Rating: 
Summary: Audio book edition - beware!
Review: A great book, but beware - the "unabridged" audio book edition is actually "unabridged excerpts" from the book Cryptonomicon. I bought this as a gift for my father who has been dying to read the book but tends to have more time for listening to audiobooks while commuting, and had no idea that I was not receiving the entire book until it arrived.
Rating: 
Summary: A review
Review: This book is pretty long, but i find Stephenson's prose a breeze to get through. I only had to crack open the dictionary a couple of times. I suppose it would help to know a good amount about WWII, especially intelligence operations, before reading this book. Without this knowledge, I still enjoyed it and even learned a few things. I think I enjoyed the WWII story better- Bobby Shaftoe is a riot. I also enjoyed the fact that the entire book is written in the present tense. At first I thought it was wierd, but then I decided it made the future a little more mysterious. On the downside, Stephenson seems to be obsessed with masturbation- it must be discussed a dozen times throughout the book. From reading a few other reviews, I agree- the character's relationships are confusing! There are some characters that seem to disappear, reappear, and be friends with people you never knew they had met before. All in all, a lot of fun, good laughs, and makes you think.
Rating:
Summary: Flawed in the Best Way
Review: This book is flawed, but in the best way, in that the execution is hampered only by the daring ambition of the author, and the ambition is achieved sufficiently to keep the reader engrossed and make the flaws themselves very interesting. Stephenson sustains this with a certain humorous and quirky approach to style and characterization that is very appealing. It seems, though, that he makes all his characters as clever has he is, and gives them a similar dry wit. As an interested layman with respect to most of the technical topics laid out in Cryptonomicon, this was a fun way to learn something without knowing whether it really makes sense to an expert. The list of topics include: much about how compters and networks operate, much about cryptography/ology, the Philippines, U-Boats, venture capital etc. The fun is in the characters, the worldwide travels, the constant bouncing between WWII days and the present day, and all the intertwinings of plot, character, time and detail that make the this book a true roller-coaster ride. Clearly, this book was written by someone whose mind was heading in a thousand directions at once, and that tendency was indulged. If you enjoy following a broad mind in somewhat disorganized fashion and just letting things flow, you will not be disappointed. If you are looking for a well-organized story without loose ends, then you will not like this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Compelling, challenging work
Review: I loved this book pretty much from beginning to end. It does require lots of real-life RAM to keep track of all of the characters and subplots, but it's worth it - by the end of the book, a terrific haze of intermeshed narrative has descended. Also, this book struck me as NECESSARILY long, like Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow, rather than just overlong. Wonderful, virtuosic writing, and full of vivid details, plus the great climactic creative scenes (the revelation from organ pipes, the sex-starved jail-cell code-cracking), make this one worth reading and re-reading.
Rating:
Summary: Riveting! Most of the time....
Review: I say 'most of the time' only because of this book's hefty size. More on that in a moment. Very likely, if you picked up this fairly thick book, it was because you had read Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash," a very readable, much shorter book. This book is in a different league altogether. It grabs your attention from the start, and I would say that it's only real fault is its length. However, I should also say that Stephenson really needs every page to say what he has to say. It would seem impossible to edit out any part of this book. His characters are vivid and believable. This book will keep you happy and occupied for many nights before lights out.
Rating:
Summary: Cryptonomi-wow!
Review: Just chiming in with everybody else. It was great a great read - fun and informative. Crypto's new to me and it was neat to get the gist of it wrapped up in such a great story. Wish I had a broader base of friends to recommend this to!
Rating:
Summary: Dear God, where to start?
Review: "My Favorite Book of All Time, Including All Past Lives, Future Lives, Lives in Parallel Universes, And Any Other Possibilities" is how I respond when asked what I thought of Neal Stephenson's epic Cryptonomicon. (On second thought, epic doesn't do the book justice. I have no words to describe my love for this book.) The author, himself very knowledgeable of the the topics he writes about, goes into fascinating detail on a wide range of subjects, - from WWII history to a multi-page analyis of stocking fetishes - drawing his readers into the story on a breathtaking degree. Second only to his style of weaving past and present, Stephenson's talent for glib wit and penetrating observational humor make this book a treasure to be, well, treasured.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book
Review: Having read quite a few of Stephenson's works, I can say that this is one of his best. Though its size may detract a few of its readers, and occasionally it may seem like the side plots are dragging the main plot down, it is still a great work of fiction. It is set simultaneously in the future and the past with tenuous links between the two which gradually start becoming stronger as the novel moves forward. Expounding quite a bit on cryptography, and sometimes going into the mathematics behind it, it will appeal to everybody who is interested in math. In short, it is a novel worth reading and having in your bookshelf.
Rating:
Summary: Feels Like It Was Written Specifically for Me
Review: Three reasons you need to read this book: 1) Rich, fleshed-out characters with distinct motivations and traits - you will admire Goto Dengo as both a Nipponese soldier and as a corporate patriarch; 2) Humor - Stephenson does not pander to Tom Clancy readers with stone-faced patriots and static one-note antagonists, these characters actually screw up and laugh at themselves, while key plot points and twists will have you rolling on the floor; 3) Take-it-or-leave-it primer on the origins and development of modern cryptography - History Channel and National Geographic fans beware, you will be sucked helplessly into the intoxicating vortex of arcana. One more reason if these aren't enough: Join an ever-shrinking clique of people who seek to understand recent world history, preserve its memories, and relate it to the present. You will want to visit every place Stephenson describes, in the hope that you might sense an echo of the atmosphere - 1940s or 1990s - or see one of these characters incarnate. I can still smell the diesel fumes inside the scuttled submarine. I shiver thinking about standing outside in the winter parting out the effects of a dead relative. ***Who will NOT like this book: T-crossers and i-dotters who loathe inventive structure and depth of imagery. You may note, many low-star reviews come from the pocket-protector old-school-IBM I-use-exactly-four-squares-of-toilet-tissue crowd, claiming geekhood as sole qualification to critique a veritable roller coaster of a tale that is about much more than just crypto or WWII.
Rating:
Summary: Stellar Vonnegut-like romp thru events and ideas!
Review: ... This is as clever and as detailed as
it gets in modern fiction! Not since Umberto Eco's
"Name of the Rose" have I found a book that so seamlessly
interlaces concepts both abstract and prosaic, with events historical.
The wealth of detail is "boring" only if you
are, for some reason, unable to enjoy the adventure of exploring
so many tangents of thought opened to the reader by such
a panopoly of ideas. Everything from Randy's wisdom tooth
odyssey to the high finance shenanigans of the fledgling
"datacrypt" company is there for a reason. What other book
has found a way to plot the mathematics of horny single guys
in a such socially reponsible way? Complete with graphs yet!
This is a book that revels in the chaos that is modern life
while methodically linking cause and effect.
| 
