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A review by in_between_pages
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
4.0
Wrestled with this book for 2 months, and I finally managed to put it down!
Neal Stephenson is a geek's geek, and that's what makes his books enjoyable to me. His digressions about Greek mythology or the Knapsack Problem, among others, are what make a long-winded book like this one quite entertaining. You just learn a lot reading a Stephenson book; and after 1000+ pages, you will most likely feel rewarded. Oh and, of course, there's Neal's sarcastic sense-of-humor which I'm really fond of!
Cryptonomicon isn't my first Stephenson mammoth. I've already enjoyed Anathem quite a lot and still hold it in high regard to this day. Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was slightly less enjoyable (not too many big ideas here, I guess). It tackles topics such as cryptoanalysis, code-breaking in WWII, digital currency, entrepreneurship, Big Data, among others. These come together quite well (especially in the latter half of the book) but is still a thriller at the end of the day.
One thing I really liked in Cryptonomicon was the timeline set during the WWII period - one of my favorite historical periods when it comes to fiction. For me, it shed some new light on WWII from an angle that I knew little to nothing about.
All that being said, however, the book's length made keeping up with the timelines and the plot quite difficult in my case. I'm not sure whether it was my poor reading stamina, or whether it goes with the book's length and the writing style. And then there's the ending which was a bit of a letdown for a book this size - but I won't say much about here.
I would still recommend this book wholeheartedly for anyone interested, at all, in any of the topics I've mentioned.
4/5
Neal Stephenson is a geek's geek, and that's what makes his books enjoyable to me. His digressions about Greek mythology or the Knapsack Problem, among others, are what make a long-winded book like this one quite entertaining. You just learn a lot reading a Stephenson book; and after 1000+ pages, you will most likely feel rewarded. Oh and, of course, there's Neal's sarcastic sense-of-humor which I'm really fond of!
Cryptonomicon isn't my first Stephenson mammoth. I've already enjoyed Anathem quite a lot and still hold it in high regard to this day. Cryptonomicon, on the other hand, was slightly less enjoyable (not too many big ideas here, I guess). It tackles topics such as cryptoanalysis, code-breaking in WWII, digital currency, entrepreneurship, Big Data, among others. These come together quite well (especially in the latter half of the book) but is still a thriller at the end of the day.
One thing I really liked in Cryptonomicon was the timeline set during the WWII period - one of my favorite historical periods when it comes to fiction. For me, it shed some new light on WWII from an angle that I knew little to nothing about.
All that being said, however, the book's length made keeping up with the timelines and the plot quite difficult in my case. I'm not sure whether it was my poor reading stamina, or whether it goes with the book's length and the writing style. And then there's the ending which was a bit of a letdown for a book this size - but I won't say much about here.
I would still recommend this book wholeheartedly for anyone interested, at all, in any of the topics I've mentioned.
4/5