Rating: 
Summary: The Journey is the reward, not the ending.
Review: I found the ending of this 918 page book to be something of a let down, but the journey was most rewarding. One of the most irksome things was that a character crucial to the ending (Andrew) was barely covered in the early portions of the book. Andrew needed more fleshing out.The author left plenty of avenues to explore in a sequel. I hope Mr. Stephenson does so.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't listen to the naysayers
Review: Don't listen to the naysayers on this book.
Cryptonomicon is the best novel I've read in years. Witty, current, laugh-out-loud funny... And the prose...!
For a techie, Stephenson crafts the best paragraphs I've read since Tolkien.
I recommend this to any novel reader, not just sci-fi or cyperpunk fans.
As a matter of fact, there is one bad thing about this book: everything I've read since seems lame by comparison.
Rating: 
Summary: Self-consciously witty (NOT): what a waste of talent!
Review: This book had the makings of a wonderful story for those of us who love computers, intrigue, codes, ciphers, and the humans behind them. But what an ultimate disappointment. Gosh, can we please advance beyond adolescent male fantasies and gonzo journalism? The situations themselves, real or imagined, are fascinating enough, but are unfortunately diminished by the aren't-I-clever quips, which are rarely funny and usually irritating. I hear similar language from teenagers who are attempting to define themselves with their "toughness." It is unbecoming and frankly embarassing to hear it again from a writer of this magnitude. If the author could just rely upon his considerable skills to tell the story without resorting to Kool Kommentary, this would have been a superior novel. As it is, this style tells us why geeks remain geeks: when alienated, it is easier to wallow in the fantasy one's own sense of hipness than it is to figure out what really communicates to the rest of the human race. All in all, I would have loved to have seen this considerable talent focus more on telling the story and less on feeding the ego. Intelligence is sexy enough.
Rating: 
Summary: 1st half: brilliant; 2nd half: severely wanting
Review: This novel starts off as a brilliant exploration of determinism and randomness. The characters bounce from one part of the 2nd World War to another, often with little idea as to why they've been told to do the things they've been ordered to do. The whole aura of the writing is distinctly Pynchonesque, although with not as much satire.
But, by the end of the 1st half of the book, Stephenson's origins as a thriller writer really start to come to the fore. It seems that he can't help but put in a rather cheesy plotline about treasure-finding. A disappointment after such high hopes.
Rating:
Summary: minor flaw
Review: I really enjoyed Cryptonomicon, and give it 4 stars.
I was surprised though that the author's research missed something that
makes the plot appear a bit uniformed.
In 1941 Konrad Zuse built the first fully functional, automatic,
programmable, general purpose, digital computer. All previous machines
(by Pascal, Leibniz, Babbage, Atanasoff, Turing, and Zuse himself) were
mere calculators limited to very specific types of operations.
For the first 600 pages or so I kept expecting Zuse's machine to enter
the plot - until the book suggested that in 1945 (!) Waterhouse was
the only one who knew how to build such a machine. Then I realized
Stephenson was not even aware of Zuse.
Maybe he or someone else will find the above useful for his next
alternative history novel.
Rating:
Summary: A big book that is worth the effort
Review: This is one hell of a story. Somehow, Stephenson weaves a World War II plot about breaking German codes with a twentieth-century plot about a group of would-be entrepreneurs setting up an off-shore "data haven." Did I mention buried treasure was involved? Yes its almost 1,000 pages long, but the story will make you feel smart and entertain you as well.
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable read...
Review: An interesting romp through a tri-planar storyline that bridges the gaps between three generations of cypherpunks. A very entertaining novel that pulls the reader along in a rythmic, sectioned fashion that makes the lack of a reasonable denouement completely unproblematic. The characters are strong, independant and quite well developed, although the WWII Waterhouse character bore an odd resemblance to the protagonist in Gravity's Rainbow (Thomas Pynchon). This may however be the product of some phantasmagorical flight of fancy of my imagination. This book is full of fascinating insights into the myriad connections between math, art, life and adventure, in fact one can get lost in the general "timbre" of the novel and forget about the story, following in rapture the characters' development and the many logico-mathematical subplots. This book is also very stylish in its composition and well executed (except for the silly, unsatisfying ending). However, unsatisfying endings appear to be part and parcel of the Neal Stephenson literary universe (viz. "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age"). The good part is that the rest of the novel is so engrossing and the nature of the storytelling so modular that the ending doens't really matter. I have read this novel twice and recommended it to my friends and students.
Rating:
Summary: Debriefing required after Cryptonomicon!
