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

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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

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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 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.

I love it whole heartedly, but I'm a Computer Scientist. I understand the programs, the math, and the cryptography which comes up from time to time. People totally unfamiliar with it will find these sections boring, possibly pompous. I think you can skip over these without losing the story.

Even though the writing style is usually light-hearted, Stephenson does tackle big topics. A major focus is on the role of money in a society. He also looks at anticipation being more enjoyable than the actual event, especially in relationships.

If you're a hacker - buy it without thought. If you're not a hacker - stop by a brick-and-mortar store, read a few pages, and, if you like what you see, take a chance. Truly, I can't think of a book I enjoyed more. Besides, if you read it you'll find out what the phrase "the most cigarettes" means. :)


A joy to read. . .   August 7, 2002
 97 out of 109 found this review helpful

Going in to CRYPTONOMICON, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I'd never read anything by Neal Stephenson, nor had I read any blurbs or reviews of the book. However, it had appeared on enough "Best Book" lists that I decided to give it a try. And boy am I glad I did.

This novel is fun, huge, funny, rambling, witty, and sprawling. It is clever, engaging, and well-paced. It is full of quirky, eccentric, immensely likeable characters, crazy, interesting ideas, and amusing, often hilarious, looks at various situations including, but not limited to, mathematics, life, how to eat Cap'n Crunch properly, the purpose of beards, and well, just about anything else you can think of. Obviously, then, this book is not for everyone. Those who like tight, meticulously pared-down straightforward stories may not be able to get into this one.

For me, though, as you may have guessed from the title of the review, this book was an absolute joy to read. The books chapters cycled between four main characters, and every time I finished a chapter I found myself in an awkward position: I didn't want to go on, because I wanted to keep reading about the character I'd been following. However, by the end of the first paragraph of the next chapter, I'd be feeling the same way about the next character in the cycle. It was an odd feeling, and a tribute to the skill with which Stephenson created these characters that each of them was so completely engaging.

In addition to the main characters, the settings and situations were vivid and well-drawn. Despite this books immensity and its tendency to ramble at length about inanity, it never got boring, and always retained its charm. Stephenson provides us with a very amusing outlook on life.

However, this book is not without flaws, the two biggest of which have been noted in previous reviews:

1) Women. There are no really well-developed female characters. Most of the women have virtually no "screen time" at all, and the one who does have quite a bit of time is not fully realized as a character. It would have been very helpful to have gotten inside her head once in a while.

2) The ending. This book kind of just ends, without resolving properly. It feels like it just cuts off, and that was kind of unsatisfactory. Randy's story deserved at least another chapter or an epilogue of some sort to tie-up the plot. Alas, Stephenson, at the end, couldn't deliver.

So, as I've said, this book is delightfully readable, and if not for the sudden ending, would easily have garnered a 5/5 rating. I'm definitely looking forward to the next CRYPTONOMICON book (which, if I'm not mistaken, is intended to stand alone; it will not be a sequel, per se).


Wow! What a ride through history, math, present, and style   September 2, 2000
 31 out of 33 found this review helpful

Just finished the book - and while reading it, I recommended it to many others because I was enjoying it so much. I kept telling people "I'm reading the coolest book - you have to read it, too!" Very well written. Moves at an incredible pace, the dialogue is believable, and of course the excursions into math, cryptology, engineering, computers, eating Captain Crunch so it doesn't lacerate the roof of your mouth, and all those incredible observations about society/culture/whatever-is-in-front-of-them that only engineers and sceintists can make are the icing on what would be an incredibly well-written tale even without all that stuff.

What makes the book so excellent, though, is the believable story and the believable characters. I found that I liked all of them because they were so real - I even cared about the bad guys. Still want them to lose, of course, but as a *reader*, I cared about them, and that's what keeps driving a reader on through a story.

It's certainly a book that requires some commitment - it is very long, but I tell you, after hitting page 800, I was depressed, knowing that I had only another 110 pages of this joyful reading ahead of me. How many books have done that to you lately? In the last ten years? I read hundreds of books each year, most of them I can bring myself to enjoy even if they aren't great literature, but it is rare that I am so much enjoying a book that I begin to question if I should slow down, just so I can savor the enjoyment longer - and I did that a lot with this book.

Stephenson has a way with words that will leave you breathless and in awe at his skill at writing. His metaphors are brilliant, sometimes hilarious. His so-true-to-daily-life descriptions had me laughing out loud on the subway and in the laundromat. And if you are an engineer or scientist, you will get all the added benefit of the "inside" jokes, descriptions, observations, etc. I am stupified by Stephenson's genius at pulling this thing off. If only more writers could be as sharp.

While this is not the kind of social commentary/critique that great art generally is, it will, I think, leave the reader a different person than when s/he began the book. I know it has affected me on some levels - not greatly, in the way that 1984 or Moby Dick does - but the reader is left (if they've been paying attention) viewing the world a little differently.

