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
![description](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1523250863i/25347337._SY540_.jpg)
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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message 1:
by
Keith
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rated it 5 stars
Apr 08, 2018 11:19PM
![Keith](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1525256409p1/19073906.jpg)
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![Darwin8u](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1547440402p1/2294090.jpg)
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.
![Darwin8u](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1547440402p1/2294090.jpg)
![Warwick](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1510406793p1/53165.jpg)
![Darwin8u](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1547440402p1/2294090.jpg)
Blokey is a VERY good term.
![Gary Beauregard Bottomley](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1574110811p1/6243880.jpg)
![Darwin8u](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1547440402p1/2294090.jpg)
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.
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1668721790p1/1237540.jpg)
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?
![Jim](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1668721790p1/1237540.jpg)
I've read two of Wade's books - and did not detect a "racist world view" - can you (Gary) cite some examples?
![Keith](https://images.gr-assets.com/users/1525256409p1/19073906.jpg)