Disclaimer: Had Mr. Stephenson been more skillful in his prose/characterization/writing in general, I would not have paid nearly as much attention to the following issues. I read a lot of old dead white guy type literature, and am pretty forgiving so long as it's good. If it isn't, well, this happens. That is all.

Do not be fooled by the static nature of the star count above. If I had my way, it would be a roiling maelstrom of a typhoon crashing into lava, erosion and explosion steaming and spilling into a chemical equilibrium of monstrous proportions. It would be a much more appropriate way of symbolizing that there were parts of this that I loved immensely and others that still cause my vision to go red whenever I think on them for too long. However, as that is not a possibility without my use of GIFs to illustrate my point (Two words: Never. Ever.), you'll have to take my more long-winded approach to the matter.

Mr. Stephenson is the type of character that, if allowed onto a college campus, should be kept safe and locked away in the mathematics department. The physics department is a possibility, and computer science perhaps, maybe even biology, but the decreased removal from reality present in these areas increases the risk that this individual poses. This isn't a man you want teaching a history class or, god forbid, one of literature. Unless the literature class is completely devoted to math fiction (Or is it fanfiction? Not sure about that one), because every so often something gorgeous happens.

n  If he would just work with pure ideas like a proper mathematician he could go as fast as thought. As it happens, Alan has become fascinated by the incarnations of pure ideas in the physical world. The underlying math of the universe is like the light streaming in through the window. Alan is not satisfied with merely knowing that it streams in. He blows smoke into the air to make the light visible. He sits in meadows gazing at pine cones and flowers, tracing the mathematical patterns in their structure, and he dreams about electron winds blowing over the glowing filaments and screens of radio tubes, and, in their surges and eddies, capturing something of what is going on in his own brain. Turing is neither a mortal nor a good. He is Antaeus. That he bridges the mathematical and physical worlds is his strength and his weakness.n

And that is the closest Mr. Stephenson gets to melding together beautiful prose with stunning mathematical dexterity. If he stuck with that, this review would much more positive, and probably a lot shorter. But, since he didn't, let us continue.

Now, there are multiple categories of anger-invoking pidgeonholing, enough that I feel that pidgeonholing the categories themselves would best convey the point of it all.

First off, Race:n  

Randy figures it all has to do with your state at mind at the time you utter the word. If you’re just trying to abbreviate, it’s not a slur. But if you are fomenting racist hatreds, as Sean Daniel McGee occasionally seems to be not above doing, that’s different.

nNo. No. No no no no no. Did I stutter? No. It doesn't matter what the utterer's mindset is, period. What matters is the context of the utterance, the horrible history of its usage and the culture that it denigrates. So sorry that the word 'Japanese' is too long and difficult for some people to say/type/convey to another person for long periods of time, but they're going to have to deal with it. Their personal convenience doesn't matter in the slightest.

Second, Religion:n  

In other circumstances, the religious reference would make Randy uncomfortable, but here it seems like the only appropriate thing to say. Think what you will about religious people, they always have something to say at times like this. What would an atheist come up with? Yes, the organisms inhabiting that submarine must have lost their higher neural functions over a prolonged period of time and eventually turned into pieces of rotten meat. So what?

nI don't know if this is supposed to be satire, and I don't care. The message is bad enough, as once again, lack of spiritual beliefs is being confused with lack of morality/sympathy/empathy/what have you. Some may not believe this, but the human race is perfectly capable of acting decent and, dare I say it, humane towards its fellow beings, without religion. Amazing, isn't it. Moving on.

Next, Women:

I wish I was joking when I say that there is too much material for me to possibly convey in this review without pushing the limits of absurdity. So I will condense it into some bullet points.

One: There is a popular maxim in this book that holds women to be an effective means to an end of ultimate manly productiveness. Not only that, but women for some reason are completely aware of this, and manipulate men accordingly via controlling the rates of fornication permitted to those with a Y chromosome. Yes, because that's all there is to sex, isn't it. Love is just some barter system of producers and consumers, and any notion of emotional connection or meaning beyond it is a lie propagated by the chemicals seething in your body. Now, the latter half of that last sentence is biologically sound. I would hope that everything that came before it is some kind of ridiculous satire, but if it is, Mr. Stephenson's writing did not seem to think so.

