As books in this genre go, it is pretty well written, with genuine wit, and some creative imagery. The plot rattles along in an unputdownable way, and I like the peppering of well-presented elementary cryptography.
The style reminds me of those old H. Rider Haggard books like She: an adolescent wet dream with no real characters, but at least you know who the goodies and baddies are. You can see why male computer nerds like this sort of book, where all the beautiful girls end up going out with nerds.
Some other reviewers have compared Cryptonomicon to Thomas Pynchon's books such as Gravity's Rainbow, Against The Day, or V. These share with Cryptonomicon a love of Mathematics and sometimes far-fetched engineering. They also share graphic descriptions of sex.
However, Pynchon is a great novelist, and Stephenson is a competent one. What is the difference?
Partly it is down to the care taken over the authorship. Cryptonomicon has holes in its plot that undermine its credibility: why does Andrew Loeb act the way he does? what is the point of Wing? The name Ferdinand is spelt in Japanese differently every time it is written, and I do not think we can blame the Kindle version for that, though there are plenty of examples of Kindle'ese here, such as 'burnwad'.
Partly it is down to the two-dimensionality of the characters, especially the female ones. I cannot see this book appealing to feminists, or women at all really. It is very hard to see why any of the female characters are attracted to the male ones.
But the great thing about Pynchon is that his books are about something. Not just the plot, but the shape of the plot, the subplots, the nature of the characters, the descriptive passages, even the title -- all resound to the same theme. Cryptonomicon in contrast reads like a collection of different ideas, loosely stapled together.
To summarise, I enjoyed reading the book, kept turning the pages, and especially enjoyed the Appendix. Maybe I'd have been more generous with the stars had the book not been so eclipsed by Thomas Pynchon.
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