Review: Neal Stephenson really ruins reading for me. After reading Cryptonomicon I was unable to tolerate my previously most enjoyed authors, and had to immediately undergo a comprehensive depressurization in order to survive the time until I found another Stephenson book. Neal packs so much information into each paragraph and page that I am unable to bear reading anything that smacks of empty fluff and waffle - it seems to me now that the authors who use descriptive phrases are just holding out on me. Neal describes the people and situations from within, without recourse to what I now consider lazy superficial references to what is actually happening. Cryptonomicon was a satisfyingly slow read for me. Its density was such a delectable treat, and I relished every page. I'm far too obtuse to be a crypto nut, yet I enjoyed learning about the history and current use of such things via the time hopping storyline spanning much of the last century's IT development. I eagerly await Neal's next novel, but I guess I'll have to read a few other authors before then. I'm not sure I can stand the drop in fictional pressure...
Rating:
Summary: pynchonesque, but fun
Review: while heavily referencing gravity's rainbow, Stephenson does a brilliant job of creating an engaging story.
Rating:
Summary: Gold is where you find it
Review: I came to "Cryptonomicon" assuming that its pages held a healthy mixture of math and literature, the two arts my brain appears most suited to. I discovered in the end that, frankly, there wasn't enough math for my tastes (a partial understanding of high school algebra and calculus is enough for you to get by), and the literature started out sloppy and unfocused. But in the end these two disciplines converged to make a most satisfying whole. There is so much here to sink your teeth into. It's quite dense, with a flurry characters, geographies, contexts, and cryptographs. I got lost along the way on many occasions. My suggestion to any prospective reader would be to find something tangible to latch on to early on (I did my best to let Randy Waterhouse, a most sympathetic "crypto-hero", be my guide), and go along for the ride. And don’t try and decipher (pun intended) every meticulously crafted detail. Go for the big picture and you'll do fine. The sections set during present day, with Randy Waterhouse and his buddies trying to get their latest business venture (a data haven in the Philippines) off the ground, were fascinating, especially near the end when we are hurtling along with him to the book’s final mystery. The other main narrative thrusts, set during WWII, were hit and miss. These sections are finely written, never skimping on the gore with a tasteful war-is-hell kind of presentation, but ultimately left me empty. Gung-ho jarhead Bobby Shaftoe, the focus of these sections, was probably my least favourite of the book’s main characters. Which is odd because author Neal Stephenson has admitted that Bobby was the character he most enjoyed writing. Thankfully, Stephenson has populated his semi-fictional world with a menagerie of fascinating characters. Besides the aforementioned Randy Waterhouse, we have his grandfather Lawrence, a pioneer of computer technology. There's also: Avi, Randy's friend and business partner in the data haven, who happens to be a raving anti-holocaust fanatic; Goto Dengo, an engineer whose purpose I am loathe to spoil here (pay close attention to this guy); Enoch Root, a priest who serves as the main link between the past and the present; and the aptly named Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe, a fiery Vietnam vet. Stephenson even allows some real life characters to intrude on the proceedings, including the aforementioned Gen. ("I shall return") MacArthur, and computer godfather Alan Turing. The sparse romantic elements, with Randy pursuing the ridiculously named America "Amy" Shaftoe, felt tacked on. Although they did provide an opportunity for a hilarious climb through her family tree, Amy was little more than a token female in what amounted to an all boys club. For a writer who's basically a (self-proclaimed) computer geek, Stephenson has an obvious flair for inventive prose. An example of this comes in a long paragraph that describes the chemical makeup of the human bodies in a room (it is long, detailed, and also funny), which concludes by saying that even though there are all these biological moving parts, no one makes a sound. Another quotation from the same scene, concerning Randy's assessment of a dour group of prospective business partners, is almost Tom Robbins-esque: “… the Chinese guys [look] like the contents of Madame Tussaud’s Dumpster after an exhibit on the Cultural Revolution". My favourite Stephenson invention is a shorthand quip shared between a concerned Avi and Randy. They classify their situation as "the most cigarettes", a truncated version of "we could end up in prison married to the guy with the most cigarettes." Proof positive that Stephenson is a talented and entertaining writer. Stephenson gets a lot of mileage (and exposition of ideas) out of Socratic discourse. In one of my favourite sections, Enoch Root schools Randy on the progress of humanity while Randy asks pertinent questions. The conversation centres on Greek mythology, the Titanomachia, Athena (the goddess of technology), and how those with intelligence and cunning [Metis] will out do those with power in times of warfare, for they will have the ability to develop better technology. It could have been dry and dull, but there is such passion contained within the discourse that the words jumped from the page with exuberance. The novel's first two-thirds finds Stephenson struggling to keep a coherent narrative structure intact. I don't think he was necessarily successful, and have a hunch he didn't think so either. He tries to confuse his readers by surprising us with cliffhanger endings to many chapters, in lieu of strong narrative development. However, once he got his feet, Stephenson saves the day with a fine final third, which had a superb narrative thrust racing towards the end. And even though the ending was wrapped up haphazardly, Stephenson had done enough right by then to earn the book a positive place in my memory.
|
