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Cryptonomicon cover art

Cryptonomicon

Written by: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: William Dufris
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Publisher's Summary

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

What listeners say about Cryptonomicon

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

Very long and marginally interesting

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.

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3 people found this helpful

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Utterly pointless and goes no where

It’s a well written enough book with no point to it at all. You spend 40+ hours hoping for it all to come together into something interesting only for nothing at all of importance to actually happen.

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2 people found this helpful

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All over the place

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.

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2 people found this helpful

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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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A long listen with minimal entertainment

Sadly, 43 hours of word salad. It’s supposed to all come together through an interplay of epochs and character relationships, but largely misses the target. However, ChatGPT can fill you in, save you a credit and two days of your life. The performance was excellent.

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1 person found this helpful

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  • J
  • 2024-02-14

I couldn’t finish it

I really wanted to like this book. People I respect gave it high praise and the topic of cryptography is fascinating. But the book is not about cryptography it’s about fucking. It’s not sexy, or interesting fucking, it’s the story I’ve walked away from rolling my eyes dozens of times. And like those stories, when the characters are slightly off putting, or entirely self satisfied with their own brilliance it’s just a slog to listen too. I’ve finished terrible books because as least it was a good story to talk about but this is just…. Unpleasant

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best I can aay about it is it was a product of the times

The endless passages full of racist epithets, tired sexist tropes and mind-numbing machismo are not at all made up for by the loosely accurate descriptions of cryptography. There are so many better works to spend your money on out there. Only consider this as a historical marker of what passed for interesting in the 90s.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting to say the least

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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The Emergence of Cryptocurrencies

Before Satoshi Nakamoto discovered the flint that sparked a monetary revolution, Stephenson penned Cryptonomicon. A work that gave voice to the aspirations of crypto buffs, sparking public awareness of the concept, and widening the field of aspirants. Written before the advent of a distributed blockchain solution, Stephenson’s portrayal of a cryptocurrency aligns more toward the digital gold theme; however, the cryptographic elements and core concepts he depicts remain valid today.

With the practised skill of an adept storyteller, he winds together a prodigious web of analogies and metaphors to explain complex subjects and non-intuitive perspectives in a relatable context. Covering topics from number theory and scalability, to the plights of a high tech startup firm, Stephenson portrays a tale that is both entertaining and insightful.

While the setting is split between a historical and contemporary context, it is the kind of tale that will appeal to hard sci-fi fans, particularly those with a background in computer science or number theory.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Rushed ending

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.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Butchered the pronunciation

By all that is holy, somebody please, please, please teach the narrator how to pronounce "Nippon"!

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