Cryptonomicon

By: Neal Stephenson

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 42 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

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 US Navy - is assigned to Detachment 2702. It 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 Detachment 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 granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine 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.

©1999 Neil Stephenson (P)2009 Macmillan Audio

Great Book

I've read the book several times and have been waiting for the unabridged audio version of it. Im about an hour into it and the only dislike I have is the narrator. If you've listened to Anathem, it is the same person. He was great for Anathem, but the voices he gives these characters are are so close to the ones in Anathem, I some time forget what book Im listening to. They were great for Anathem, but seem too comical for Cryptonomicon. Have some patience and let the story develop, it is worth the time!

riveting . poignant and funny at the same time. A

A Stephenson masterpiece. All the converging time lines flow seamlessly into a river of beauty.

Hugely entertaining and pretty friggin' funny too

Only halfway through book but have to say this is one of the best audio books so far (out of about 50 or 60) that I've heard. I've listened to Snow Crash and was looking for something similar from this book. There's two stories running concurrently - one during World War 2 and another in relatively current time and I assume they will intersect. By the end of the book I may have a different view on the story but I'm having quite a bit of fun along the way. Lots of pithy humor, most of it pretty funny and delivered perfectly. There's a lot of 'nuts and bolts' stuff about encryption and theory dispersed through the first part of the book and if you're not into learning as you listen you may end up zoning-out during those parts.
By the way, this is a really long book, good for me because I like 'em that way, bad for you if you're into short 'reads'.

Big sigh

This was a very long story - and quite interesting - but slowly told and the end left me rather disappointed. The book just ended - I perceived no building storyline intensity and then the story ended. There is so much rich story in here - I thought the author could have done more with it.

Fucking Epic

A man with a machine gun stops shooting long enough to watch a Komodo dragon eat his enemy alive. Mathematical algorithms are presented as handsome and compelling in everyday life. Heroes, priests and nerds are united across timescapes to deliver a goddamned magical adventure that will become interwoven with the very narrative of the rest of your life.

Awesome beyond words

It was really long, and still I wanted more. Fantastic, suspenseful and educational. I will be in love with these characters for a long, long time.

Better to read yourself

What did you like best about Cryptonomicon? What did you like least?

The reason I'd recommend print for this book is that the author goes off on mathematical tangents. It is INCREDIBLY difficult to grasp mathematical cryptographic explanations presented aurally -- much more useful and easy to ponder yourself if you see it. I do like Stephenson as a writer tho -- he creates intricate stories, weaving his plots and characters together in ways that keep you guessing (and a little lost, to be honest) until the last 1/4 of the book. Either this strategy keeps you interested in finding the connections, or I'd imagine for some it can backfire -- you lose interest without a connecting concept. Also, this book's female characters are not particularly well-written women (tho I know Stephenson is capable of this).

What was one of the most memorable moments of Cryptonomicon?

When you get to the point where the web of characters is fully strung, and you can see the connections -- that's a good moment. And then things just fall into place!

Would you listen to another book narrated by William Dufris?

The voices he creates for characters are a little rough -- especially for the ladies. Why do they have to have fluttery, high-pitched drawls? Why do the men have weird drawls too?

Was Cryptonomicon worth the listening time?

I had a cross-country drive and was looking for HOURS of book. But man, it is a commitment.

Any additional comments?

I'd recommend trying out Snow Crash before committing to the Cryptonomicon -- see if Stephenson's style is right for you at a shorter read length!

Awesome. This is a review in Haiku

If you could sum up Cryptonomicon in three words, what would they be?

Epic. Lush. mind-expanding.

What did you like best about this story?

It's hugely intelligent. It takes you in new unexpected turns at every chance, with characters you really grow to enjoy. Hyper violent World War Two action scenes to super-nerd semi-science fiction to deep mathematic oceans of code breaking. The true history of the world is revealed.

Have you listened to any of William Dufris’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Breaking a WWII code reveals the secret to the war, and mankind's purpose in life.

Any additional comments?

Here is my review in Haiku form:

breaking a code
reveals WW II debt
Godzilla

(I use the Term Godzilla here as Godzilla is referred to in the film "Giant Monsters All-Out Attack" in which Godzilla has origins rooted in Japan's World War II past. While, Godzilla is still a mutant dinosaur created by the atomic bomb, he is also described as an incarnation of those killed or who were left to die at the hands of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Pacific War.)

Encyclopedic

The plot is sometimes forced and improbable but like all of Stephenson’s books, it is engrossing and informative. He does have a tendency to do a core dump which can be annoying, but it is balanced by being one of the most imaginative and well informed writers of this genre.

Good story, weak ending, and confusing in audio

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Yes, a few things -

This is a very long book. That's not necessarily bad in and of itself, but I often felt that some of the extensive extremely detailed descriptions of scenery and such could have been left out without losing anything. Given the choice, I would have preferred an abridged version of the audio book, which cut out some of those long-winded descriptions, but kept the story. I would think as much as 1/3 of the book might be cut without harming the story.

The frequent use of the F word seemed unnecessary. I get that when a Marine is thinking or speaking, they're likely to use that kind of language, but unless it was a direct quote from Bobby Shafto, there are other ways to better express such things.

There were several places in this audiobook that I found quite confusing. I suspect much of this was because of the performance, and may not have been as confusing in the written form. For example, the story would often jump to a flashback, without any warning or indication something was changing. One second you're hearing about Bobby Shafto in the 'present' (from his point of view), and the next it's describing the time that he was on a beach being shot at from a cave overhead. I'm guessing that in the original written book, the flashback may have been in italics or had a *** or such dividing it from the previous paragraph, and that just didn't get translated over to the audio form.

Lastly, the ending seemed rather anti-climactic. The book started very slow, then built momentum as it went on, but when the end came, it sort of wrapped up some remaining loose ends of the story and then ended. There wasn't a 'big' ending. I kind of feel like maybe this could have been split into a couple of books. If it went about 3/4 the way through and found a good stopping point, the last 1/4 or so could have been the beginning of another which continued on to tell us more of what happens to Randy and the epiphyte gang beyond where this book ends.

What other book might you compare Cryptonomicon to and why?

It's very hard for me to name a book that is similar. Zero Day and Trojan Horse, by Mark Russinovich, are both modern day techno-thrillers, dealing with terrorists and digital attacks, so in some ways those are close. Kill Decision, by Daniel Suarez, is also similar in that way. However, they're all much shorter, and flow better, and they don't have the historic / WWII aspects that this book does.

What about William Dufris’s performance did you like?

It was generally entertaining. He did a good job of doing different voices and accents where appropriate. I can't imagine how long it must have taken him to perform/record such a long book!

Did Cryptonomicon inspire you to do anything?

Inspired might be the wrong word, but I do find that it gave the numbers part of my brain a workout, and have recently found myself thinking of things in a crypto or neurological way from time to time. It's definitely given me an enhanced different perspective on some situations.

Any additional comments?

I think I'll give the story 4 stars, with only the somewhat weak ending holding it back. The performance was good, but some kind of clue that we're going to flashback or changing characters or chapters would be helpful, so that gets 4 stars as well. However, overall, I'm going with 3 stars, because of the sections where things seemed to get very long winded with little purpose, the descriptions of scenery and locations are the most prominent examples which stick in my mind.