Cryptonomicon

Rating:
Summary: Worth the Time
Review: Good book. Great story. Interesting writing style. Ending could've been stronger.

Rating:
Summary: Long, but worth reading...
Review: The most interesting thing about Cryptonomicon is the way the author has written a book which takes place simultaneously in the past and present. Characters from the 1940's sections of the book (or their offspring) are characters in the 1990's section of the book. Things you learn in the "past" affect your understanding of the "present" and vice versa. I have never read a book which does this so effectively.

Although the book got off to a slow start (in my opinion), it soon becomes more interesting as the different sections begin to weave themselves together. It is over 900 pages, so plan to spend quite a long time reading this.

If you have a mild interest in WWII, cryptography, computers, the internet, or the phillipines, then this may be the book for you.

The central question of this book: will Amy and Randy get together? Actually that's not it - but it's fun to think about as you read.

Rating:
Summary: Bend over, Tojo!
Review: While this book is obviously long (1132 pages for the stubby paperback) there is so much going that progress thru the book moves quickly. Think of Bobby Shaftoe as a combined Forrest Gump and John McClain (Die Hard) rolled into one. Starting with Lawrence Waterhouse and Alan Turing in the New Jersey Pine Barrens (20 minutes from my place of residence) and going to present day jungles in the Philippines and many characters transversing the globe, this book has alot going for it. Code breakers during World War 2 (Enigma) set out to keep each other on one`s collective toes. Company executives for Epiphyte in the present work to get a complicated internet system established. The chapters go back and forth and are connected with the relatives and offspring of L. Waterhouse (past)/Randy Waterhouse(present) Bobby Shaftoe (past)/Amy;Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe (present). A number of scenes are beyond hilarious with Bobby being ask to open the crates on the ship with an axe.....no spoilers here, and Goto Dengo tring to remember a message to the Corporal`s family keep this book going. While the people in the book are brilliant, the technical aspects and code breaking math are made simple and occupy little of the story. WHY they all do it is interesting. Other reviews I`ve read seem to pick on one thing and that`s the fact that most of the character`s refer to Japan and the Japanese as Nips or Nipponese. Maybe in 1942 but a lawyer in the present would not tell Randy he should get a hold of Sony/Panasonic or some other Nipponese company. Also one review said there was too much profanity and gratuitous relations......not in the book I read. All of us want great reading , but B. Shaftoe would not know about a Casbah in Algiers or La Pasyon art. Finding out why the guys (Randy/Avi/Tom/Ed/the Dentist) go thru all the trouble they do makes for a wonderful read sorta like "It`s A Mad , Mad, Mad, Mad World". My interest in languages and unbreakable reading of texts (the Voynich Manuscript) along with a recent documentary on a missing U-boat of the Jersey coast made this a special read for me anyway.

Rating:
Summary: Drawn-out, but worth it.
Review: I suppose most people start reading "Snow Crash" or "The Diamond Age" when they want an introduction into Neal Stephenson's writing. Perhaps I should have done that. Instead, I began with "Cryptonomicon", quite an undertaking for someone who abandons rather than finishes most of the books he reads. I quite enjoyed the majority of the story, though it did take me a considerable amount of time to get through the first third of the book. However, the rest flew by and I could not get enough of most of the storylines, wishing at the end that there was much, much more.

Reading about science-driven and math-driven characters took me back to my childhood when such things were highly encouraged in my life. The funny quirks of each of the characters make me smile quite a number of times. The description of one of the two fictional places that Stephenson creates for the story, Qwghlm, reads like it could have been written by a more prolific Douglas Adams. This, by the way, is one of the highest compliments I could pay an author, as I am a die-hard Adams fan.

My biggest pet peeve about the novel, and it appears that this criticism is shared with many readers on Amazon, is that the ending seems a bit unfulfilling. However, it's not that bad, and what he's really leaving out are details that we can all surmise on our own. I get the idea that this happens with all of Stephenson's books, but I have yet to read them (I've started "Quicksilver" recently, but have not finished it yet). Stephenson addresses this criticism on his website:

"I always write the endings that I want to, and am as satisfied with my endings as I am with any other aspect of my writing. I just have an opinion about what constitutes a good ending that is at variance with some of my readers."

