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 … 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 iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.
more
A great audio book. I’d read it years ago, but forgot just how much humour, world-building, and craziness are in here. A great, long, complicated, often funny, dense read. Possibly better as an audio book than in print.
An incredibly interwoven mystery plot alternating between WWII and the present with a sub-theme of cryptography. Stephenson does an amazing job with the characters, choice of words (writing), plot, mix of intense drama, mystery, and laugh-out-loud situations. (Any ex-military who has been given an incomprehensible, ludicrous, yet dangerous …
I’ve read this book twice, and still think about it. The plot is totally creative, part history, part sci fi. The characters are wonderful, laughable, endearing. Love this book
Stephenson is a master of richly detailed world building. This book brilliantly links the future and the past while educating you on the nuances of cryptography.
10 stars
This book is on Bookbub right now! It’s actually a series and I don’t even know where to begin. It’s basically about the origins of the computer but it goes all the way back to the birth of science and brings it alive for the reader. It’s historical fiction at it’s finest and Stephenson is a genius. I guess you have to have an inquiring mind …
One of Stephenson’s best works. Really interesting tale of encryption and heroism with a whimsical twist.
Written a while ago, this book feels prescient today with its concerns about national governments and digital privacy. I enjoyed it!
This is an outstanding job of putting fictional characters into key positions in a realistic historical novel. Masterfully written, it is not a short book but I found it very hard to put down.
Everyone should read this book!
One of the 5 best books I have ever read. Very complicated, very well researched, very informative , characters you never forget. And you get to meet their ancestors in another book, Quicksilver. It has so many facets that it is impossible to put in a single slot. I didn’t want to finish it.
I have this in audio book format. It is 40 hours long and read by the incomparable William DuFries. I’ve “read” it twice and plan on doing so at least once more. It is endlessly inventive and engrossing and outlines the spy/counter spy coding efforts during WW2, but the crux of that story also takes place in present day Manilla. Okay it is a long …
I enjoyed the back and forth from older times to modern times. The plot keeps the reader guessing at many points.
Some might find it impenetrable. It jumps around in time. I loved it.
An important consideration of the origins off modern computing.
3.5 stars rounding up. There were parts of Cryptonomicum that were fascinating – some of the cryptography passages and its impact on WWII – but the novel went on FOREVER and I felt that it all could have been wrapped up a whole lot sooner. The writing style of Mr. Stephenson was a little choppy in that he started a lot of chapters in the middle …
Probably my favorite Neal Stephenson book
This is a very long book, but it is worth the time. There is a lot of time change in it and many characters. Some are funny. There are no other books like it. It taught me what a Komodo dragon is, and I have been obsessed with them ever since. It combines fantasy with history, but is kind of hard to classify.
Every time I pick this up I end up rereading it.
Probably Neal Stephenson’s best book.