Polostan

From the number one bestselling author of The New York Times, Neal Stephenson, known for "Termination Shock" and "Cryptonomicon," comes the first part of a monumental new series – a comprehensive historical epic full of intrigue and international espionage that predicts the dawn of the atomic age. The first installment of Neal Stephenson's Bomb Light cycle, "Polostan," follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West into a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad by her Russian father, a staunch Leninist, after the Russian Revolution, who calls her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into arms smuggling and revolution on 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 trained as a spy by the organization that will later become the KGB. Set against the turbulent backdrop of the early decades of the 20th century, "Polostan" is an imaginative, richly detailed, and deeply entertaining historical epic and the beginning of a captivating new series by Neal Stephenson.