Two: The definition of the words SEXUAL ABUSE and RAPE was expanded to include pursuit of relationships where 'power imbalance' is denoted by differences in economic status and/or physical capabilities in defending oneself. Again, I wish this was satire, but its delivery made it highly unlikely. And even if it was satire, it's not in the least bit funny or ethical to make light of rape culture in such a fashion. If the recent events of Steubenville and its aftermath haven't made that clear, nothing will.

Three: And we couldn't possibly finish off this whole debacle without a good old fashioned Men are from Mars Women are from Venus spiel. In the author's own words, those who put a higher priority "on having every statement uttered in a conversation be literally true" vs "People who put a higher priority on social graces". Then you get the typical longwinded 'it's not you it's me' excuse, and finally:

n  "What I'm saying is that this does set me apart. One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for many people, is not that he's socially inept—because everyone's been there—but rather his complete lack of embarrassment."
"Which is still kind of pathetic."
"It was pathetic when they were in high school," Randy says. "Now it's something else. Something very different from pathetic."
"What, then?"
"I don't know. There is no word for it. You'll see."n

Hint: The word you're looking for lies on the long scale that ranges from "close-minded" to "bigoted asshole". Take your pick.

Finally, your Miscellaneous:

n  …the post-modern, politically correct atheists were like people who had suddenly found themselves in charge of a big and unfathomably complex computer system (viz. society) with no documentation or instructions of any kind, and so whose only way to keep the thing running was to invent and enforce certain rules with a kind of neo-Puritanical rigor, because they were at a loss to deal with deviations from what they saw as the norm. Whereas people who were wired into a church were like UNIX system administrators who, while they might not understand everything, at least had some documentation, some FAQs and How-tos and README files, providing some guidance on what to do when things got out of whack. They were, in other words, capable of displaying adaptability.n

Atheists are not in charge of anything, and in fact are one of the most hated demographics in the US. Look it up. Also, don't you think those who have to build up from scratch would be a little more adaptable than, say, the user manual types who are still squabbling over a particular patch of verses regarding a certain sexuality? A demographic that Mr. Stephenson made repeated efforts to proclaim that he was okay with, coincidentally. The thing about being a 'nice guy', no one's going to give you a cookie for pointing it out. That's not how it works.

In addition, if the phrase 'politically correct' was replaced with 'respects those who are different despite lack of understanding of their cultural heritage', and seen as less of a political theory pertaining to the liberals and more of a methodology of encouraging greater social well-being, the world would be a better place. And there would be less theories like the one in this book running about, which states that the only way to avoid Holocausts is to make sure the victims get proper guerrilla training. Very reminiscent of the current debacle over gun control.

But anyways. tl&dr version: Mr. Stephenson is your typical white male nerd that resides in the US. Smart in his specific field, little bit racist, little bit misogynistic, and screws up any attempt to try and claim otherwise. The prevalence of this attitude would've chopped the stars down to one, but he did write a 900+ book filled with some pretty interesting mathematical acrobatics and WWII business, so that added a star to the final result.

Neal Stephenson's debut novel is an epoch-making masterpiece that hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century. It really was a great story, well-told. I'm glad I slogged through but I would really only recommend this book to people who like to know how things work, to the last detail. I mean, that's Neal Stephenson for you. The characters were great and fully developed. I found myself rooting for almost everybody, good guy or bad, and I suppose there's something to that as well. Just because someone is ostensibly on a side you are not on, doesn't mean they aren't on your side.