Well, that's his prerogative. I won't complain too much until I can write a decent 900-page story that can keep a reader with a short attention span, such as yours truly, fairly occupied.

I'll definitely keep reading Stephenson's work and recommend it to others, as long as one adage is kept in mind: "Good things come to those who wait." I'm sure this will be a focused mantra as I tackle the epic "Baroque Cycle" trilogy.

Rating:
Summary: ...the Bible...
Review: This book is so fantastically engrossing that we read passages from it daily, as prayer offerings to the almighty Neal Stephenson that he may bless us with additional intricately crafted reads.

Rating:
Summary: magnificent work, but marred by bad ending
Review: Successful writer Neal Stephenson jumps headlong into main stream fiction with anything but main stream storytelling. At 900+ pages this book is awesome in scope if not its size. The story is about cryptography, and its use in the modern world to try and secure man's inalienable, but often tramped rights. The book is split between a cast of WWII cryptographers and service men and their modern day grandchildren. Randy Waterhouse is a network engineer and computer hacker(coder). He and his business partners are trying to set up a worldwide secure data repository, a digital vault, were a person's information (digital cash) can be safe from the prying hands of crooks, dictators, or nosy governments. Regardless if these same people are crooks themselves. The key to accomplishing this task is cryptography, encoding data in a nearly unbreakable form.

Stephenson interleaves this modern day story with a great rendition of code breaking history from WWII. Lawrence Waterhouse, Randy's grandfather, and marine Sgt. Bobby Shaftoe are part of the fictitious "detachment 2702". A group that among other assignments is sent out to spread false data so that Germany will not figure out that the Allies have broken the "unbreakable" Enigma machine code. Sgt. Shaftoe is Stephenson's alter-ego. Not surprising that a self proclaimed geek would choose pure hearted (excepted for sex) man of action to offset the techno-nerd portion of the book. He is by far the best character. Besides beating back the Axis powers the story turns to a second plot involving gold transfers and the generation of even more secret codes. The past and present come together when young Randy must some how duplicate his now late Grandfather's work in order to free himself from the modern day villains that oppose the creation of the vault. The gold storyline is what is really captivating about this book. We all know how WWII ends. We keep turning the pages to find out if the modern day charaters will win the day. Sadly they do not even meet their adversaries. The one sacraficial villain offered up in the end is an off screen character mentioned on about page 100. Many good characters are dumped along the way and we never find out what happens to them.

Stephenson knows his stuff. And he manages to convert many areas of technology into a slam-bang, in-your-face, narrative style that will often leave the reader laughing. The scientific one-two punch style is enjoyable but does get old when he tries to adapt it to memories of childhood playgrounds and family heirloom squabbles. The concepts of starting, maintaining and attaching faith to a completely digtal currency are put forth in clear rudimentary form. He does not ascribe to the typically network huckster mantra that the WEB will solve everything. Currency must be backed and he gives us a smattering of what may happen should anyone realy try to pull off a real vault. More drama could have been wrung from this point if the author was as savy about politics as he is about computers. Is it well plotted? Yes. Is it traditionally plotted? not really. A young Orson Wells was criticized for showing the audience the ceiling in his movies (it was never done before), later he was called a genius. Stephenson shows us the ceiling, the plaster, the studs, and the copper plumbing, complete with scaly build-up.

There are two major criticism for this book; a very bad ending, and little actual character interaction. After 800 pages of completely engrossing story the ending appears to have been written by another author who did not even know what the rest of the book was about. Words like "lame" fail to describe it. Each character seems to act and react soley within their own head. Many interesting secondary characters are not brought fully to life because of this isolation.There is also no real male/female story. The lead male and female instantly become an item half way through the book. Bang! they are together. Amusing that this perfect woman, who is professed to be a virgin, settles for a 5 minute "quickie" in a dirtly Jeep for her first time. Historical figure cameos by, Yamamoto, MacArthur, Reagan, and Turing. I was surprised that there was no Patton, Romel, Monty or Nimitz.

