Cryptonomicon

Rating:
Summary: A Pinch of Pynchon
Review: Even though I think this book's reach exceeds its grasp, I still couldn't put it down and I give it four stars anyway. I've never been a rabid SF fan but I intend to check out Stephenson's earlier works and eagerly anticipate the projected "sequals" (if that's what they're intended to be.)

Now for the shortcomings.

This book has been described as a worthy successor to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (albeit more readable). Not quite. No one, not even Pynchon's subsequent works, can compete with that massive opus. It stands alone, but clearly Stephenson has been influenced by it, as well as Pynchon's first novel, V. Both author's have deftly replaced humanistic metaphors for scientific one--Stephenson draws numerous parallels between the efforts to conceal information in noise, and the consequent need to extract meaningful information from same, and the normal everyday quest for meaning in a seemingly random existence; Pynchon uses the arc of the rocket to illuminate the issues of free will and choice within a deterministic world succumbing to entropy. Both authors seem to view plot structure as simply a framework upon which to drape the topics that really concern them. Both authors (though Stephenson not so explicitly) are fascinated by Western civilization colliding with primitive tropical cultures. And one can even see a direct imitation in Stephenson's juxtaposing of two generations in different historical moments to tell essentially one story--this is, of course, the fundamental structure of V. And both authors leave you hanging. In Pynchon's case, this becomes his primary statement--quests are never complete, our search for meaning will never be satisfied empirically. Stephenson, one suspects, simply postpones resolutions for a future volume.

The difference is one of depth and degree. Stephenson has given us neither the scope of Pynchon's thematic vision, nor a story line that pulls us along like, say, an Ellmore Leonard, a Lawrence Block, even a Tom Clancy--writers who skate across a surface of action and dialogue, with little thought given to underlying themes. We want something more, and, I suspect, Stephenson does as well.

It's a fun book, the science elements are presented clearly and in a way that makes them meaningful and relevant, and you want very much to find out what's going to happen. My only point is, it's been done before. If you want to see how a master handles these themes, read Pynchon.

Rating:
Summary: 56
Review: I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I guess I expected a book that's nearly a thousand pages long to be dense and ponderous, stilted by the author's desire to create an epic. It is an epic of sorts, but a modern epic; it reminded me of the film "Three Kings." It moves fast and has a strong sense of humor, especially in its interpretation of history. The chapter devoted to Douglas MacArthur is pure genius.

Each chapter revolves around one of three main characters. This jumping back and forth keeps the reader guessing and the story moving. And though there's a lot of humor, there's a lot of drama and action, too. The characters are fascinating, even the minor ones.

My only gripe is that towards the end (the last three hundred pages) the story speeds up, and generally has a rushed quality. Also, at the end, some story lines seem to come to nothing (I'd like to know more about the Enoch Root character). I hope this means it's part of a series.

In summary, check it out. It's a good book: funny, a little off-kilter. I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: AWESOME!
Review: I am biased b/c my personal interests are computers and crypto and while war isn't exactly a thrill of mine, I find the crypto history cool (even though he doesn't necessarily follow history per se, but hey, it's his book). For all of the reviewers that think this book was "okay but too long" - they are obviously lazy - this is my favorite book and it was great - it was perfect for me. If you aren't up for reading a heavy (in size) book, don't pick it up. I loved it and recommend it to any computer/crypto geek out there.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible Wordsmith
Review: This is the first Stephenson novel I read and, definitely not the last. I read this brick of a book on vacation and got little sleep until it was finished. Stephenson's power of description is truly Devine. The detail, while not supporting the plot necessarily, lent an air of realism to the story. It filled in the colorful aspects of the characters and provided me an infrastructure for my imagination to explode with intense visions.

This novel will consume a lot of time and provide tremendous distraction to one's mundane stresses in their everyday life. Too bad Stanley Kubrick is not with us to bring this work to the screen. I could see the WWII scenes in grainy black and white juxtaposed with brilliant colors of the eastern Pacific of today.

If this book were a Daiquiri it would be mixed as follows: 1 cup William Gibson, 1 cup Tom Clancy, 1 oz. of Indiana Jones, 1 oz. of Das Boat, A dash of Ghostbusters, where the geek gets the girl (Sigorny Weaver), A dash of African Queen, 2 Cups of crushed ice from Bobby Shaftoe's veins, and blended in a typhoon of human greed, character, will, and altruism.

I guess I liked the book.

