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Thoroughly enjoyed this read despite it's length. It very much reminded me of the "Wind Up Bird Chronicles" by Murakami crossed with early William Gibson. The book follows three main characters, two from WWII and one now. The two characters in the war are a codebreaker who works with Turing and others, and the other is a marine in charge of creating the scenarios that will keep the Germans and Japanese from knowing we have broken their codes. The modern character is the codebreakers grandson and
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Awesome historical fiction, told in 2 separate timelines, interspersed with each other.
Full of action, in between the author's digression to, among others, scientific topics from math, cryptography, physics, computer, economics, to his scientific approach on beard, crunchiness of cereal, horniness, how to write a business plan, how to divide inheritance fairly, how to build a secret under-the-mountain gold crypt, and many other things. And he did not do it in a condescending way, sometimes borde ...more
Full of action, in between the author's digression to, among others, scientific topics from math, cryptography, physics, computer, economics, to his scientific approach on beard, crunchiness of cereal, horniness, how to write a business plan, how to divide inheritance fairly, how to build a secret under-the-mountain gold crypt, and many other things. And he did not do it in a condescending way, sometimes borde ...more
Cryptonomicon was first published in 1999 and continues Neal Stephenson's fairly meteoric rise from obscurity to the bestseller lists. After attracting the praise of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling with his two previous novels, Snow Crash and The Diamond Age, Stephenson has been categorised as a (post)cyberpunk novelist, but has shown the potential to defy genres and to simply write brilliant books. Although Stephenson's ability to finish a book properly has been oft called into question, his
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There's a reason this book is on the list of "Thickest Books Ever" - It's massive. Nearly 1200 pages.
I enjoyed the book, but frankly, the length and some of the tedium wore me down. There are 4 or 5 plot lines here, all inter-connected, but for the first 300 - 400 pages, I was completely uninterested in half of them. The plot lines from WWII are fascinating, as are those characters... I'd like to read an entire book about Bobby Shaftoe. By contrast, the characters from the present day seem whin ...more
I enjoyed the book, but frankly, the length and some of the tedium wore me down. There are 4 or 5 plot lines here, all inter-connected, but for the first 300 - 400 pages, I was completely uninterested in half of them. The plot lines from WWII are fascinating, as are those characters... I'd like to read an entire book about Bobby Shaftoe. By contrast, the characters from the present day seem whin ...more
Awesome book! Plan some time to get through it though.
May 17, 2008
Netanella
rated it
it was amazing
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review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
wwii
Jul 29, 2008
Jessica
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Aug 15, 2008
Rachelle Nicolette
marked it as to-read
Oct 06, 2009
Kiran
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Oct 12, 2009
kellyn
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Dec 30, 2010
Erin
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Jul 24, 2013
Wende
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Oct 30, 2016
Linda Garcia
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