Rating:
Summary: Neal Stephenson is not William Gibson
Review: This *is* an excellent book, however. Stephenson masterfully weaves
together a myriad of story lines to reach it's conclusion. At times
it seems that some of what you are reading is not
relevant but he wraps it all up nicely in the end. It could have
been shorter, but all in all an excelent read. Anyone who is into
cryptography, past or present or the internet should enjoy this
book. Plus, you'll never eat Captain Crunch the same way ever again.

Rating:
Summary: Huge and flawed, but not hugely flawed
Review: The size of CRYPTONOMICON varies depending on which individual printing that you get ahold of (although, presumably, they all contain the same amount of text). Depending on the size of the margins, the typeface and the paper, the page count of your copy of CRYPTONOMICON will range from nine hundred to eleven hundred. My own copy weighs in at nine hundred, eighteen pages. No matter how you look at it, that's a lot of words, and a lot of reading. And I'll say this from the onset: in addition to everything else I will mention, Neal Stephenson's CRYPTONOMICON was engrossing and absorbing. It rarely bored me, and kept me interested for its entirety. No mean feat, considering the length, though I certainly felt as though I had completed a marathon by the time I finally turned over the final page.

To reduce the book to a summary is an extremely difficult task. As a start, we can say that the story takes place in two different time-periods, although there are separate strands running in each setting. The first part takes place during World War II; much of it concerns the exploits of the mathematicians who broke the German codes as well as the people who tried their hardest to make sure that the Germans themselves did not figure out that the Allies had broken the encryption techniques. The WWII sections are the book's strongpoint, with the historical details and diversions providing an excellent background. A lot of the humor in this section works well, although some of it reads like a watered down version of CATCH-22.

The second portion of the book takes place in the modern day. It vaguely feels like it's trying to be a sort of techno-thriller. Of course, it's difficult to describe more precisely, because it seems like it's trying to do half a dozen things at once, and it isn't quite sure what it wants to be. Some plot points begin, are expanded upon, and then promptly vanish. There's a lot of geek humor on display, and some portions of the plot will require quite a bit of technical knowledge. Stephenson explains much of what the audience needs to know, but I bet that a fairly significant portion of the book will fly over the head of many readers.

Could the story have been told in fewer than 900+ pages? Absolutely, but the question rather misses the point. The plot itself is relatively minimal. What the book does is to allow itself to go off into tangents and branches nominally related to the main subject. Characters (or even the narrative itself) will suddenly launch into long speeches about unrelated topics to varying degrees of success. Some of the discussions are fascinating and thought provoking. Others are utterly self-indulgent and should have been left on the proverbial cutting room floor. One gets the impression that the editor (or editors) were afraid suggest cuts, leaving us with a flawed work.

I got the inkling that Stephenson had thought of about a dozen good ideas for a book, but instead of developing them individually, he decided to throw them all into a single volume. This gives us a mixed result. It's decidedly fresh, unpredictable and exciting, but I also felt that he wasn't doing justice to all of his ideas. Some threads don't have time to flourish before they are cast off, and it's a shame to see their potential flushed away.

The ending feels a bit rushed, which I found to be surprising, given how much time is spent setting up all the plot threads and strands. And looking back on what I've written, I notice that I've probably spent too much time going over the book's flaws, so I feel the need to point out that there is a lot of great stuff contained between these covers. A lot of the little passages lead to fascinating discussions. Had this been a more disciplined work, it would probably have been absolutely amazing. As it currently stands, however, it is a flawed work, albeit an interesting one.

Rating:
Summary: Good but LONG.
Review: Good writing and story, but I believe one third of the information could have been condensed or left out entirely. The additional information is interesting, but does not add much to the story. I skimed as much as 5-10 pages in some sport just to get back to the action. But overall interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: A great book by a writer who makes the English language sit up and do tricks for him. He also has a refreshing understanding of the world, almost devoid of political correctness. (A few paragraphs about a fictional U.S. Attorney General being the odd exception, but I quibble). People who enjoy this book will also enjoy The Diamond Age by the same author, which shares a similar view of the world, even though that world is set in the future.