I finished this a few weeks ago and I love. It’s definitely slower than Snow Crash (and a bit less tongue-in-cheek) but it’s such a wild ride. I love the mix of historical fiction and hacker-punk with a dash of political intrigue. It’s pretty thick, but definitely worth the read if you liked Snow Crash.
What do you guys think? Should this be one of our next picks?
also this is the only book I know of with horniness graphs, I guess that counts for something
This is kind of amusing, because I started reading it before bed a few nights ago.
shorter? than Snow Crash? I’m not sure we’re talking about the same book, the paperback I have of Snow Crash runs in at about 500 pages, but my copy of Cryptonomicon is +1000.
Either way, I’m reading it right now (I need a change of pace from some crazy post-modern experimental stuff I’m reading for work! :p)
It was my first Stephenson, and I loved it. I still love it very, very much. If you are a bit of a math/CS geek or you wanna read bit more about cryptography, I recommend The Code Book, by Simon Singh
Good catch, I’m not sure how the shorter snuck in there. Changed the wording a bit.
Cool reccomendation, too. I’ll have to check that out.
Tied with Snow Crash for my favorite Stephenson book. Really great characters, interesting plot reveal, it’s got everything.
Just did some reading about Cryptonomicon. Looks really interesting.
I just finished it… definitely worth a read, though I wonder if the length will make it a difficult book club choice.
Besides which, I’m very much of the mind that we should read multiple authors… and we already read Stephenson as part of the book club.
But still, good book.
Yeah, that’s true. And it’s not particular science fiction either, although that’s not necessarily a rule - it would just be the first.
How did you guys feel about the ending? I thought it came to a close quicker than I thought, especially after such a long buildup. I guess it more or less wrapped up all the character and plot threads, but at the end I felt… Kind of unsatisfied, somehow?
For those who have not read the book THERE BE SPOILERS AHEAD!
Now that that is settled.
[SPOILER]I was profoundly dissatisfied by the ending. To be fair, I didn’t feel like the book was really building towards anything, it was just an interesting intertwining of three, four different storylines. The gold thing and the currency thing wasn’t worth the rest of it - and I think that money as the motivator just didn’t convince me, at least not the way it was written. I have other little nitpicks with the book (wow somebody doesn’t like academics in the humanities. women characters, ahem?), but [/SPOILER]
despite them I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it. I’m not sure I would re-read it, though.
I loved the ending. It tied everything together very neatly. In fact, I point to it as the one book Stephenson ended well.