Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Hard Science Fiction, Literary, Thrillers, General, Lang:en
Summary
With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to
be an epoch-making masterpiece, 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. As an added bonus, the e-book edition of
this
New York Times bestseller includes an excerpt from
Stephenson's new novel,
Seveneves. In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse—mathematical
genius and young Captain in the U.S. 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
Waterhouse 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; the product of a truly iconoclastic
imagination working with white-hot intensity. ** Neal Stephenson enjoys cult status among science fiction
fans and techie types thanks to
Snow Crash, which so completely redefined
conventional notions of the high-tech future that it became a
self-fulfilling prophecy. But if his cyberpunk classic was
big,
Cryptonomicon is huge... gargantuan... massive, not
just in size (a hefty 918 pages including appendices) but in
scope and appeal. It's the hip, readable heir to
Gravity's Rainbow and the Illuminatus trilogy. And
it's only the first of a proposed series--for more
information, read our interview with Stephenson.
Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening
conspiratorially back and forth between two time
periods--World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are
the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst
extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby
Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group
trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously
preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have
been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of
deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he
explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we
want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane
first.... Of course, to observe is not its
real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy
is. Its
real duty is
to be observed.... Then, when we come round and sink
them, the Germans will not find it suspicious." All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story
line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII
heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the
lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an
offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some
gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac
tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of
Detachment 2702 and the
Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable
encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s
protagonists with conspiratorial ties.
Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to
finish: short on plot, but long on detail so precise it's
exhausting. Every page has a math problem, a quotable
in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp prose.
Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird
characters, funky tech, and crypto--all the crypto you'll
ever need, in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of
the moment. A word to the wise: if you read this book in one
sitting, you may die of information overload (and
starvation).
--Therese Littleton
Computer expert Randy Waterhouse spearheads a movement to
create a safe haven for data in a world where information
equals power and big business and government seek to control
the flow of knowledge. His ambitions collide with a
top-secret conspiracy with links to the encryption wars of
World War II and his grandfather's work in preventing the
Nazis from discovering that the Allies had cracked their
supposedly unbreakable Enigma code. The author of Snow Crash
(LJ 4/1/92) focuses his eclectic vision on a story of epic
proportions, encompassing both the beginnings of information
technology in the 1940s and the blossoming of the present
cybertech revolution. Stephenson's freewheeling prose and
ironic voice lend a sense of familiarity to a story that
transcends the genre and demands a wide readership among fans
of technothrillers as well as a general audience. Highly
recommended.
Amazon.com Review
From Library Journal
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information,
Inc.