As I have mentioned elsewhere, I tend to be a somewhat sporadic Neal Stephenson reader in the sense that our magisteria--to borrow a term from Stephan Jay Gould--tends to continue to overlap.

It is somewhat surprising I had not hitherto stumbled on this work previous to now. Certainly, I had heard many references to this particular novel, but had never stumbled across it in my path. It was with some surprise then when I finally did in a used bookstore.

The novel starts out somewhat slowly and since the work is over a 1,000 pages you can expect that the plot will move more slowly than a book of smaller length. Stephenson's writing style is markedly different here than from his other works, but there are certain themes present here that are echoed in his future works. One could posit, in a sense, that each work is a continuation in a universe that Stephenson has concocted viewed at different angles. Indeed, certain characters, such as Enoch Root, appear--and certain themes like the desire to be immortal and Greek myth permeate the work throughout in patterned ways.

As is expected with any novel, certain characters die off, and Stephenson does the job of telling the story well enough that you, as the reader, sort of hate to see it happen. He likewise does a good job of allowing chapter endings to dangle in a suspenseful sort of way only to reintroduce them later at a slightly different point in time. In a sense, the reader has to be brought up to speed so that one can understand where one is in the unfolding plot. This is good in the sense that it keeps the mind agile, but is a little confusing at times as a final statement about a previous suspenseful matter may reach resolution in a future chapter in about the middle of completion. One must be a little on the alert to be sure one has not missed the transition.

On the other hand, the work bends "Back on itself" in the sense that themes introduced are bent and turned back around later although not always explicitly stated. It is left to the reader to notice these small bends and permutations. A familiarity with Greek myth, as is true in most of Stephenson's other work, is helpful.

The book decries in the beginning that it is not attempting to reveal any secrets. However, the story Stephenson puts together offers a plausible alternative history to events that did actually occur. The characters are the same as ones that appear in history and have dialogs that are similar to the ones they truly had. One wonders if there is not a Roman a Clef that Stephenson is somewhere secreting, but of course, he assures us that his work is not trying to reveal any secrets. Of course, in the world of the Cryptonomicon, we, the reader, especially by the end of the book know that this is exactly what he wants us to believe and that, above all else, we should be very, very suspicious of. ( )

Very confusing with the multiple time and people threads. Each segment held my interest, but I couldn't remember what had been happening when I got to the same people/time later in the book. By the end I didn't really care what happened or to whom.

Cryptonomicon is mostly spent see-sawing across a half-century divide of two generations between World War II and the late 1990s. Its central topic is cryptology, and it was written written when one could still be idealistic about cryptocurrency. It is an enormously long novel made up of short, single-sitting chapters, and it includes such apparent digressions as a gratuitous Penthouse "reader's" letter (365) and a functional Perl script (480).

My favorite chapter was certainly "Organ" (569 ff.), which built on the running conceit that the electronic computer had been inspired by the programmability of a pipe organ. But it also punned on the organ of generation belonging to 1940s viewpoint character Lawrence Waterhouse, whose libido takes center stage for most of the chapter. It offers hilarious notions regarding a global Ejaculation Control Conspiracy, and supplements this theory with a walk-on character's paranoia about the Bavarian Illuminati's engineering of the well-tempered musical tuning system as a medium for subliminal corruption.

Cameos by historical figures, including Alan Turing, Ronald Reagan, and General MacArthur, are handled amusingly. Although Stephenson's acknowledgments page disclaims any supposition that the book is a roman à clef regarding his own family, there are certainly some other characters and businesses given new names to insulate our actual world from their fictional deployment. For reasons I can't quite fathom, for example, he calls the Linux operating system Finux.

The ubiquitous use of present tense, general narrative sprawl, and conspiracy theorizing all reminded me of the work of Thomas Pynchon, and in particular Gravity's Rainbow. (Pynchon later tried out a hacker yarn of his own in Bleeding Edge as well.) Although Stephenson is published as a genre author, I think the comparable Pynchon books are actually more science-fictional than Cryptonomicon.

I have read other reader reaction that took issue with the end of this book. I didn't find it weak or dismaying at all, but I think the last five chapters (after "Return") need to be read as denouement, or they will suffer the appearance of anticlimax.

Sometimes it feels like there is too much of it, and not everything is relevant, but in the end it all comes together. Impressively large scale, and interesting stories, with a lot of technical detail for those of us that are so inclined ... ( )

My biggest surprise was just how unexpectedly, gobsmackingly funny this book was! Like many of Stephenson's books, the ending on this one seemed a little... off. But I will almost certainly read/listen to this again, just for the humor. And I heartily recommend the audiobook version. It makes the size of the novel seem less daunting. ( )