Cryptonomicon
by Neal Stephenson
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Book Reviews of Cryptonomicon
Book Review: Cryptography front and center in WWII
Summary: 5 Stars
My biggest question before deciding to read this book was "Will I be one of the ones that like it or am I too old to be able to follow the sidelines and the more current buzz words". Since reading this story is such a commitment of time, I want to make sure you all know my specs: I'm over 50, not a techno-geek, but I do have experience in the world of computers and software, I majored in the sciences so I've had my share of mathematics and physics. I hated math and physics but I loved this story. I do have a great deal of interest in World War II and cryptography intrigues me. I especially love a conspiracy. This book has all of that. Usually I do not like a book that rambles around tangentially to the plot line, but I went into this book knowing that with 1100 pages (PB) there would be some of that. But in this book, there is a lot of it. Most of the book takes trips into the mind of the characters away from the plot. However, that is where the gems of this book are hidden.
There has been a lot made of the Cap'n Crunch detour. I have to tell you, I loved that section. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed the book immensely. The length was long; however, saying that is similar to Kramer on Seinfield, while in a sauna, saying that "it's like a sauna in here". Of course it's long, it's over 1000 pages. If you want a short book, read a graphic novel or comic book. Many didn't like the wordiness and the off plot meandering. If you want the instant gratification of finishing a book in two days, this is probably not the book for you. Although, it only took me about 2 weeks to finish, it was never boring and I never dreaded reading any of it.... Okay, I lied a little; I skipped over the bicycle sprocket explanation. But I read all of the rest. And for the most part, there are many sections that if you do not have an interest in them, skipping will not hurt you.
There were not many characters, so that part was easy to follow and the story line was interesting with more than a touch of fact. It was nicely put together and I've given it the highest ranking. I don't see where anyone could say that this book was missing character development. Any more development and the book would have been 2000 pages.
Book Review: Bacon tastes good
Summary: 5 Stars
Yikes.
I once almost posted an article concerning the coding techniques of Francis Bacon and a few of his chums. I thought that I was so very clever at the time. Thankfully I never did put that lame business out there.
During my first day in an actual College I learned something about coding and matrices and arrays, and some other stuff about dangling particaples, and spelling......
This book blew me away. One minute I am one with the China Marines duking it out with those Akkido using Nips just after being in a Jap bar eating raw fish.
Everybody in this book seems to understand Manilan, English, various Chinese dialects, and the Limits to a Function.
Bletchley Park? Well it ain't MacArthur Park for sure.
What a delightful piece of work it truly is. Oh say can you hear that star spangled banner ye'et KABOOM... and then we are off to the races.
I learned more about submarines and morphine in this book than I did in Chemistry 101 or in about 50 W.E.B. Griffin novels. I learned more about Jungles than I did by reading all 25 Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books at least twice.
The Japs have an unbreakable cypher that was broken at just about the time that they created it. The Krauts have an unbreakable code that was also broken by our Allies who refused to use the asset. What the heck was wrong with those Brits anyhow? I kept wondering to myself...if there is a grain of truth to any of this then why oh why did 50 million folks have to die? Was it all about the money? Who is better at keeping secrets? Are the English people really as dumb as their Royal Highnesses come across as being?
I dunno which part was my favorite. There are so many good ones. The Cap'n Crunch stuff was bizarre, why not throw that stuff into the middle of a work about War, Cyberspace, the pursuit of purple bottles numbered and labeled by Nazi Doctors who were so intent on curtailing drug abuse?
Who got the gold? Ferdinand Marcos?
And that stuff about the exquisite nylons furniture store was in a word, hysterical.
What a terrific read.
Right up my alley leading to Golgotha.
Book Review: Bend over, Tojo!
