Rating: 
Summary: stunning - a romp through the Computer Age like never before
Review: I was a freelance production person on this book, and it was one of the best manuscripts I've read in the last few years -- I have been recommending it ever since as a =must read= to everyone I know in the industry. Incredible. I can't wait to see it in its final print edition.When will there be a sequel?! I didn't get enough! (yes, and it is a =very big= book!)
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating and compeling
Review: Reading the first few chapters (66 printed pages) online...Iwas engrossed, unable to move, unwilling to break for any desire or need. Neal is pulling together across generations a story that contrasts the differences and brings to surface the shifts between those generations. Deeply technical without necessitating technical understanding, Neal brings a light to the technological and the people that practice it that is only paralleled in Tom Clancy's ability to make military arcana understandable to people outside that circle. The reader is drawn into the singular focus and numbing concentration of deeply creative people. The author brings light into the creative process that consumes all outside stimula that so frightens people who cannot see beyond the fogged eyes and distant presence. The stories shifts are a bit rough, but they are a continuation of the author's style of charater jumping exhibited in his earlier books. He tends to play these jumps very well, building up scenes strongly, and then changing channels to build each character's path in parallel. I am quite excited and cannot wait to receive my full printed copy.
Rating:
Summary: simply stated.
Review: better than jesus, heroin, and peanut butter.
Rating:
Summary: Easily the coolest book I've ever read
Review: I've read Cryptonomicon twice now and am convinced that while this is very tough read, it is both highly entertaining and extremely educational. Stephenson has a tendency to weigh the reader down with minutae, but it's the kind of information that'll make you hit the internet to learn even more about. The plot switches back and forth between two eras: 1940s in both the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of WWII and in present day. If you're a technically minded person interested in historical fiction, cryptography, and the evolution of currency (i know, sounds weird but is highly interesting written by Stephenson), this is a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: pretty good
Review: Pretty good read. But the ending was a total disappointment. This is the only Stephenson I've read but I was really turned off by his apparent obsession with the phallus. I know in some quarters this makes the book "edgy", but I found the main characters' inability to think striaght without frequent orgasms juvenile. At times I thought I was reading some lame feminist characterization of men. It was ridiculous.
Rating:
Summary: Fricken' Brilliant!
Review: If you're not willing to be taken down the long and difficult road of true brilliance, inspired hilarity, naughty genius, and general kick-ass-cool intellectualism, fagetabowtit - you won't get this book.
If you're ready for something new, let Stephenson take you on the road trip of your life...
Rating:
Summary: A behemoth and a wild ride
Review: I was excited to pick up this book because it was on a subject right up my alley - encryption. Throw in the fact that it has a lot of WWII action in there and I was sure it was a winner.
The book is a winner in many respects but I found myself wanting to read more about the WWII characters than the modern ones. The story jumps around a lot, back to WWII and to the modern age with the common thread of encryption saving the world (in WWII) and conquering the world, at least fiscally, in the modern day.
I thought the actions and theory behind the modern part of the story were a bit of a stretch. Yes, this is a work of fiction, but I like my fiction to be believable! Stephenson goes into a bit of economic theory to support how his modern concept could work (don't want to spoil anything), but I just didn't buy it.
Maybe that's where Stephenson went wrong for me. This is a huge book - well over 1000 pages, but the story winds and wanders all over the place going in detail into encryption theory, economic theory, theoretical math - great stuff for a geek like me but it was tough to stick to a story line when all this subjects had to be explained. Perhaps the author should have assumed his reader was a bit more intelligent and then he wouldn't have had to delve into all these explanations.
Still, I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. It was a pretty good book, pretty overwhelming too - but that can be a good thing.
Rating:
Summary: a big, brilliant, geeky book
Review: Composed of three - at times four, even five - plotlines, each with its own narrator; spanning sixty years and told in two distinct time frames; exploring naval warfare, cryptology, the psychology of geeks, and Greek mythology; topping eleven hundred pages in length - this is not a novel for the faint-hearted. It's long and impressively - even confusingly - complex, and sometimes the reading is a bit of a slog. But the stories are intricately interwoven and surprisingly funny; the characters are unique, believable, and memorable; the digressions into science, religion, and everything else are knowledgeable and clearly presented - on the whole this is a very enjoyable read. Totally worth the investment.
Rating:
Summary: War and Peace for the late 20th Century!
Review: The erudition and information in this book are humbling. Wait, wait! It also has humor, tragedy, war, romance, a bit of sex, intrigue, a treasure hunt, famous historical characters, and a whole bunch of other things---truly the complete range of human experience, across two generations of families. One of my more unusual tests for a book is its ability to keep me interested if I have to leave it for awhile. Well, I read Cryptonomicon over a period of more than 3 months, and even if I stopped reading for a week at the end of a paragraph (much less a section or chapter), I found I could return to it easily without losing the many threads of the story---minimal paging back to refresh my memory. In a book of this magnitude and complexity, that is a rare, perhaps unique compliment. I admit readily that it isn't fair to do this to a book, but sometimes stuff happens. The author even enlightened me about a personal character trait! That isn't something one expects in a work of fiction. On the minimal downside, Stephenson is so knowledgeable about technical matters that he devotes some space to theories, graphs, computer programs, and the like. The good news about this is that all of it is relevant to the story. The bad news is that I couldn't begin to repeat much of it after reading it. My best advice would be to read those sections several times, as I did, trying for a basic understanding of the concepts. Going to either extreme (skipping them entirely or getting bogged down in them or, horrors, quitting the book in frustration) is not advised!! Cryptonomicon ends with a brief excerpt from Quicksilver, the first book in a new trilogy. Stephenson has me intrigued already, and I eagerly await reading all of his other works.
Rating:
Summary: Out of Control!
Review: What do Ronald Reagan, the Nazi Enigma Code, Captain Crunch cereal, and Internet Privacy all have in common? Cryptonomicon. Neal Stephenson weaves a fantastic web of connections until the reader begins to suspect that all things are related, if only one knows where to look. Cryptonomicon is fairly brimming with useful advice. Thinking about dating the daughter of a homicidal ex-Navy Seal? It's in the book. Have you suddenly found yourself doing business with a lawsuit-happy dentist with masochistic streak? It's in here. Need to know the optimum procedure for eating Captain Crunch cereal? How about the Cartesian parking lot method of dividing family treasures, or tips on using heavy gauge pseudo-antique furniture to revitalize your love life? It's all in here. This book is fun, informative, irreverent, and fascinating. What more can a reader ask?
Jeff Edwards, author of "Torpedo: A Surface Warfare Thriller"
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