Mixed emotions

This was no doubt about it, a really good book. But it is way too long and frequently boring as hell. Trying to piece together parts from one end of the story to another can be like playing sodoku by memory. But seen as a series of smaller events that are all in their own right very good, which work together to create one whole tapestry, yes, it works and it works well. But by heck its a lot of work.

When a chap in the story observes a spiders web and sees how the spider can react to different things, not because of the movement but because of the lack of certain movement, you should by that point know whether the book is for you or not. I loved this concept and all the concepts that tied in with it - and then their real world application and how they created a series of events that eventually became what they do.

However, these concepts draw together like a diagram of the final fastest and shortest era on Earth (according to the Aztecs) as this era is cast off, but then never takes us anywhere. There is no realisation to this story. Its just launch pad of concepts. Unlike many a book though, I wouldn't take back the time I spent on it (and its a lot!) because it has helped with mature and put form to many of my own ideas.

8 people found this helpful

Ended abruptly

Going into so much detail, suprised it ended so abruptly. Still, very interesting & enjoyable.

3 people found this helpful

Stunning

What did you like most about Cryptonomicon?

The narrator, William Dufris. This book was amazing in itself, but Kramer really did a number on this. I can easily imagine myself not having enjoyed the book as much were it not for being able to hear his performance.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Waterhouse, the socially inept little nerd, loved him right from the start, and it wasn't long before I grew to enjoy every single section featuring sergeant Shaftoe as well.

Which scene did you most enjoy?

The fog horn mounted on 'there but for the grace of god'

3 people found this helpful

Just genius

Like a piece of cryptography, patterns and associations begin to emerge the more you delve into this story. About two thirds of the way in, the disparate strands of the timelines and characters begin to come together in the most riveting way.

Worth 40 hours of your life? - Absolutely.

7 people found this helpful

Top men

Loved it. Very long but always buzzing, fascinating characters and story. Only exception is that female cardboard cutouts exist only to receive male attention and sperm.

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Outstanding Translation of a Classic

I'd already read Cryptonomicon, a couple of times, prior to listening to it. I couldn't have been more pleased. Dufris captures the essence of this weighty journey admirably, and his intonation and studied understanding comes across with real heartfelt sympathy for the motley collection of characters and rich locations both historical and contemporary. I couldn't have been happier at the treatment of what I believe to be Stephenson's finest book.

6 people found this helpful

best narration so far

excellent involved story brought even more alive by superb narration. can't wait for the next one

1 person found this helpful

Book for a Nerd's Nerd

**spoiler alert** A book for a nerd's nerd covering everything from Philippino-American relationships to Decompression Diving Science and anything that the author fancies within. Not quite as outrageously mashed together as Snow Crash as the universe is based in the modern day and historical fiction which doesn't allow the insane lengths of parody in his sci-fi works. Full of laugh out loud similes and brilliantly written.

Not really sure on the point of Andrew Lowe who shows up at different points in the narrative but never seems to affect the plot and his odd view on humanity.

Full of eclectic references, the Greek Pantheon, Haikus and the reasons the Allies won WW2. With almost whole chapters dedicated to (amongst other things) the perfect bowl of Captain Crunch Cereal or a Stocking Fetish it really covers a dictionary of weird. The Titular Cryptonomicon only appears sporadically and isn't particularly game changing at any point despite being a pretty interesting concept. I was also disappointed that the is island nation of Qwghlman didn't exist as the Aleut people of Snow Crash were fascinating to explore further.

There are occasional errors as Stephenson tries to sound as smart as his characters (surface area of a sphere or Captain Crunch isn't Euclidean Geometry, in fact triangles on the surface of a sphere would be the original example of Non-Euclidean Geometry). He also likes to slow roll reveals: Shaftoe doesn't meet General MacArthur, he meets someone in standard army fatigues only adorned with five stars, Shaftoe's body stiffened and even if he'd been dead for a few hours it would have done this, the man lit a match for his pipe but the fiery holocaust of Manila had sucked the air and the match didn't light etc.

There's a lot of maths in the book, from talking about Turing's bike chain falling off to expounding the benefits of Prime Numbers and general number theory. It's also odd in the parlance of the book that they call cryptography "crypto" where in modern day it'd refer to cryptocurrency. Very weirdly towards the end they discuss creating a digital currency, say that currency is backed by faith and then conclude they need Gold to back their digital currency, so close to predicting cryptocurrency!

The structure of the book didn't make much sense to me until the end where I realise that it's tracking two parallel attempts to break the Arethusa code. The disordering of Bobby Shaftoe's stories due to drug dependency may also mirror trying to break a code but I might be over extending a theory there.

It's a definite must read for fans of the genre but might be a bit of a jump into the deep end for others.

1 person found this helpful

Overly long but then an incomplete and abrupt endi

For such a long story, completely wasted 2/3 of its length getting to the point of what the story was actually about, spent the first half of it asking myself if it was ever going to reveal what it's actual goal was. Then with all the setting up that the book does, regarding the cast of characters, putting them in a variety of difficult and ongoing situations, it just goes, "they've succeeded at this one thing, I'll leave you to having to assume that everything went OK afterwards, because I'm not going to bother to resolve any of it!" Yet the author somehow could be bothered to write enough excruciating detail for the prior 41 3/4 hours...

1 person found this helpful

Too wordy. Pointless details that really add little

I really couldn’t get on with this. Tried for 4 hrs that I’ll never get back. I siinply didn’t see the story going anywhere.

1 person found this helpful