Cryptonomicon

Executive Summary: If you're a computer or math geek, this book is a must read. If you like geeky humor mixed with world war 2, and random side tangents, this might also be a book for you.Audio book: I listened to the unabridged audio book by William Dufris. This is the first that I have listened by him. While he didn't do distinct voices for all the characters he did do some as well as a few accents. His German accent was particularly good.The audio suffers a bit from being unabridged, but thankfully in only a few places. I imagine the book has a bunch of white space/different font for some of the these parts where codes are written out, but Mr. Dufris is forced to read everything out and it can be a bit tedious.This is my only relatively minor complaint. For a 42+ hour book, this occurred very infrequently.Full ReviewThis book has been on my to read list for a long time. [b:Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320544000s/830.jpg 493634] is one of my favorite books. While this book is more historical fiction than sci-fi (and certainly not cyberpunk), it has the same geeky humor that I loved in [b:Snow Crash 830 Snow Crash Neal Stephenson http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320544000s/830.jpg 493634] so much.The book has two time periods: The 1940's starting shortly before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and the mid-late 90s. There are several point of view characters for the 40's timeline, but the primary one is Lawrence Waterhouse, an often misunderstood and awkward mathematical genius.Waterhouse gets blown off by Einstein but becomes friends with Alan Turing. He eventually is put to work breaking codes of both the Japanese and later the Germans during the war.Meanwhile in the “present” Randall is Unix Guru working with his friend Abby to set up their next business venture in the Philippines.The other point of view characters include Goto Dango, a Japanese soldier, and Bobby Shafto an American soldier. Their stories augment the main narrative of Waterhouse's.This book has several tangents, including one on beards and another on bicycles. Many of his tangents turn ordinary thinking into mathematical equations. I found most of them interesting if not amusing, but they are of little importance to the story, so I can see people complaining of the excess in what is a rather lengthy book.The stories of the two timelines eventually converge in a way that wasn't very apparent to me until about the midway point or so.I really enjoyed the book, although I'd be happy with some follow-up as I was left with several questions, though mostly minor ones.Most of my questions relate to the historical accuracy of many events in the story. People like Alan Turing were quite real, as was his involvement in the British efforts to break German codes during the war. There is work involving the Enigma, but the names of the Japanese codes appear to have been changed, as well as replacing several of the people involved with fictional characters.At some point I hope to find/read a non-fiction book (or books) on the breaking of codes in World War 2, and I am now fascinated by it.

I selected Cryptonomicon because it appears on io9's “The Twenty Science Fiction Novels that Will Change Your Life” list. (http://io9.com/361597/the-twenty-science-fiction-novels-that-will-change-your-life) I started working my way through the list last spring and when I ran across a copy of Cryptonomicon in my favorite used book store, I decided the time had arrived.

Rarely does it take me so long to finish a book! I believe I started this one toward the end of August and didn't finish it until the end of October. Granted, it is over 900 pages long, but even so I'm usually a pretty quick reader. But this book was “chewy”. I had to intersperse several other lighter reads into the middle of it to give myself a break now and then.

A novel set in two different eras, the early 21st century and World War II, its subject matter is complex and requires a great deal of concentration. As the title suggest, cryptology plays a major role in the book's plot. And not on a superficial level either. Sometimes the descriptions of the development of the different codes wanders into higher order mathematical concepts I only wish I could truly understand. I wanted to pull out my calculus and differential equations textbooks so I could start studying math again! Granted it wasn't all super technobabble...you had your guy chases girl, gets into trouble and then wins girl plot lines in there too. Not to mention good guy/bad guy drama on the order of a James Bond film. But the codes and the intrigue behind them really drives the story. I'd recommend Cryptonomicon to anyone with an interest in codes, cryptology, encryption technology and also possessing just enough geek to see it through. I BARELY did... :-)

Yes, I agree with others who have said this could have used more editing. There are lots of extraneous bits and threads that are either not fully explored or too fully explored in relation to the ultimate importance they have on the story. But beyond that, I found the fact that this book was Too Big to be part of its charm somehow.

Also it's hilarious.

Reading Neal Stephenson's The Cryptonomicon was, simply, a divine reading experience - must have been the most fun reading a book I've had in a long time. Stephenson always has this skill of taking several different story threads, seemingly completely unrelated to each other, and then combining them together in ways that are completely novel, and yet at the same time make complete sense when you look at them in retrospect. This skill is especially notable in Cryptonomicon, because the stories start out separated not only in place, but in time, as well: we start with a US Marine, Bobby Shaftoe, fighting World War II in Shanghai; Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a slightly-autistic American math wizard who attends Princeton and is a contemporary of Alan Turing; and Randy Waterhouse, a hacker and computer geek engaging in a new e-business endeavour at the end of the 20th Century. The ways in which these storylines dovetail themselves is an amazing feat of plotting - I couldn't help but think that reading this would be akin to watching Haydn compose a piece of music.

As far as the plots are concerned, I don't want to give away too much to anyone that might eventually want to read the book. Let's just say that, like Stephenson's other books, this one can safely be said to have it all: hacking, cryptography, Nazis, gold, Nazi gold, action, suspense, computers, sex, comedy, haiku, oddly-named Welsh stereotypes... all that and yet I've barely scratched the surface.

One of the reasons I think Stephenson's work is so wonderful is that, although he's a science fiction writer, he never forgets that the ‘fiction' should be primary to the story, and that the science in the story should serve the fiction elements. At the same time, though, he manages to balance this with science that is completely believable and well thought-out; the only other writer that I can think of that can make the process of reaching scientific conclusions that thrilling is Robert J Sawyer, which definitely puts Stephenson in august company.

I'm seriously considering lifting my current book-buying embargo to pick up Quicksilver, the next part of Stephenson's epic. I don't know what it is that would cause an author to write an 1,100 page novel, and then think “what I really need to do now is discuss those same ideas without the limitations of a single novel”, but this is one time that I am really glad that he did.

Im zweiten Weltkrieg: Lawrence Waterhouse ist Kryptoanalytiker. Bobby Shaftoe ist ein amerikanischer Kriegsheld. Goto Dengo ist ein japanischer Kriegsheld. Enoch Root gehört zu einem Geheimbund. Rudolf von Hacklheber ist ein deutscher Mathematiker. Gemeinsam gründen sie eine Verschwörung die eine Menge Gold in einer Höhle nahe Manila betrifft. In der Gegenwart machen sich die Enkeln Randy Waterhouse und Amy Shaftoe daran diese Verschwörung aufzudecken.