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Cryptonomicon

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Cryptonomicon

Written by: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: William Dufris
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About this listen

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.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US 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 Watrehouse 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.

©1999 Neil Stephenson (P)2009 Macmillan Audio
Espionage Genre Fiction Hard Science Fiction Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Science Fiction Spies & Politics Technothrillers Thriller & Suspense Fiction Technology Thriller Encryption Military China Mathematics Imperialism Middle Ages Hacking Winston Churchill Africa Latin America Imperial Japan United Kingdom Computer Security
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There was some interesting crypto but the story was all over the place and so much didn't matter at all that It was hard to really enjoy this.

All over the place

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After 40 hours of buildup, it seems Stephenson got bored and finished writing the ending during TV commercial breaks. A good story, and the ending was positive, just felt rushed and a bit anticlimactic.

Rushed ending

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Despite knowing almost from the beginning what the resolution was going to be, the book takes you on an interesting and unexpected journey through parts of the Second World War and a projected near future. I’m a fan of all things Bletchley Park and Alan Turing but I wonder whether the deep detail of the various encryption schemes was needed for the story. It’s not a pure thriller or a light read. However, it is well written and grounded in the math and science of the topic.

A multi generational saga

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The book is somewhat interesting, but very very long. In the end I skipped over about 15 hours and listened to the last 2 hours just to see how the story ended.
It’s not a bad book, and the vocal performance is very good, but if I could turn back time, I wouldn’t buy this title again.

Very long and marginally interesting

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Interesting conversations between quirky characters in a plot that spans years in developments of technologies. Shows that the world works though math. It is also significantly funnier than I expected. Would not recommend to just anyone - but if you enjoy listening to a smart author communicate messages than this book will be for you. Also great narration.

Interesting to say the least

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