I finally finished Cryptonomicon. All 917 pages. Wow, what a tour de force by Neal Stephenson!

There is a mythic technological framework that makes sense, but the novel is very technical at times and some passages would make sense in a textbook. There is even an appendix written by Bruce Schneier, a renowned security technologist, a “security guru” according to The Economist, explaining the workings of the Solitaire encryption system (in the novel it is called “Pontifex”)described by the mysterious character Enoch Root (more about him shortly).

Cryptonomicon is a complex, multi-layered story developed in two story-lines. The first takes place in the WWII era and it is about the work at Bletchley park, centre of Allied code-breaking operations. The second takes part to the present day(end of the 20th century) and it is about a team of a bit paranoid computer whizzes who are planning to build a data haven in Southern Asia. Halfway through the two story-lines do start to converge and the reader is able to connect the dots between the two eras. Stevenson shows the insanity of the war and at the same time he does a brilliant job introducing us the personalities, mind-set and even the paranoias of the present-day geek culture

Cryptonomicon is a tough but fascinating reading. The plot is simple and humorous, but the novel is very dense and packed with information about anything and everything. The human element is very strong in Stephenson’s work. You really need to pay attention to the characters,two computer nerds, (the granddad, with some markers of autism and a love of information theory and cryptanalysis and his grandson), a marine, unlike any other, and a Japanese engineer, and their relationships.

I am impressed by Stephenson’s work. He is one of those writers that can write both a cutting edge science-fiction book and a serious literary work. William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) had this quality. One of the things the book asks, I think, is what history is going to turn out to be. We are now living day-to-day in a world that it is shaped by technological inventions and events. History, for Neal Stephenson, is the history of technology.

Read the full review at Maquina Lectora