Rating:
Summary: somewhat underwhelming
Review: First off, I want to say that I have really enjoyed Neal's previous works, his articles in Wired magazine and especially Snow Crash. However, this one fell a little short of my expectations. It all starts off well enough, and it really held my interest for a long while. But I think it would have been well enough if the book had been about 200 pages shorter, maybe more. Neal's technical explanations as usual are excellent, but I think there was a lot of rehashing of old material, and maybe too much focus on technical matters, and less on action. Neal provides neat graphs and examples of cryptographic matters, but I think there was a definate lull by the middle of the novel, where not much was happening. I kept turning the pages, hoping for the story to pick up again. There are some valuable points in the book however, and certainly reading this book made me wonder about the future of privacy, the Internet and the usual subjects of Neal's writing. In conclusion: Thought provoking, great starter, a bit long, and lacking action gives this book a 3 star from me. Still looking forward to Neal's next book!

Rating:
Summary: Great start, pitiful finish
Review: Bummer. The first two-thirds of this book is big and funny and gutsy. The four major characters (three of whom fight WWII in various ways while the fourth helps launch a present-day startup) glance off each other just frequently enough so that you can't wait until Stephenson pulls the whole schmeer together.

Then along comes page 600 and you get that crummy feeling that maybe he never WILL pull the whole schmeer together. But hope springs eternal.

Page 700 ... Stephenson is still introducing new characters and ideas. Your hopes fade. Might this be another potentially excellent novel that sinks because editors lacked the guts to tell the writer to quit jacking around and write a great finish?

Page 800 ... the protagonist is stuck with a Yoda character, having some sort of impenetrable Platonic dialogue about Greek gods. This scene would be rotten in the first 100 pages. Falling this close to the end of a book that could have been great, it's an utter disaster. And you realize that yeah, this is just another book by a scifi guy with a great imagination who wouldn't know pacing if he tripped over it. Too bad.

Rating:
Summary: Stephenson Comes of Age
Review: It's a somewhat sad comment on litarary reviewers that Neal Stephenson had to move a bit out of the SF field with this novel to get taken seriously by reviewers. Nevertheless, this novel feels like a more mature work in several aspects: It's the first novel by Stephenson that has a halfway decently written ending, the characters are reasonably aware and afraid of their mortality, and the writing in some scenes borders on the subtle (e.g. when Turing comes on to the elder Waterhouse).

The plot, some sort of combination of Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow", Buchheim's "Das Boot", and a stack of WIRED magazines, starts off as a somewhat slow read but becomes more and more compelling.

The core idea which the book explores is the interaction of the world of information and the world of physical interaction -- bitspace vs. meatspace, and Stephenson resists the temptation to facilely declare (as many a WIRED author would) that meatspace "has become irrelevant", nor (as people like Clifford Stoll would) that bitspace "is not real". Rather, he shows that interactions go both ways: Decrypted bits *do* sink ships; a few corrupt cops *can* seriously cramp the style of a hacker cruising cyberspace.

Rating:
Summary: Incredible, just incredible
Review: I first read Snow Crash by Stephenson- a friend had been recommending it for six months, I had a gift certificate, and I decided "Why not?" I loved it. So, last month, when I had a little extra money, I noticed Cryptonomicon. At first I was wary, but I'm a history freak, and I gave in. I have to say I was thrilled with it. Stephenson does a great job of mixing the stories of the past with the present. He's got a great way of taking little digressions off the main story, taking up a handful of pages here, or a dozen pages there, that don't add to the story, but are so interesting, that I was never once annoyed by the tangents. My only problem with the book would be Stephenson's technical explanations on cryptology, but, other then that, this is an incredible novel and a great kick-off to the series.

Rating:
Summary: Wading through asia
Review: This is an instance of where once again the author's name is required to sell this puppy. If you like those books where incredible coincidences happen on a fairly regular basis, this book is for you. Grandpa's work together, two superheros in the world of the motals. They split and never see one another again, yet grandson and granddaughter hook up for rousing great fun, out in the miidle of nowhere.it fairly takes the breath away. No wonder all these folks crave cryptography, you cannot go ten pages without ANOTHER amazing coincidence. We see Turing, we see Nazis, we see computer designers and not only do the know each other intimately, but they almost live in each others heads. A long slog through the dark and stormy night...

Rating:
Summary: It's a joy to read a book that uses language so well.
Review: Is it a war story? yes. Is it a love story? yes. Is it a geek hi-tech story? yes. It's also one of the best written books I've had the pleasure of reading in a long time. With this book it's not the completion (how will it end?) that's the goal, it's the journey.

This is a book that will completly involve you. It's rare that I'm so impressed by a book that I feel a need to read sections out loud to my wife "Honey, come here you won't believe what just happened in this book". Although I must admit that trying to read her the pig story while laughing so hard that I couldn't breath was a bit difficult.

This is not a hi-tech book. It's a fantastic novel with a hi-tech story line.