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Darwin8u's Reviews > Cryptonomicon
Cryptonomicon
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"Over and over again we see the pattern of the Titanomachia repeated—the old gods are thrown down, chaos returns, but out of the chaos, the same patterns reemerge.”
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
I didn't like it as much as Anathem or Snow Crash, but like those two Stephenson novels Cryptonomicon has a large cult following, and was on the bleeding edge of a lot of ideas only starting to bubble up in 1999.
Stephenson's prose can go from poetic to obnoxious pretty fast and the tone of this novel was sometimes kinda ridiculous, but ignoring a couple big things that I generally rolled my eyes at -- I loved the novel. It moved, was moving, and came together very well at the end.
Think of this novel like a REALLY good war thriller (Red Storm Rising) that runs with three or four distinct story lines and about a dozen characters that jumps to another storyline every 6-1o pages. So even when a storyline was dragging a bit, soon I was flipped into another zone that I enjoyed a bunch. It is also a fantastic historical war novel, focused on cryptography during WWII. So, it kept reminding me of other historical novels of WWII. It seeemed a bit like Wouk's The Winds of War (except this book was strictly focused on areas mostly ignored by Wouk). Finally, it was a well-paced gernational/family novel (see Roots or The Godfather).
Anyway, it is a good book to read during the 2017-2018 boom (and perhaps bust) of cryptocurrency, since the 1997 portion of this novel deals A LOT with the establishment of a cryptocurrency (NOT a blockchain encrypted currency). Supposedly Paypal's founder Peter Thiel used to require his employees to read Cryptonomicon. It might be a myth, but if so, it is a good one.
- Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
I didn't like it as much as Anathem or Snow Crash, but like those two Stephenson novels Cryptonomicon has a large cult following, and was on the bleeding edge of a lot of ideas only starting to bubble up in 1999.
Stephenson's prose can go from poetic to obnoxious pretty fast and the tone of this novel was sometimes kinda ridiculous, but ignoring a couple big things that I generally rolled my eyes at -- I loved the novel. It moved, was moving, and came together very well at the end.
Think of this novel like a REALLY good war thriller (Red Storm Rising) that runs with three or four distinct story lines and about a dozen characters that jumps to another storyline every 6-1o pages. So even when a storyline was dragging a bit, soon I was flipped into another zone that I enjoyed a bunch. It is also a fantastic historical war novel, focused on cryptography during WWII. So, it kept reminding me of other historical novels of WWII. It seeemed a bit like Wouk's The Winds of War (except this book was strictly focused on areas mostly ignored by Wouk). Finally, it was a well-paced gernational/family novel (see Roots or The Godfather).
Anyway, it is a good book to read during the 2017-2018 boom (and perhaps bust) of cryptocurrency, since the 1997 portion of this novel deals A LOT with the establishment of a cryptocurrency (NOT a blockchain encrypted currency). Supposedly Paypal's founder Peter Thiel used to require his employees to read Cryptonomicon. It might be a myth, but if so, it is a good one.
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Reading Progress
December 9, 2017
– Shelved
December 9, 2017
– Shelved as:
to-read
April 2, 2018
–
Started Reading
April 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
2018
April 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
american
April 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
war
April 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
fiction
April 8, 2018
– Shelved as:
finance
April 8, 2018
–
Finished Reading
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by
Keith
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rated it 5 stars
Apr 08, 2018 11:19PM
I think the absurd/eye-rolling bits of writing are deliberate, i.e. Stephenson using over-the-topness to keep things from getting too dry with all the technical detail. In the novel where he didn't do this at all (Seveneves), the result was very dull in places.
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Keith wrote: "I think the absurd/eye-rolling bits of writing are deliberate, i.e. Stephenson using over-the-topness to keep things from getting too dry with all the technical detail. In the novel where he didn't..."Yeah, I'm pretty sure he wasn't aiming at me. The Randy/Avi sections were some of the worst, but I completely loved the Randy/Enoch Root discussions. I also preferred the 1943-1944 era to the 1997 era. But there were exceptions, of course.
My next venture into Stephenson is going to be The Baroque Cycle (this year). So, I'm safe from Seveneves for a bit.
I really loved this when I first read it, but gradually it started feeling less satisfactory in my memory. I think Stevenson is just a touch too blokey as a geek for my taste – I remember even at the time thinking that his women were absolutely dreadful. That said, it's such a thick, chewy book that you have to admire it even when it doesn't click. I would jump on an excuse to do the Baroque cycle, so I'll be interested to hear if and how much you end up recommending it.
Warwick wrote: "I really loved this when I first read it, but gradually it started feeling less satisfactory in my memory. I think Stevenson is just a touch too blokey as a geek for my taste – I remember even at t..."Blokey is a VERY good term.
A very reasonable review. I would add there is a cross appeal to this book. My wife and I listened to it together and we both enjoyed at different levels. 'Seveneves' was enjoyable till the last 1/5 or so (to me) because it seemed to end up in a Nicholas Wade type racist world view. (just my opinion). I enjoy reading your reviews on the books we have read in common or with books I'm thinking about about reading.
Gary wrote: "A very reasonable review. I would add there is a cross appeal to this book. My wife and I listened to it together and we both enjoyed at different levels. 'Seveneves' was enjoyable till the last 1/..."Yeah, I can absorb a bit of the WM racism/sexism/homophobia in writers from 1960s earlier. I don't LIKE it, but I understand the context (see Ian Fleming and John D. McDonald), but in modern writers it is VERY hard to swallow. I haven't read Seveneves, so I can't speak to that, but THIS book did give me a bit of a glimpse of the whole gamergate mindset.
Supposedly Paypal's founder Peter Thiel used to require his employees to read Cryptonomicon.While still in high-school and still reading a lot - 90% of it fiction - I used to say that a "good" way to ruin a good book was to assign it for a class.
Now Mr. Thiel can ruin a good story by assigning it for work. Wonder if it was OK to read Cryptonomicon on company time?
Gary alluded to a Nicholas Wade type racist world viewI've read two of Wade's books - and did not detect a "racist world view" - can you (Gary) cite some examples?
I don't think the last part of Seveneves is racist in the "this real-life group of people are objectively all stupid/evil/lazy/worse at task X" sense. Rather, it presents imaginary races of people whose physical and personality traits are defined heavily by their genetic primogenitrixes (?) despite thousands of years having passed since their origins and no apparent taboo against inter-racial relationships (there are even two races each of whose individuals are apparently inclined to be attracted to members of the other race because their primogenitrixes were lovers!). I'm not sure if there's an "ism" for this, but it's lazy storytelling and it produces a future society that looks like an unimaginative YA dystopia or fantasy novel.
