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Cryptonomicon
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780060512804
ISBN: 0060512806
Label: Avon
Manufacturer: Avon
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 1168
Publication Date: November 01, 2002
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: November 05, 2002
Studio: Avon
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Editorial Review:
Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction fans and techie types thanks to Snow Crash, which so completely redefined conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was big, Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And it's only the first of a proposed series--for more information, read our interview with Stephenson.
Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."
All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.
Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of information overload (and starvation). --Therese Littleton
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.
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 Watrehouse and Detatchment 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 grandaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi sumarine 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 icon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Cryptonomicon
The story is amazing but I was disappointed with this edition's format. Very small pages make a very thick book which was more difficult to read than another version I've seen (blue with silver cover).
Rating:  - I would love to BS over martinis with this guy
Did you ever feel like someone listened to all your thoughts, figured out exactly what your interests are, then wrote novels specifically directed at you? I love everything that this guy writes. Partly because he writes well, but also partly because he thinks deeply on topics that interest me: modern currencies (which are basically confidence games), future implications of nanotechnology, the role of cryptology in the movement of money, how governments will be affected by the fact that geographical ... Read More
Rating: - Funny, smart and geeky
This book is full of the geeky stuff (there are even code snippets!), but it also has a lot of laugh-out-loud moments. The second time I read it, I was able to pick up a lot more of the humor.
Rating: - Geekfest
Alan Turing, Enigma, the assassination of Admiral Yamamoto and last but not least, the proper way to eat Cap'n Crunch. What more could you want?
That's just the side stories not the main plot.
This sprawling book was a page-turner and is properly deserving of its Cult status.
Rating: - This is in my top 3 books of all time
This book was truly a great book to read. I loved reading it, although it did take me about a month and a half. It reminded me of a bible given the heft of the paperback edition, and i couldn't store it in my coat for travel. Beyond that it was a great story, great character developement and did a superb job keeping all 3-5 storylines in-tact.
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