Ghefilte fish
L'argomento preferito dell'autore è la criptografia, cioè la cifratura dei messaggi. Per rendere leggibile un romanzo sulla criptografia ricco di dotte spiegazioni ha dovuto allestirlo con personaggi accattivanti / buffi / matti / storici, avventure mozzafiato, luoghi esotici, nobili cause ed ha effettivamente raggiunto lo scopo. Un po' quello che la cucina askenazita ha fatto per rendere commestibile un pesce che vive nel fondo limaccioso dei fiumi polacchi (350 ingredienti e mani da artista).
Le storie, che poi convergono in una storia, cominciano negli anni trenta e si concludono negli anni novanta, due generazioni dopo. I primi personaggi in scena sono lo scienziato inglese Alan Turing e altri due, tedesco e americano, che si incontrano negli USA a Princeton e fanno amicizia, fino allo scoppio della seconda guerra mondiale. Turing è lo scienziato che forzerà la criptografia Enigma, aiutando molto gli Alleati a sconfiggere la Germania hitleriana (ed essendo mal ricompensato).
Io ho identificato subito il mio personaggio preferito, Bobby Shaftoe: è un marine convinto ma simpatico, abbastanza morfinomane, di vedute piuttosto ampie: contraddizione con marine convinto, temo, ma insomma è un romanzo. Molto divertente l'incontro fra Shaftoe e il comandante di un sommergibile tedesco, Bishoff, quando sono entrambi prigionieri nel sommergibile tedesco. Irresistibile la parte che riguarda lo scienziato americano giovane che viene mandato in missione in qualche isola a Nord della Scozia dove parlano una lingua di sole consonanti. Un altro personaggio importante è Goto Dengo, un ufficiale giapponese di cui si seguono le vicende, dalla Nuova Guinea alle Filippine.
Non essendo un libro di Storia, l'autore non si fa scrupolo di rappresentare i quadri dell'esercito giapponese come un gruppo di alieni cinici e sanguinari, pronti allo sterminio dei nemici e anche dei propri soldati, secondo un'idea di fedeltà all'imperatore piuttosto estrema se portata a tali conseguenze. Non conosco il punto di vista giapponese e dove sia la posizione di equilibrio fra le due versioni.
La lettura è interessante e divertente, se si riesce a glissare il pensiero delle stragi. Un appunto può essere che oltre a essere molto nerd, è quasi completamente privo di personaggi femminili e quei pochi sono di contorno, come la salsa di rafano del ghefilte fish.

This is porn for math majors.

Cryptonomicon is one of those plotty books, where things happen and then other things happen, which isn't really a knock: some of the best books ever are plotty. Lookin' at you, Count of Monte Cristo. But when you write a book about a bunch of stuff happening, it succeeds based on whether all the things that happen feel like part of a whole - whether all the threads come together. At their best, these books are giant jigsaw puzzles: a successful one is a masterpiece of planning ahead, and authors like Dumas or Hugo take your breath away when you realize how carefully they've set you up.

And Cryptonomicon pulls off that plottiness. Stephenson throws a lot of balls in the air; the story spans sixty years, from World War II to the late 90s, and rounds the globe, from some made-up country near England to the Phillipines, with plenty of stops in between. It's an impressive feat, and I can't poke a single hole in it. Nice work, Neal!

I mean, look, while insight into human nature isn't necessarily necessary in a plotty book, it helps to have some. Dumas and Hugo are wrestling with fate and evil and control; they're asking big questions. You're not gonna learn a whole lot about human nature from Cryptonomicon. There are some cool characters, like uber-Marine Bobby Shaftoe, but basically these are just people who do things.

And it has to be said that Stephenson has little to no grasp on how women operate. He seems to like women - this isn't a misogynist book - I'm just not sure he's met very many of them.

Which kinda ties into why I didn't totally love it all. It's impressively put together, but it's...well, I was reminded of David Foster Wallace very often: same conversational tone, same exceptional technical intelligence - but Stephenson is - how do I say this? - he's just not very cool. Which I know, you're like "Wait, you're comparing someone's coolness unfavorably to DFW? He wasn't cool!" But he was! He wouldn't have said so, but he totally was cool.

Maybe I can say it like this: DFW was a geek; Stephenson is a nerd.

So this is a nerd epic. It succeeds at what it wants to be. I enjoyed it. I didn't love it.