Lastly, if you've ever hung out with engineers or scientists, and gotten mad/confused at them for their seemingly cold/analytical way of looking at the world, this book is a great resource for coming to understand why they think that way, and what it means to them. I have recommended this book to a couple people simply so that, perhaps, they will have a better understanding of why I do and say the things I do (I am an engineer/scientist by training). For so realistically showing the thought processes, and motivations, of the science-inclined, I applaud Stephenson. For writing a book that is an awful lot of fun to read, I appaud him, too. Truly one of the best books in my library.


Mathematics never looked so exciting   March 21, 2001
 28 out of 32 found this review helpful

CRYPTONOMICON, written by Neal Stephenson, is a big book. Big. BIG. Bordering on HUGE. It has innumerable characters, enough plot to fill several books, and a theme that is presented in such exhaustive detail at some points that the reader has to lie down for awhile to absorb it all. It is a BIG book.

Thank God it's also funny.

Besides being an in-depth look at the world of hackers, cryptography, modern-day treasure hunters, World War II, tunnel digging, espionage, and more; Besides ALL that, CRYPTONOMICON may very well be the funniest book I've read since THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.

Basically, Stepehenson follows two plot lines. In the first, he follows Lawrence Waterhouse, mathematician extrordinaire, as he becomes a foremost expert on the subject of code-making and code-breaking. Considering the usefullness of this gift, he is a) recruited as a code-breaker for the United States during World War II, b) sent to far off countires with names spelled without the use of vowels, and c) becomes a pioneer in the creation of the digital computer.

In the second plot line, Stephenson follows Randy Waterhouse, Lawrence's grandson, who is involved in setting up a 'data haven', whereby sensitive material from any source can be safely stored, for a price. But he soon becomes embroiled in a) the legal machinations of a billionaire known only as the Dentist, b) a scheme to create his own electronic currency, and c) a mad rush to dig up a Nipponese gold stash that has remained hidden since World War II.

Whew.

Obviously, CRYPTONOMICON is not to everyone's taste. It demands a great deal of patience, as Stephenson spends a large amount of time explaining the background and inner workings of computers, and code-breaking. However, Stephenson manages the near impossible; he creates excitement out of the most tedious technical explanations. I have read entire novels not half as interesting or suspenseful as Stephenson's desciption of the mathematics of a particular form of cryptography.

But Stephenson is not merely content to explain codes, he explains EVERYTHING: the ideal method of consuming Cap'n Crunch cereal; how to equally divide up an inheritance; how nitrogen bubbles are created in the bloodstream; and so on. Half the pleasure in Stephenson's work (and it IS a pleasure) is wondering where the next digression is going to come from, or from what new angle he'll approach a scenario. Stephenson is not a man lacking for ideas. In lesser hands, this could all seem quite precious and smug, but Stephenson never condescends. And if you don't understand the concepts, it doesn't matter, the novel still works without one-hundred-percent comprehension.

Ideas aside, CRYPTONOMICON is still a splendid read. With literally hundreds of characters, Stephenson manages to keep each one of them distinct, and his interwoven time lines are remarkable in their clarity. The ending seems a letdown, but how could it not be? After 900 pages, anything less than nuclear annihilation would be somewhat disappointing.

And, as I mentioned, it is often VERY funny. Laugh-out-loud funny, which I find very rare in a novel. And even if I absolutely hated CRYPTONOMICON (which I assuredly do not), I would still love his ten page digression into Lawrence Waterhouse's love life, as Lawrence tries to define his increasing loneliness and lust as a mathematical construct, including charts and graphs and equations. After that, I'd follow him anywhere.


Ultimate Geek Book   April 10, 2001
 27 out of 30 found this review helpful

I admit it. I'm a geek. Always have been, always will be. I make most of my living convincing computers to transform radar signals into graphs and plots useful for aeronomers. This book was one of my favorite novels of all time.

I bought my brother-in-law (he used to paint his own D&D figures, that gives him a solid geek pedigree) a copy for his birthday. Three days later he called me to voice obscenities: "You @%$#! That's the best book I've ever read and I can't put it down ... but it's 900 PAGES!!!"

I enjoy Stephenson's style. He dances between story lines, weaving a tale of espionage, counter-espionage, information-age hi jinks, and a lost fortune. He paints pictures that a non-visual person (like myself) can =SEE=, but without breaking the action. Frequently the story suggests, then moves on, allowing the reader to fill in the obvious.

Four stars for an interesting plot. Five stars for inventing the proto-cyberpunk genre. Five stars for a graceful dance between story lines, images, and suggestion. Altogether a pleasant experience. Don't miss it if you're a geek. If you're not already a geek, it's worth becoming one just to appreciate this book!

(If you'd like to respond to this review, please click on the "about me" link above and drop me an email. Thanks!)