Polostan

A rollicking picaresque that takes an American-born young woman from the American west, to the encampment of the Bonus Army that gathered the hungry, homeless, and angry poor in the shadow of the White House and Capitol in 1932, to a massive construction project in the Stalin's Russia, where an ironworks to rival any in the industrial US is being built east of the Ural mountains. Dawn (or Avrora in Russia) is fluent in Russian because her anarchist father took her there to be part of the new Communist society, and in polo, which plays a role when foreign visitors to the Soviet Union are introduced to the first women's team, organized by Dawn. It's not quite what I expected from Stephenson - it moves quickly, shoots from place to place show more (and out of chronological order) with dizzying rapidity, and has somewhat of a comic book feel as events unfold and our heroine gets in and out of peril. But it's engaging, fun, and very inventive. Anarchist cowboys, weird murderous cults, creepy Russian intelligence officers, hungry and disaffected citizens participating in a long occupation in an indifferent Washington DC mall... and polo.

It's the first in a cycle and sets up the next entry with a promise that there will be some spying ahead. show less

An unusual book which I found hard to work out where it was going - backwards and forwards between America and Russia in the 1920s and 30s - but in terms of story, all a bit confusing. That isn't to say that I didn't enjoy it, I did. It is also the first in a series because all I am sure is that the main character will try to get out of Russia but I can't see what for other than to escape Beria which is probably enough!

This is an old-fashioned adventure-style story following Dawn or Aurora, depending on which country she is in, who has an amazing early life. Her mother was American and her father Russian and it is this mix that enables her to move between the two worlds. She travels on the railways in boxcars for free, totes tommy guns, show more works at a large world fair, becomes damaged by radiation, loses a baby that is not properly formed and along the way picks up knowledge about the world and people and how they work. By the end of the book she is in Russia, spying for Berria and concocting a female polo team, hence the title of the book, and looking for a way out.

When the Russians first met her they were convinced she was a spy because of her previous life. What they were really interested in was her knowledge of balloons and radiation - there was a race here to win although it ended in catastrophe for both sides. And it is this that leads us into the sciency part of the book all of which had a faintly steam-punk feel to me although it all probably quite true. Electron and protons are known, in fact there is a scientist with sons named after these terms, but neutrons have just been discovered. We can feel the looming threat of nuclear bombs.

This really is a whirlwind of a book. We move from the mud and squalor of the great fair in America to playing polo and being escorted by Patton at the ball. We have hunger and starvation and polo playing all existing next to each other in both countries, and so one of the dominant themes is rich and poor and how both are needed for the other to exist.

The writing is taut, dragging us along and there is plenty of description to draw us into the times:

By the time she had made it back to the kommunalka, a plenary meeting was under way in the kitchen to comtemplate the preparation of breakfast. . . . All beside the point, since even these people - three dozen hobos, refuges and grad students crammed into the commune - were not actually poor and hungry. Not by the standards of the wide world and especially not by those of Russia, whose silence hinted more eloquently than shouting newsreels of famine and mass death. Even in the midst of the Depression and on the edge of the Dust Bowl, there was plenty of food, if you didn't mind biscuits and gravy and beans.

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I can't imagine having a meeting to discuss what to have for breakfast every day.

To my surprise, I enjoyed this more than I thought I would having read up on the author and his previous books. The next in the series is out in May. I will join the queue in the library for it. show less

Neal Stephenson is best known as a science fiction writer associated with cyberpunk. But Polostan is not science fiction; it is a historical novel that reads like science fiction. Niels Bohr makes an appearance. Characters discuss nuclear physics, including cosmic rays and the health effects of ionizing radiation. Our heroine even dates a lad named Proton, who is a pilot in a high-altitude balloon experiment.

Our heroine, named Dawn (or something else if the occasion requires), bounces back and forth between Montana and Soviet Russia with a stop at the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair’s City of the Future. Along the way, she has an unfortunate pregnancy, gets tortured by the NKVD, learns to assemble and aim a Tommy gun, and plays polo show more with the cavalry in both countries.

A studio should buy it up, because every tall actress in Hollywood would be panting to play Dawn. show less

This follows Aurora/Dawn, the daughter of an American and a Soviet revolutionary who straddles both sides of the Cold War.

Like so many of Stephenson's main characters, Aurora is totally preposterous (beautiful, smart, physically and intellectually multi-talented, cunning, etc etc etc), as is her story. However, like so many of Stephenson's novels, the book is engaging and entertaining so its easy to suspend disbelief and just go along for the ride. Stephenson is brilliant at making historical fiction feel like science fiction: the science is not new to us (and in fact, the reader feels like they're in on a joke because they know more about the science and its implications than the characters), but it's new to his characters, and show more exploring the "new" technology of atomic energy feels very exciting.

This feels like an introductory chapter to a very long series: a lot of people and situations are put into place, but nothing has actually really happened yet. I'm afraid I should have waited until more books in the series are out, because this book is very unsatisfying on its own, but by the time the second installment is published I will likely have forgotten a lot of it and need to re-read it. show less

I’ve read most of Neal Stephenson’s work, and I’m not sure I can think of an author that has been for “hit or miss” for me.

Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash are two of my favorite novels of all time. Diamond Age, Anathem and The System of the World were VERY good. On the other hand, the Mongoliad trilogy was just awful and REAMDE was absurd. I’m afraid I found Polostan to be much closer to the latter than the former.

The first of what is supposed to be a series of books has as its protagonist, a young, female Communist, born in America to Russian parents. The story has two separate timelines, though very close together. One tracks her progress throughout the United States, working as a Soviet operative throughout the Midwest. The show more other finds her among the upper tier of Soviet leadership roughly six months later.

While there are parts of the book that are captivating, sadly, they are few and far between. I doubt I will proceed to volume two. show less

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, show more 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. show less

***.5

This is a book that I probably would not have bothered with had it not been written by my favourite contemporary author. It's a relatively quick and easy read by Stephenson standards, which contributed to the sense that something is lacking. Sure, it includes the expected and satisfyingly indulgent multiple page digressions into everything from the economics of raising ponies for playing polo to the launching of high altitude balloons for cosmic ray research, but there isn't enough of a main story line to hold them together. What the book is missing is a plot. More than half of it is literally just backstory, with just the barest veneer of "the present" storyline to justify the flashbacks. Hopefully this pays off of in the rest of show more the trilogy, but as a standalone work it doesn't quite cut it.

Rating rounded up by the fantastic writing incorporating the skillful weaving of history and delightful intellectual curiosity with humor and characters that jump off the page.

TL;DR: wait for the rest of the trilogy to come out before reading this one, unless you are like me and have already read them all he has enough other and better works to keep you busy in the interim. show less