This is a book about cryptography, among other things. Lawrence Waterhouse Price is a brilliant mathematician whose peculiar talents are discovered on a routine military test. He is assigned to a very secret project known initially as Detachment 2071 until Price remarks about the unrandom nature of the group’s name, “2071 is the product of two primes. And those numbers, 37 and 73, when expressed in decimal notation, are, as you can plainly see, the reverse of each other.” Randomness is important because their job is to manipulate the decoded information they have received from the Enigma and Ultra machines in such a way so that they can achieve maximum benefit from the use of that information without giving away to the Germans and Japanese that their code has been broken. They must make sure that Allied actions maintain the appearance of randomness and ignorance. A Marine raider sergeant Shaftoe is given the task of implementing Detachment 2072 (as it became).

For example, Price is stationed in Britain and there they have created machines—forerunners of the modern computer – that electrically examine the different possibilities of wheel combinations in the Enigma machine. These required large pegboards to connect the various circuits, so an inordinately large number of tall women needed to be hired as the pegboards were very high. If the Germans got copies of the personnel records, they would immediately notice a bell curve with an odd peak at one end and wonder why people working in this area were not chosen randomly, the bell curve being a random distribution. So Detachment 2072’s job would be to plant false personnel records to make sure the height distribution would be random so as not to give away any possible clues as to what they might be up to. The unit’s job is to create another layer of deception: “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 around and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious.” Price’s grandson and Shaftoe’s niece, unwittingly paired in the present, are working on a project to create a huge data haven in Southeast Asia when they discover that a sunken submarine may hold the secret of an unbreakable code that is tied in with a massive conspiracy that originated in Detachment 2072. For those who might be interested, there is a great description of how the Enigma machine worked. It was a periodic polyalphabetic system consisting of three – later four – interconnected wheels that embodied cycles within cycles. Three wheels have a period of 17576, i.e., the substitution alphabet that codes the first letter of the message will not appear again until the 17577th cycle.

When the Germans added the fourth wheel, the period became 456,976. To use the same substitution letter the message would have to be longer T than 456,976 characters, a virtual uncertainty. The Germans believed their four-wheel Enigma to be undecipherable. Stephenson has a delightful sense of irony that permeates the book. Price, because of his cryptological skills, has the highest security clearance possible: Ultra Mega. The only problem is that it’s such a high security clearance the fact that it exists must be kept secret from everyone except another person with Ultra Mega clearance so he always has to be issued a lower security clearance in order to get into secure areas none of the guards or other officers are permitted to learn about Ultra Mega. Stephenson’s perception of the war is curious. The winner would be the one who succeeded in breaking the other side’s codes and then manipulated his troops’ actions so as not to reveal those codes had been broken. The plots converge on an enormous gold reserve hidden in a mine, and the ciphers hold the key. It’s a great story. Be forewarned, it’s the first of a trilogy.

Stephenson has these wonderful little comments throughout the book that bring a broad grin to the face. For example, “See, you are being a little paranoid here and focusing on the negative. It’s not about how women are deficient. It’s more about how men are deficient. Our social deficiencies, lack of perspective, or whatever you want to call it, is what enables us to study one species of dragonfly for twenty years, or sit in front of a computer for a hundred hours a week writing code. This is not the behavior of a well-balanced and healthy person, but it can obviously lead to great advances in synthetic fibers. Or whatever.” Or Randy’s father dumps the contents out on a ping-pong table that inexplicably sits in the center of the rec room at Grandma’s managed care facility, whose residents are about as likely to play pingpong as they are to get their nipples pierced.” Do NOT be intimidated by the length (1000 pages) of this book. It’s loaded with fascinating detail and reads faster than 100 ten-page books.

What an incredible novel, and well worth a reread every few years! Pure Stephenson, after his satirical science fiction phase, with Cryptonomicon being a bit more grounded in reality yet taking the hacker epic genre as far as it can go... And at the same time, a grand historical fiction yarn.

Techie treasure-hunting businessmen in the present overlapping with geeks during World War II inventing the digital computer, I mean how great is that?

However, as the rereads get further and further away from the 1999 setting the aging does start to show. By this I don't just mean the technology. Sure, for example, the video file thing is conspicuous and this is way before smartphones. And it's not necessarily the author's fault that the Philippines sadly didn't turn out as predicted. But that's not the point. If anything, for taking place in the 90s the novel is remarkably prescient on how important the internet has become in everyone's lives. What was new then, like email, is written matter-of-factly enough that much of the dialogue and storytelling fits in fine even after twenty years.

