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Cryptonomicon
With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century. As an added bonus, the e-book edition of this New York Times bestseller includes an excerpt from Stephenson's new novel, Seveneves.
In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.
Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.
A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.
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Reviews
Very well written all the way through. But I was confused by much of this book. The whole way through, I thought the book was half a very compelling WWII historical fiction and half a really dull bit set 50 years later about a business venture. Chapters in each timeline are shuffled together like cards in a deck. I was getting frustrated waiting for the two story lines to converge somehow. Every 1998 chapter was a slog because I only wanted to get back to WWII. So the ending disappointed me. Then I read some of the author’s comments in appendices and came to understand that this book is intended to be half about modern cryptology (the boring stuff) and half historical fiction about earlier cryptology (the compelling bit). OK, so I get it now. But I still wish the author would have left off the modern story and stuck to WWII. If you’re a cryptology nut you’re gonna love this book. If you’re not, read it anyway and you’ll get an unusually good story about WWII. And you’ll probably find that even the boring bits are so well written that you don’t really mind reading them too.
By Herc the Dog
All the flaws are there, but still fabulous and better the second time through.
By derkmvp
One of my all-time favorite works of fiction. Deftly combines WW2 Enigma-ish and beyond crypto with wartime derring-do and modern privacy relevant ideas like the data vault. Many memorable characters and expert writing. Rarely does a novel make me laugh out loud, but Cryptonomicon has those moments as well.
By ńnnn. m
I can count on 1 hand the number of books i have stopped reading midway through. This is one of those books . A pondering mess, lurching back and forth in time and geography with a tedious microscopic attention to detail making what should be a page of action more like a paragraph. On to better things!
By mpls_mikeh
I have read this book many times. Neal Stephenson's books are a part of my library but this one in particular speaks to me as programmer and 'tech enthusiast'. I jumped at the chance to get a version that can is on my phone all the time. Odd since I just thought about taking it down and reading it again. My physical copy is in the exact center of my book shelf above my computer and holds a commanding place in my loft surrounded by tech, photography and the Physics of Superheros books. My only regret with this book is that it reminds me that I had a chance to meet Neal in Philadelphia 8 years ago at a book signing. I planned to bring my dog-earred copy of Cryptonomicon to get signed but unfortunately had a family emergeny and missed the signing.
By 1najeep