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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
A Delight for
Nerds and Everyone Else, January 17, 2001
Reviewer: penner8
from Brooklyn, NY USA
Stephenson has finally found a way to find his love of explanations
and equations pay off: in "Snow Crash" and "The Diamond Age" it tended
to get a little tedious and long-winded at times, but in this book it's
perfect because we're dealing with cryptology, war history, and current
communications technology. But Stephenson loves these topics so much that
it isn't a chore for those who don't know or don't care. He doesn't spend
too long on them, moves along quickly, and always keeps his eyes on the
road: the metaphors and techie explanations become relevant within a few
moments.
The book has three main characters, two during World War II in various theaters all over the world and one in the modern day Internet business. Bobby Shaftoe, one of the greatest characters in modern fiction, is the perfect Marine and salutes as crisply as Douglas MacArthur. He's tapped to lead a crew of grunts around the world in various operations designed to fool the Germans into thinking the Americans HAVEN'T already broken their Enigma code. Meanwhile Lawrence Waterhouse, a blindingly brilliant mathematician and cryptographer, is engaged in breaking more codes and helping to determine just how many clues the Germans would need to figure out that Enigma had been broken. In the present, Randy Waterhouse, Lawrence's grandson, is engaged in setting up a new business which involves establishing a data haven (information wants to be free) on a tiny island near Manila, where he contracts with a steely deep-sea cable businesswoman named Shaftoe...
The prose is tight, fun and witty. Just about every sentence is quotable, despite the fact that there are thousands of them. Stephenson knows just where this world is and where it's going, and the WWII segments of this novel prove that he knows where it's been as well. The most fascinating aspect is the constant reminder that even though electronic cash may have a bright future, it will still need to be backed by real value; resulting in the story centering around that most physical and irreducible of all substances: Gold.
The novel itself is a gold brick, a delight to hold and read, proving
its own argument that no matter how clever you are with code (and Randy
Waterhouse sure is good with code), the tangible world will still obtain
at the most basic level.