Unfortunately, and I hate to be the guy to say this but I simply must, it's the politics which have aged worst. There's a certain kind of faith in high-tech libertarianism, that young computer geniuses always know better than stuffy old bureaucrats, which comes across as very naive these days. Worst of all is the whole global 'second-amendment' moral of the story, the plan to give everyone in the world means to fight guerilla warfare because that would have stopped the holocaust or something, it seems like a terrible recipe for disaster today. (Like, Israel is mentioned in glowing terms at one point in the book, but if they really made the HEAP wouldn't Palestinians be one of the best examples of those who would use it to start an uprising?! The specifics are not explored at all, just the vague idealism, very libertarian.)

Moreover, Stephenson occasionally displays a sense of humor which goes for politically incorrect for the sake of being politically incorrect. Maybe it was cutting edge then, now it can come across as mean-spirited trolling. There's even a long conversation about which gods which civilisations worship, which is either a brilliant take cultural values or a borderline-racist oversimplification.

Uch, and the male-female dynamics. My top criticism of the book would have to be the focus on hacker everyman Randy Waterhouse, who overanalyzes everything and is the hero of the story despite not being that interesting, and his endlessly dragged on "relationship" with cool gal Amy Shaftoe. I get it, I really do, he's nerdy and takes a long time to build up the confidence to just ask her out... and then it's goes on and on all over the planet for hundreds and hundreds of pages because then Stephenson gets to share all his (sure at times quite fascinating) theories. But come on. With a bit more perspective, one realizes that Randy is kind of lame. The huge essays on male-female dynamics ultimately only amount to the main character's banal issues. There, I said it.

Okay I got my complaints out the way, and I still totally stand by my original 5-star rating because a hell of a lot of this book is still incredible! So many Big Ideas, so much to reflect on. The private digital currency part, wow, that may really go somewhere. (You obviously know what I'm talking about, right?)

And the World War II scenes are absolutely timeless, wouldn't change a thing. Which is roughly two-thirds of the book. The adventures of Lawrence Waterhouse and Bobby Shaftoe, so bloody cool. You'll come away knowing more than you ever thought you could about the Pacific War, military livelihood, spying, encryption, and war gold in Southeast Asia.

Everybody must read Cryptonomicon at least once, no matter the flaws, because it is awesome.

DNF. Half way through giving up with more than 500 pages into it. I guess I had high expectations. I love reading about math and history especially when they intersect in crypto, and love sci-fi or historical fiction but this has a lot more than that. So many metaphors, similes,and annoying connotations wore me off eventually. It had some good parts but meandered very much too with nothing adding to plot or characters. My first Stephenson, may be I should try Snow Crash, or read Reamde. They are all way too long though.

*Re-reading this book, started early January 2009

Note: This review is from my blog, circa 2005.

I finished reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson about a week ago. It took me over a month to finish, not because it wasn't great and exciting, but because it was 937 fucking pages long!

I have to say that Neal Stephenson is one of the most interesting and unique authors I have come across in some time now. The book had three main characters/story lines, and each of them had it's own strongly independent voice, yet strung together with a unifying, sardonic edge. I don't think I'll bother much with plot summary, as it was very complex and spanned the course of at least 60 years and about 10 different countries. What I really loved about it was that the three main storylines that all seem so separate at first, come together over the course of the novel through family ties, etc, but are unknown to the modern characters because of war time secrecy, among other things. I have never studied WWII in much depth, but this book brought it all to life extremely vividly and from perspectives I have never read about before. Although this book was in the science fiction section (probably because of the author's other novels) it is definitely more of a history novel. For instance, it had real historical figures as characters, such as Alan Turing in close relation to one of the main characters. Not only is it interesting from a historical war-time perspective, it is also extremely nerdy in its math and cryptographic details...not to mention computer programming and the history of how the modern computer came to be invented as a result of WWII cryptologists needing to break codes. Although the majority of the characters are fictional, I do think that most of the historical elements are well preserved and not too overly exaggerated. However, I am no expert.
Basically, I couldn't put this book down, in spite of its weight. ;) The story was compelling, the characters multi-dimensional and interesting, and the locations and events intriguing.

