I am a self-confessed lover of technology, loving it as an externalisation and extension of the brilliance that is the human mind. I came across Neal Stephenson's name in an information science related discussion list. The book was Snowcrash, referring to the way computer screens would white out as they crashed. My beloved library didn't have Snowcrash but it did have the tome-like and hard to pronounce Cryptonomicon.
Cryptonomicon is an Indiana Jones epic for technology and cryptography junkies. Two threads, one set during WWII highlighting codes and their breaking, looted Nazi and Japanese gold, and one set in present day around the development of an uncrackable data haven free from government or commercial interference (A Swiss banking system for data if you will). The two central characters in the present are the grandchildren of two significant characters in the WWII time. And of course, the stories and lives converge to a suitable and satisfying climax.
Like all my favourite authors, Stephenson blurs fact and fiction, and historical characters are deliberately painted larger than life. Blending Alan Turing (one of the fathers of modern computing) with a genius US Navy code breaker and Douglas Macarthur, General of the US Army, hated by US Marines, but fearless in the face of combat with a Marine hero responsible for a "black ops" group whose role was to ensure the Germans and Japanese did not suspect their transmission codes had been cracked. And that is just one of the threads.
As much a vision into an intelligent, lucid and creative American mind, Cryptonomicon is an expose of the world of codes, their makers and breakers, the consequences of broken and unbroken codes during times of war and the possibility that in today's World Wide Web world security of data will be of greater value than gold.
I did need to renew the book two times (isn't online renewal great) to cover the 900+ pages. And my eyes did glaze at some of the explanation of some of the codes and statistical methods for code hiding and breaking.
But the writing style was crisp and wry, the storyline intriguing. Language and concepts make the book more suitable for open minded adults, rather than children or people locked in patriotic or unexamined views of reality.
Andy Carnahan