Cryptonomicon (1999)

I gave this 10 hours on audio (out of about 42). It's not bad, there's just not enough of a coherent story to make me spend another 32 hours listening to it. It's like a bunch of vignettes put together using the same characters and some of the same topics. Stephenson seems to like to start off a scene, refer to something in the scene and then go off on a tangent about it with some cool/interesting/fun backstory, then come back to what was happening and then do it again. It's probably why the book is like 800 pages (42 hours). It's entertaining, but then the scene ends and I'm left thinking, "Wait, did that advance the story at all? What really happened?"

This type of book almost seems like it was written as a "challenge". A challenge to the reader to try to keep track of what's going on and who's who and also a challenge to the writer to write a monstrous epic full of tiny details and minutiae. Like he's trying to mimic Pynchon's style. So if you're into that I definitely suggest it, for me it's more like something I might try once I retire and have the time to invest in it. ( )

Cryptonomicon is also a mirror though which we darkly consider our recent past, except instead of how DeLillo gives us the flip-side of our material successes (the world of “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Home So Different, So Appealing?”) in muck and mire, Stephenson focuses on information, on the immaterial. He is interested in how its structures structure our lives. More than this, if the ‘darkside’ parallel is to be valid, then just as the structure of information in the 20th century is such that openness and freedom of digital movement are the ideals held up by theorists and advocates, Cryptonomicon astutely shows that this is more often than not perverted by those who wish to dominate via information and technologies of communication.

With the Baroque Cycle (a trilogy, which serve as a kind of prelude rather than a prequel to Cryptonomicon, which he subsequently penned), Stephenson gives us what amounts to a secret history of the immaterial’s ascendancy, which shows that the material world was predicated on this world that was accessible only to those with the particular inclination to learn the language of the universe, maths and physics. Where Don De Lillo's Underworld is about burying the implications of our approach to living in the world, of using our skills, ideas, tools to alter our surroundings, Cryptonomicon gives us that which we haven’t even repressed as we don’t know enough about it. Encryption is the key to the whole other side of the bright, shiny story that is peddled out so often by the corporate histories (that not infrequently becomes academic and popular history). Not all the information that is out there is available to us, and we do not make all our own information available to others. Stephenson brings us to the point where we can ask ourselves, should everything be available to all?

More here: http://wetwiring.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/information-and-stuff-stephenson-and-d... ( )

I'm one of the only people in the world who will find this book slightly boring because it seemed like a literal accounting of my daily life at the time it was published -- an island, running cryptocurrencies, with an investor named Avi, and general crypto-anarchism. My only criticisms are two: 1) Neal needs an editor who can stand up to him -- this would have been a better book at half the page count and 2) There is no real ending. ( )

While I know this book is universally beloved by the geek cognoscenti, I could not get through the first chapter without laughing out loud at the adolescent-level writing. Were there some sense of a knowing wink accompanying the overwrought narrative, you could imagine it spun as a so-good-its-bad sort of book, but that's wholly absent. All of which potentially explains its popularity with this crowd. ( )

This is a book I just cannot avoid loving. It ticks all my boxes. Well researched, historical, science fiction, well composed, well written. 99% of all technology and cryptology and mathematic (of which there is a lot!) also seemed correct as of ca . You can't imagine how rare that is. Since these technical areas overlap almost perfectly with my academic skills both in time and area, what can I say. I love this book.

The story is set partly in "now", partly in WW2 and the theme is crypto, and how to handle crypto so that the other party doesn't know you have broken their crypto. This was a real problem for the British during WW2 since they had access too so much of the most secret Nazi communications. The Ultra information. They even let people die rather than reveal that they knew about things. There was also the incident of the invasion of Crete where the Crete commander didn't at all adapt to the known invasion plans which cost the British the island (see [b:Crete: The Battle And The Resistance|307588|Crete The Battle And The Resistance|Antony Beevor|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347422288s/307588.jpg|3167574]). Back to this book, one main thread is a military unit that has to cover up (create alternative explanations for information leakage). Another main thread is gold. A third thread is the relationship between USA and Japan.

Does all of this sound exciting? Then buy and read this book! It is massive though so be prepared to spend some time with it. Does it sound strange? Well, it is not like your average book.

Bonus: The book even includes its own crypto system. I don't want to say too much about it to not spoil anything but it's a real crypto system. ( )