Also, in the original hard back edition that I got from the library, there are a large number of typographical/grammatical errors that many have speculated to be a hidden code! Not that anybody has broken it...I'd give my left toe to know what Mr. Stephenson is hiding in that book.

This was a LONG but fascinating story in which the reader learns a lot about cryptography, the Second World War, and nerd/geek subculture. I thought it could have used some editing and didn’t really find the plot started to move until after page 300, but still it was well-built with hundreds of literary references (I especially appreciated the one to Bleak House by Dickens.) I liked the 3 protagonists and felt that he did a good job having multi-dimensional female characters (albeit with supporting roles and not in the main cast.
Only small issue, is Enoch Root like Duncan Idaho and just never dies? I thought he died in a boat with Bobby and Lawrence around page 400 but then he shows up again near page 850. I didn’t quite understand that. Nonetheless, excellent speculative fiction!

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Neal Stephenson performed his usual wizardry in "Cryptonomicon", a very long book that is a sequel to "The Baroque Cycle", which was in fact written later. ("Cryptonomicon" was published in 1999, where the three volumes of "The Baroque Cycle" came out in 2003 and 2004).

"Cryptonomicon" is ostensibly a historical novel. But the genre is really magical realism, although the elements of magic are subtly interwoven into the usually realistic plot. Stephenson creates his special and unique stew of multi-culturalism, deadpan humor, geeky technological details, and multiple times, places, and eccentric characters, along with lots of interesting tangents. As usual with Stephenson's work, the various characters, plotlines, locations, and timelines intersect more and more until they converge. He orchestrates all of this brilliantly and keeps the reader constantly entertained and interested.

The novel takes place in a variety of locations, and most of the characters travel around the world. Many of the locales, although not all of them, are in the Pacific Rim. The locations include various place in the U.S., including the Midwest, Seattle, and San Francisco, Manila, and various other points in the Philippines, Stockholm, London, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Hawaii, New Caledonia, New Guinea, Shanghai; Qwghlm (a fictional Celtic-flavored island, apparently pronounced like "Tagum"); Bletchley Park, the British top secret World War II facility for cryptography and cryptoanalysis; Brisbane, Australia; Kinakuta (a fictional island sultanate in the South Pacific which only figures in the 1990's timeline, although there are tie-ins to World War II); and Japan.

The book interweaves two main timelines. One takes place in World War II, the other in the late 1990's. The book also picks up the tale of two families central to "The Baroque Cycle," the Shaftoes and the Waterhouses. As in "The Baroque Cycle", the Shaftoes are the people of action, and the Waterhouses are the intellectuals.

Note: I'm giving the only (minor) spoiler in this review here. The mysterious(and apparently ubiquitous) Enoch Root also makes his (re) appearance in both timelines. (He appeared and disappeared during "The Baroque Cycle" as well).

The book is quite long--1130 pages--so while listening to the audiobook I often followed along in the eBook version as well in Adobe Digital Editions.

The WW II timeline mainly focuses on the stories of three major characters--Marine Corpsman Sergeant Bobby Shaftoe, American cryptoanalyst and mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, and Japanese soldier and engineer Goto Dengo. Of course, in typical Neal Stephenson fashion, all of their lives intersect, as do the two timelines. Shaftoe is a brave and conscientious soldier, a charismatic leader, more of a physical man than a verbal one. He lacks formal education, but has plenty of moxie and street smarts. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that Sergeant Shaftoe ends up travelling all around the world in his quest to return to Manila. Goto Dengo, a Japanese man who meets Bobby Shaftoe in Shanghai, also spends time in the Philippines, (via New Guinea, like Shaftoe) and once again encounters Shaftoe in Manila. Goto Dengo probably endures more hardship and pain than almost anyone else in the book. Stephenson presents the suffering of war unflinchingly, but in a way that does not make the book less interesting.

