I got halfway through this 900 page book and said to myself, “This is going to be one of my all time favorites.” The plot takes place in two time periods: World War II and in the late 1990’s when this book was written. It’s been described as historical fiction AND science fiction. I couldn’t at first understand how this book could be considered science fiction until later in the book I realized one of the characters popped up in both stories 40 years apart and he didn’t age.

Some of the encryption methods described were over my head but I had a good idea what was going on anyway. I spent hours as a kid doing cryptograms in the newspaper. Usually if I could decrypt the 3-letter word “the” I could then figure out the puzzle. Some of the puzzles were more difficult and I got a real sense of satisfaction when I could solve them.

A few of the things criticized by other reviewers didn’t bother me. For instance, I loved Stephenson’s digressions. One of my favorites was the description of a character in the 1990’s having his wisdom teeth removed. The author’s dry humor throughout had me laughing out loud.

Another (female) reviewer criticized the caveman attitude the male characters had about sex. Apparently if men confuse sex with love they are despicable. Give me a break. I am a 65 year old woman so have some experience under my belt and can say this is just the way most men are and will not change until humankind experiences some kind of evolutionary metamorphosis. Speaking of males, I adored the character Bobby Shaftoe. He is the most manliest of manly men I have ever encountered in my reading.

Some reviewers wrote that this isn’t Stephenson’s best book. This makes me happy. This is the first of his books I’ve read. I now have many more books of his to enjoy.

In some ways Crytonomicon is an absolutely stunning book. It is a seriously lengthy treatise about the importance of cryptography historically and in the present (well, 1999) day, focussing heavily on the impact it had on the outcomes both small and large during World War II but also on how it can be utilised in the modern day. Following Bobby Shaftoe; a Marine in World War II, Lawrence Waterhouse; a cryptographer in World War II and Randy Waterhouse; a somewhat unlucky tech start-up in 1999, the story passes from past to present and back again with the threads only loosely drawn together by the generational family. At least, that's how it seems.

You get everything from hard hitting war scenes, political manoeuvring, friends to enemies to allies, family squabbles, drama and romance here. You also get unbelievably long winded info dumps on cryptography - the history, importance, usage, background, and intricate details on how specific code breaking systems work. You get computer hacking and many other things, some of which I completely failed to understand like the pages dedicated to RIST. Some of it was fascinating, some of it tedious, all of it highly informative. However, Stephenson is also a master at turning a single sentence into pages and pages of text - even when it is completely unrequired. An example that astounded me was his description of a computer turning on. Never in my life have I read the better part of two pages dedicated to the single act of a computer turning on. Or the description of people in a room:

The room contains a few dozen living bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air-sacks and pierced by a Gordian sewer filling with burbling acid and compressed gas and a squirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung across its length.

And I'll point out, I've cut that particular passage very short. It keeps going. And you're left wondering... or pleading... 'WHY?!' It sometimes feels like what would happen if a toddler had the intelligence of a fifty year old genius. All the mathematical genius or stirring war scenes and then suddenly - oooooh, shiny! And off you go into the depths of whatever caught it's attention this time. Except without the blessed relief of the really short toddler attention span.

It's funny at points, striking at points, very educational at points and despite being so very hard to get through, I kept coming back to it time and time again. But it says a lot that it took me the better part of two weeks to get through this mega tome. Part of that is just down to it's length - 1000 odd pages will slow anyone down - but it's also down to the divergences into completely unnecessary aspects, sometimes pages or even chapters long. And as with all things, some of them really caught me - I got far too invested in the food and activity 'costs' for RPG's even if it had nothing to do with the plot - others, just didn't.

This is a book that would likely have been an easy five star read if some of the info dumps and random descriptive passages that turn into pages were removed... or at least significantly shortened. It is hands down, too long. There is a huge amount of content, but much of it reads like an encyclopaedia and other parts are completely random divergences that don't add a lot. There are exceptions - the scene with Randy's family dividing out the inheritance by mathematical manoeuvrings in a parking lot was completely unnecessary in many ways, but equally was both entertaining and developed the characters somewhat. Other sections don't even have that to explain them.

And the conclusion did admittedly let this down. The historical elements were fine; after all, there's not a lot Stephenson could do considering it's not an alternate history and he was following the course of the war. But the 'present day' finale felt like a huge let-down considering how long it had taken to get there!! Of all the things to rush - particularly after a 1000 page tome - the ending really shouldn't be it... and yet, it felt rushed, unexplained and frankly rather pointless.

I'm sticking with three stars though because despite the desperate need for a large scale trim, I did enjoy large sections of this book. It made me laugh at points, I grew truly fond of the characters - particularly Shaftoe - and I've certainly come away educated on some things I never thought I needed to know. I'm not sure I'd recommend it, unless you are in the market for a truly long and heavy read, but I don't regret putting the time in.

A schlubby white computer nerd leaves his shallow, shrewish, gold-digger (literally) feminist academic girlfriend and, against all odds, convinces a super-hot young, exotically Asian, emotional-to-the-point-of-crazy, virginal woman to sleep with him (the experience appears to be satisfying only on his end of things). A WWII-era American Marine travels across the world to be reunited with his (also super-hot, young, exotically Asian) girlfriend, but when it turns out she has been disfigured in the war he commits suicide. A military code breaker develops a theory that women run a global "Ejaculation Control Conspiracy" (the author's term) to force men into monogamous marriage.

Also, the women in this book don't understand math. But they want to talk about feelings and china patterns a lot.

Basically 1130 pages of misogynistic ego stroke. One of the worst books I've ever read.

First time I read this I was enthralled. That was a few years back. I still loved it- for the most part. A few lengthy passages about ejaculations and some comments on women didn’t seem necessary.

However in terms of a story about cryptography during WWII and a conspiracy to hide and find Japanese gold-great fun. The author writes amazing sentences and I imagine him hyped up on caffeine all the time. Narrator for audiobook was terrific too-all 40 hours of it!