Search - Cryptonomicon

Well written, interesting story with memorable characters. I enjoyed it very much and recommend it even if it doesn't sound like your kind of story. I think that the back cover makes it sound kind of dull. World War 2, high tech finance, conspiracies, blah, blah, blah.

Although it is very funny in places, it is not the sort of book you pick up if you are looking for a quick, light read; it took me a long time to read this one. Not that it is boring, it's just a lot of book (1,152 pages of small print). It has multiple main characters and it covers a few generations.

Stephenson did a great job telling this story. I can't even imagine how hard it was to organize and write something this complicated.

I will never forget Waterhouse's ejaculation management obsession, theory and formula to explain it. Good stuff.

i read alot. and this is one of my all time favs. action adventure comedy romance seat of the pants suspense stints in jail invasions pirates submarines pretty girls nerdy guys navy seals mathmeticians poets pagans guns knives stern looks rowdy redneck cousins delicate relationships jungle hikes family and most importantly FUN. this book is not for the non devoted. big fat amount of pages where we learn vivid details of the delightful characters spun by stephenson. i feel like i know these people. and yes id choose doug shaftoe in a bar fight too id love to hang out with these dudes and drink a beer or two over grilled shrimp and ahi tuna steaks in manila b4 setting out to topple international economic structures and terrifying the IRS. count me in.

A novel about Codes and Cyphers during the Second World War. The story line jumps back and forth through several story lines which makes reading dificult for some people. This is a very large paperback (1152 pages) and kept me entertained to the end.

A BIG book. It is well written and and laid out, but I got too impatient to start another book, therefore, after 3 restarts I have yet to complete it. I still recommend it to those who have more self control or who read faster than me.

In German this would be called a "Schinken" (ham), because it's a heavy and looong book. Get a book support, because your book-holding arm will get tired!

It takes about 300 pages to figure out how the different story lines are connected. It starts to become interesting after about 450 pages. The chapters are really short and jump between the stories so much that it's confusing for quite some time, especially since the characters in the different settings share the same names (family history). Currently I am about half-way through and was already tempted several times to simply put the book down and not finish it (something I very rarely do!). It's not that Stephenson is a bad writer - he's quite good, but the endless metaphors start to become tedious after a while, and the constant jumps between stories do not exactly contribute to this reader's enjoyment. I guess the author purposely is trying to confuse the reader by having the book's format conform to its subject matter. Btw, the Wikipedia entry "Cryptonomicon" comes in handy if you want to keep track of the characters and get an overview.

I did enjoy the descriptions of the cryptography concepts and of the more technical aspects (e.g Van Eck phreaking).

I finally gave up at around 730+ pages, right after Randy's girlfriend followed him home ... that was just too implausible/contrived for me.

All in all - a good book for someone interested in WWII stories, and who doesn't mind fractured story lines. Sometimes a bit boring, sometimes (too few times for me) very interesting - requires patience, a strong arm (for holding the book), and possibly a flowchart.

P.S.: The book "Quicksilver" seems to be using the same dynasties set a few centuries ago - which is something I very much dislike; I won't be reading it - unfortunately I had already ordered it, so I'll post it unread.

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