There are a few famous historical personalities that show up in the World War II timeline.

Lawrence Waterhouse meets Alan Turing, the famous British cryptoanalyst, at Princeton University before the war, and continues his interaction with him later.

Also, General Douglas Macarthur puts in a (rather comical) appearance in the Philippines.

In the 1990's timeline, the focus is on Randall (Randy) Waterhouse, a Unix geek who is part of a technology startup, Epiphyte (2) on the West coast. Epiphyte (2) plans to start a data crypt in the South Pacific primarily for use in the Philippines. Randy is the grandson of Lawrence Waterhouse. He is primarily interested in computer programming, but becomes progressively more involved in computer cryptosystems. So he ends up travelling a parallel path to that of his grandfather, Lawrence Waterhouse. Randy meets Douglas Macarthur Shaftoe, son of Bobby Shaftoe and America (Amy) Shaftoe, Doug's daughter and Bobby Shaftoe's granddaughter, on multiple business trips to the Philippines. Doug and Amy run Semper Marine, a diving business with a boat named Glory IV after Doug's mother and Amy's grandmother. Semper does some work for Epiphyte. Randy travels far and wide in the course of the book, taking multiple trips for business and personal reasons. Randy survives quite a few major setbacks and run ins with enemies. (I'll skip the spoilers). Of course there is also a huge cast of characters in this timeline, including the dramatis personae of Epiphyte (2), and lots of other colorful people.

Stephenson somehow manages to keep us interested and entertained through a seemingly endless series of plot twists, surprises, people, and locations. That's quite a feat in a book this size. And I always learn about all kinds of interesting things reading his books. For example, I learned a lot about secret codes used during World War II and about modern computer cryptosystems.

Of course, reading a novel of this size and complexity is a challenge. But in this case, it's well worth the effort.

This is my third Neal Stephenson book. You could say I'm a fan of his work. You would be correct in such a statement. But, this is not for everybody. His writing style is dense and there is a great deal of information being presented to you. More so than the intricate nature of the information is the fact that, sometimes, the author will take you down a bizarre side track that will actually make you sit there and think about what you just read. If this doesn't seem like something you'd enjoy-then skip out on Neal Stephenson. This is a large book and if you're not down to go through some really fascinating ideas that may have not much to do with the plot, then I'd not even bother.

Now for the rest of you that don't mind utterly bizarre side tracks and very high end ideas that actually require you to think (how solitaire can be used an encryption algorithm) and form concepts in your mind-then you will love this dense work. What is it about?

There are two time frames where the story takes place, one being during World War II and the other in "modern" (1990's?) times. The cryptography WW II story has to do with the famous minds of Dr. Turning and Dr. Waterhouse who broke the German and Japanese codes. It then becomes a story about the founding of the NSA and in the modern timeline it is a story about building a "Crypt" to store information that governments can't break into. How does this all flow together?

The lynchpins are the families who keep appearing- the Shaftoes, the Waterhouses, the Goto's, etc. The story jumps back and forth between World War II and current. The families have changed in that the current generation are the grandchildren of the ones described in World War II. More than that I will not say. It's hard to explain such an amazing plot and I shouldn't. Discover it for yourself.

The Marine Shaftoe, the Japanese Army Goto Dengo and the priest Enoch Root are the best characters in here..but there is a lot in here.. just a taste includes Nazi German U-boat commanders, hidden gold, angry Filipino rebels, Japanese Army units, U.S. Marines, Douglas MacArthur, a scary venture capitalist known as the Dentist, an unbreakable cypher as well as various and sundry different side tangents (the equation for optimum masturbation was funny)-well you're starting to see why Neal Stephenson can be a Love or Hate thing. Me? I love this.

One of the more unique books and minds out there. Finishing one of his books feels like the end of a day in undergrad- having studied multiple subjects and beginning to grasp that they might all fit together after all. If this seems too tedious then yes skip this book. If this seems fun-then do what I did and take your time and read this savoring every new thought you come up with. NS has a very dry wit and it shows. I truly enjoyed this book and am now a Neal Stephenson fan for life. I appreciate intelligent books and this certainly qualifies.