Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by magialuna
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
5.0
My birth sister convinced me to try this book after a conversation when I revealed an interest in Admiral Grace Hopper and Alan Turing. She mentioned that this book has Alan Turing in it and that she enjoyed it a lot... so, I decided I'd try it. I had *NO* Idea what I was in for. But I am really, really glad I went for the ride. And I think I will probably re-read it again later to catch what I missed the first time.
This book is unbelievably dense. I don't mean dense... like when you say someone is stupid. I mean it is packed full of information, that is within the story. It is two different stories at two different times that intertwine (sort of) about characters who are related. One set in the timeframe around now. (I don't remember the exact year, but it is close to now.) The other is leading up to, and then during WWII. There are a couple of different people that we follow during WWII, but they matter to people in the future in ways that we will not understand till much later, and unless you pay attention so... yeah, DO THAT!
You will also learn SO many things you do not expect to about computer security, and hacking while reading this book that... just, wow.
I was quite surprised.
A good deal of people in the book are geniuses, so at times you can feel a bit dim... but it does make you WANT to rise to the occasion and figure out what the heck they're talking about. At other times, I remembered my father, who fought in WWII on Guam. There are a lot of different war scenarios, and as a retired Navy Chief... I recognized fully the logic of quite a lot of what they did. There was a lot of needing to do things simply because someone else had to see it, which *seems* stupid, but the alternative... if the other side had realized that we might have cracked their code? Would have been devastating.
I really highly recommend this book. Do be in a mood for a think when you read it. Not really a book for a day when you aren't feeling well and your head is in a fog! But well worth the effort.
This book is unbelievably dense. I don't mean dense... like when you say someone is stupid. I mean it is packed full of information, that is within the story. It is two different stories at two different times that intertwine (sort of) about characters who are related. One set in the timeframe around now. (I don't remember the exact year, but it is close to now.) The other is leading up to, and then during WWII. There are a couple of different people that we follow during WWII, but they matter to people in the future in ways that we will not understand till much later, and unless you pay attention so... yeah, DO THAT!
You will also learn SO many things you do not expect to about computer security, and hacking while reading this book that... just, wow.
I was quite surprised.
A good deal of people in the book are geniuses, so at times you can feel a bit dim... but it does make you WANT to rise to the occasion and figure out what the heck they're talking about. At other times, I remembered my father, who fought in WWII on Guam. There are a lot of different war scenarios, and as a retired Navy Chief... I recognized fully the logic of quite a lot of what they did. There was a lot of needing to do things simply because someone else had to see it, which *seems* stupid, but the alternative... if the other side had realized that we might have cracked their code? Would have been devastating.
I really highly recommend this book. Do be in a mood for a think when you read it. Not really a book for a day when you aren't feeling well and your head is in a fog! But well worth the effort.