context of later books in the series to pass final judgement on it, and what it was trying to accomplish as for now the shape of things to come remains a bit nebulous at one closes down this first novel.