This has the makings of another Stephenson historical saga winner. Started off just a bit slowly, but steadily accelerated into a fascinating read, written in Stephenson's typical delightful style. There's a lot of interesting history to learn and I can't wait to see which characters make their appearances in future volumes. ( )

2024 book #62. 2024. Meet a young woman who grows up partially in the US (where she's known as Dawn) and in the USSR (where she's known as Aurora). In a pre-WWII world she manages to be where history is being made and survives by her courage and street smarts. Pretty good read. ( )

In this first novel of an expected trilogy, Stephenson covers a lot of ground geographically and historically. The heroine is Dawn/Aurora, born in the US, raised in Russia, and as a young adult dangerously straddling both worlds. There is plenty of adventure to go around, with shoot-outs, polo matches, and political demonstrations, set against the backdrop of the competition and conflict between Russia and the US. At times, the action becomes bogged down by very technical descriptions of the incipient understanding of atomic power in the 1930's. Also, I would have wished for fewer long lists, such as the lengthy itemization of exhibits of the Chicago World Fair. Shorter than most of Stephenson's books, and ending with a cliff-hanger, one has to wonder if it was a publishing decision to simply divide one long novel into thirds. Nonetheless, readers will want to follow Dawn/Aurora into the next chapters. ( )

Thanks. Neal Stephenson. I could have used a bit more sleep! But I couldn't lay down the book just those feeew pages from the end.

As usual, Stephenson knows how to write, how to enmesh historical happenings with personal (though fictitious) histories.

What's a bit unusual (at least as far as I remember) is the huge cliffhanger at the end. ( )

https://speculiction.blogspot.com/2024/10/review-of-polostan-by-neal-stephenson.... ( )