Cryptonomicon

Mr.BadExample

Mr.BadExample

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Sep 11, 2002
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I'd like to recommend this book, which I just finished yesterday.
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.
Set both in WW2 and the modern day, it deals with three young code-breakers, a Marine, a Japanese soldier, and a priest (and their descendants). This delightful fiction springs from history, inserting its characters among real figures like Alan Turing and General Douglas MacArthur.
The story begins with three young math students at Princeton before the war, one American, one British and one German; and from there follows the triumphs brought by codebreaking and the bizarre lengths the Allies went to hide the fact that they broke the Enigma and the Japanese codes. In the modern day, the story follows Avi and Randall, two bright geeks building a startup company whose product will be secure data storage- doesn't sound interesting, but Stephenson's satirical take on the modern tech world is sharp and accurate. He also takes shots at academics, puts one character through a P.G. Wodehouse-style farce on an unpronouncable British isle, and reminded me of Catch-22 with the hoops the heroic Marine, Bobby Shaftoe, has to go through.
The writing may be tedious for some, as it jumps from character to character, but I found it quite humorous. It's a long read but worth the trip. If one storyline drags, you're quickly shifted to another one, and while you can predict how they will converge, it stays compelling.
Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060512806/qid=1094556526/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-5630782-8248137?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
 
I’ll second that recommendation. It is indeed a very entertaining and intelligent book. The lengthy sections on code breaking technique occasionally bordered on being tedious, but not enough to actually hamper the story I think.
 
I third it. I enjoyed it when I read it 4 years ago and may reread it one of these days.

Ihope they don't screw it up with a bad movie version.
 
I read it this summer and would also recommend it. I agree with JanP that the codebreaking is tough to get through at times. I didn't read the technical materials at the end of the book.

Has anyone read Quicksilver by the author? I've been thinking about picking it up.

G.
 
Mr.BadExample said:
I'd like to recommend this book, which I just finished yesterday.
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.
Do you know if the author is related to William Stephenson?
That gentleman was in that line of work during WWII, and was the head of an intelligence agency called British Security Coordination(BSC)which was a full blown foreign intelligence service operating out of Rockefeller Center.
He was highly involved in the electronics field also. His company invented the cavity magnitron(RADAR) for one thing.
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My Ixquick search on Neal found no link to William. In fact, I found very little biographical information:

"I grew up in a science oriented family," he says. "My father taught engineering as a professor and his father was a physics professor. My mother is a biochemist and the daughter of a biochemist. I had no formal training at an advanced level, but I taught myself subjects that interested me."

It doesn't look good for William. :)
 
Neal Stephenson is one of the hottest writers still working. His early stuff was a bit more cyber punk along the lines of William Gibson. Snowcrash was awesome. Then he sort of left the trail with The Difference Engine co-written with Bruce Stirling. Set in the victorian period, I was totally blown away by how well Stephenson adapted to writing in such a different setting from cyberpunk, but he really pulled it off well. Then came Cryptonomicon. Wow! At over 900 pages it's the longest book I've read as an adult, but was well worth the effort. Now I'm in the middle of his latest, Quicksilver, where he goes back to the time of Issac Newton! Like Cryptonomicon, Quicksilver is a hefty tome, but seems well worth the effort.

Neal Stephenson: highly recommended!

John
 
I recently re-read Cryptonomicon in anticipation of Stephenson's forthcoming The System of The World, the third book in his "Baroque Cycle". I think I have read everything he has published, including In The Beginning Was...The Command Line, a technical history book.

Both Quicksilver and The Confusion were great historical fiction, with charactors ranging from Sir Issac Newton, William of Orange and Louis the IV (The Sun King) to the fictional ancestors of Lawrence Waterhouse and Marine Raider Sgt. Bobby Shaftoe, and even Goto Dengo's in the second book. Through it all one of the principles, "Half-Cocked" Jack Shaftoe, carries a blade of watered steel (damascus) around the globe, describing it in the first book as "Treasure and the means to protect it all in one. Perfection!"

I already have the third book on pre-order, it is due to be released in October. I can hardly wait.
 
jmxcpter said:
Neal Stephenson is one of the hottest writers still working. His early stuff was a bit more cyber punk along the lines of William Gibson. Snowcrash was awesome. Then he sort of left the trail with The Difference Engine co-written with Bruce Stirling. Set in the victorian period, I was totally blown away by how well Stephenson adapted to writing in such a different setting from cyberpunk, but he really pulled it off well.
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Gibson co-wrote The Difference Engine, not Stephenson. Stephenson did write the neo-Victorian The Diamond Age (A Young Lady's Illistrated Primer). As soon as you finish Quicksilver grab The Confusion.
 
I'm reading a bio on Alan Turing, then I need to catch up on the Dark Tower series... then I'll tackle the Baroque cycle. :)
I don't know why I never read The Difference Engine and The Diamond Age... I'll have to go dig through some paperbacks in the used bookstores :)
 
stjames said:
Gibson co-wrote The Difference Engine, not Stephenson. Stephenson did write the neo-Victorian The Diamond Age (A Young Lady's Illistrated Primer). As soon as you finish Quicksilver grab The Confusion.
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You're correct. I must have crossed a wire or two mentally regarding two of my favorite authors.

John
 
I'll fourth, sixth, tenth, or whatever this recommendation. Cryptonomicon is awesome. I kind of slogged my way through Quicksilver, but it was on a three-day cross country bus trip, so that might have affected the way I viewed it.
 
Count me in, too. I found Stephenson's first novel, "The Big U" as a remainder for 99 cents--it soon was getting $100 a throw on eBay till they reprinted it--and recognized him as the author of "Snow Crash" right away. If you can find the new printing, Big U is a lot of fun and shows a lot of the stuff he used in Snow Crash a few years later.

"Crypt" drags a bit but is great, a real high water mark in recent fiction. I'd also recommend the "Diamond Age', too, and I have to admit it took me two or three readings to get everything he was talking about in it.

He's also done some fiction novels like "Zodiac" that are pretty good, too, and are non-sf, more mainstream.

I just got a notice from Harper-Collins that the third book of the Baroque Cycle is in release, too. I'm finding them a bit slower read than "Crypt", but worth the slog.

Locus, a science fiction magazine, had an interview with him recently. It may still be on some newsstands.
 
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