Polostan by Neal Stephenson is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers!

From the bestselling author of Termination Shock and Cryptonomicon comes the first instalment 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 Stephenson’s new 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, DC, during the depths of the Great Depression.

When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of US 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.

‘Neal Stephenson’s enthralling new novel, Polostan, drops readers into a bloody, inspiring, conflict-ridden, and pivotal period of the early 20th century. . . With its flair for characterization, precision of language, witty apercus, and fecundity of events, the novel delivers what we’ve come to expect from the author of such fantastical classics as The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon.’ – Washington Post

‘Stephenson is a writer of exuberant prose who revels in embracing big ideas.’ – New York Times

‘Polostan is by far the most engaging book I have read this year … Stephenson has said that his superpower is writing novels and he may well be right.’ – Book and Film Globe

 

Categories Fiction International

Tags Jonathan Ball Publishers Neal Stephenson New books New releases Polostan