Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

This is not a book to take lightly.  At 900+ pages, it has intimidated me from my bookcase for years.  As a techie, I've always known that I should read it for "street cred" but it seemed overwhelming, even for a voracious reader like me.  However, on the way out the door on the way to Iceland, I stuck it in my suitcase, figuring maybe on vacation I could plow through it. 

The copy that I have is one I swiped off my dad's desk during a trip home a couple years back.  He says its from his friend Stu, but there is an inscription in the front to "B-squared" thanking said recipient for all his help with math tutoring.  I have no idea who that is but it was nice to read a book that someone had received as a gift.

I started to read The Book of Dave: A Novel in Iceland and knew by page 30 that I was not going to finish it.  It's still sitting in a hotel room in Reykjavik.  With a deep breath and high hopes, I turned to Cryptonomicon.  Cryptonomicon was published in May of 1999, right around when I graduated college.  It's a wild book - alternating between WWII, where a group of Americans have broken the German Enigma code but have to pretend they haven't, and the current day, where a small group of entrepenuers are trying to build a "data safe haven" in the Philipines as the Internet is becoming more relevant to globalization.

I am not sure what is more impressive, Stephanson's attention to detail in his character development (which can be pages long just to make a small point) or his prescience in technology.  He describes several technologies that I don't remember from 1999, including cameras in laptops and handheld Internet devices.  He also predicts Internet currency which hasn't come to pass but I wouldn't bet against.

Another fun part of reading the book is his depiction of famous people - a tactic I am not always a fan of in fiction.  However, I could hardly dislike his rendering of Alan Turing or General McArthur as they came alive on the page.  Also notable was his collection of codes and mathematics in the text.  Most memorable is a particular code that was created for the book by a favorite techie of mine, Bruce Schneier.

And all of these components of a book come together in something that reads like a Tom Clancy novel with a little didactic Jostein Gaarder thrown in.  I'd say reading this is a rite of passage for geeks and for WWII buffs.  For everyone else it may not be worth the effort.