Cryptonomicon

Neal Stephenson

Mar 2009 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

An epic adventure awaits in this page-turning sci-fi read!

With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century. As an added bonus, the e-book edition of this New York Times bestseller includes an excerpt from Stephenson's new novel, Seveneves.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy—is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702—commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.

Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia—a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

Ratings and reviews

I loved nearly every page. Stephenson has a tendency to get bogged down in detailing a landscape when it may or may not be necessary, but by and large even the technical aspects of this work will keep you rapt. Each character offers something interesting and the interweaving of actual history with the characters of the book is well done. Its smart, funny, and has moments of action, even though some of the best moments are simply that of characterization. Give it a careful read, as it is possible that some of the plot points have a somewhat supernatural element to them.

I have read the entire Baroque Cycle and Anathem and enjoyed them. Settled down on a snowy day to finish this and just could not muster any more interest after the author spent 3 pages describing a character's wisdom teeth experience. Didn't give a damn what happened to any of the characters any more. Some judicious editing would have made this less tedious.

As a software engineer, when I read or watch "dramatizations" of computer/technology things in books or movies, I used to assume that the horrible nonsense they used was because it was impossible to make interesting AND correct depictions of technology. In Cryptonomicon, Neal blew that theory right out of the water. He takes the time to educate the reader on how things work, without boring the average reader – which means everyone else is just being lazy!

About the author

Neal Stephenson is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the novels Termination Shock, Fall; or, Dodge in Hell, The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (with Nicole Galland), Seveneves, Reamde, Anathem, The System of the World, The Confusion, Quicksilver, Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Zodiac, and the groundbreaking nonfiction work In the Beginning...Was the Command Line. He lives in Seattle, Washington.