Summary: 4 Stars
While this book is obviously long (1132 pages for the stubby paperback) there is so much going that progress thru the book moves quickly. Think of Bobby Shaftoe as a combined Forrest Gump and John McClain (Die Hard) rolled into one. Starting with Lawrence Waterhouse and Alan Turing in the New Jersey Pine Barrens (20 minutes from my place of residence) and going to present day jungles in the Philippines and many characters transversing the globe, this book has alot going for it. Code breakers during World War 2 (Enigma) set out to keep each other on one`s collective toes. Company executives for Epiphyte in the present work to get a complicated internet system established. The chapters go back and forth and are connected with the relatives and offspring of L. Waterhouse (past)/Randy Waterhouse(present) Bobby Shaftoe (past)/Amy;Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe (present). A number of scenes are beyond hilarious with Bobby being ask to open the crates on the ship with an axe.....no spoilers here, and Goto Dengo tring to remember a message to the Corporal`s family keep this book going. While the people in the book are brilliant, the technical aspects and code breaking math are made simple and occupy little of the story. WHY they all do it is interesting. Other reviews I`ve read seem to pick on one thing and that`s the fact that most of the character`s refer to Japan and the Japanese as Nips or Nipponese. Maybe in 1942 but a lawyer in the present would not tell Randy he should get a hold of Sony/Panasonic or some other Nipponese company. Also one review said there was too much profanity and gratuitous relations......not in the book I read. All of us want great reading , but B. Shaftoe would not know about a Casbah in Algiers or La Pasyon art. Finding out why the guys (Randy/Avi/Tom/Ed/the Dentist) go thru all the trouble they do makes for a wonderful read sorta like "It`s A Mad , Mad, Mad, Mad World". My interest in languages and unbreakable reading of texts (the Voynich Manuscript) along with a recent documentary on a missing U-boat of the Jersey coast made this a special read for me anyway.Book Review: A cyberpunk and WWII war story smashed into one
Summary: 4 Stars
I don't usually place much weight into the book reviews publishers tag on back covers, but the review on this book really does describe it - this book is Tom Clancy mated with William Gibson with James Mitchner acting as a midwife. Even though this book is an astounding 1200+ pages, it is an engrossing read. Like Mitchner, the story weaves the lives of many generations together through a common theme. Except Mitchner never wrote about lives so exciting (Apologies to any Mitchner fans - but Hawaii was a little dull.)
There are many character threads and stories in the book, but the two main ones are the story of a WWII cryptographer (Clancy style), and the story of his Silicon Valley grandson's pursuit of an offshore data center and advanced cryptography (Gibson style). Both threads are thoroughly engrossing. The book paces perfectly, it never gets too frentic or too dull.
The character development is also done very well - Stevenson doesn't clutter the book with too many marginal characters besides his main ones and he makes most the characters very memorable. This leaves him lots of time to develop his main characters into complex and interesting people.
Stevenson's writing style is also very readable, yet not as flat as the standard supermarket fiction (or bad sci-fi for that matter). The different story threads are written in a different tone, and Stevenson uses his command of tone to provide even more character and plot development. For example, his savant WWI cryptographer thinks in mathmatical proofs, his modern-day cyberpunk in Tolkein-inspired metaphors.
If I had a complaint about this book (I don't have many) it is that the ending leaves a little to be desired. I won't give anything away, but my overall impression with the last 200 or so pages of the book was that Stevenson got tired and just started typing out some text to finish the thing up. It's not a complete breakdown, but compared to the rest of the book it is a weak showing.
Regardless, I still highly recommend this book to any cyberpunk fans, war story fans, or math geeks.
Book Review: The geek's Raiders of the Lost Ark
Summary: 5 Stars
I read Snow Crash in the 90s and thought it was annoyingly overhyped. So, I didn't touch Stephenson for a long time, until a friend persuaded me to read this book.
Now I understand the acclaim. This book is f****ing brilliant. Stephenson starts with the interesting technical subject matter of cryptography, mathematics, and distributed computing, expands his scope to the fascinating personalities drawn to these fields and the enormous political stakes around them, and from there launches into a globe-spanning, conspiracy-filled epic.
But the real reason to read Stephenson is the fact he writes with such geeky, inspired lunancy, seeing nothing wrong with (for instance) writing a madcap scene in which a Doctor Strangelove-esque version of General Douglas MacArthur stares down strafing Japanese fighter planes while clad in a pink bathrobe, then following it up with a Powerpoint-like lecture (complete with graphs) on how a young math genius's productivity correlates with his horniness level, explaining some nuance of cryptography in the process. Stephenson clearly finds his subject material fascinating, and the book leaps from manga-like action scene, to discussions of made-up cultures, to digressions into technical subject matter, the author bent on sweeping the reader up in his exuberance.
This book (like his Quicksilver series) feels less like a history and more like a reimagining of history, told in a language that falls somewhere between science fiction, tongue-in-cheek adventure (e.g. The Princess Bride), and a Wired Magazine cover story. It seems that what Stephenson is really trying to do is foretell the future, but by reverse-extrapolating it into the past.
Crytonomicon certainly has a few flaws in its many pages; Stephenson's main weakness is that he tries to juggle a few too many balls at once, which causes some of the plot threads to underwhelm, but never mind -- few writers try to connect so many ideas in one work, and pull it off with such elan.