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Cryptonomicon

By: Neal Stephenson
Narrated by: William Dufris
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Publisher's Summary

Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse - mathematical genius and young Captain in the US Navy - is assigned to Detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Watrehouse and Detachment 2702 - commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe - is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.

Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia - a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat.

But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy, with its roots in Detachment 2702, linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought, and creative daring.

©1999 Neil Stephenson (P)2009 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about Cryptonomicon

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    3 out of 5 stars

could not finish...

Any additional comments?

I was not able to finish the book, nor even get to the middle of it....It's very slow, full of various very thorough descriptions, numbers, codes...and it was difficult to follow the storyline of each character as i would forget what was happening with them in the previous chapters when the author mentioned them... Somebody probably enjoys this kind of detailed stories...Not sure if i get back to this book to continue reading...

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  • Sam
  • 19-07-2016

One of Neal Stephenson's best.

I've read this book on paper more than once, and listened to the audiobook twice. It's a great story, paced well and with interesting characters. Listeners will probably learn a little about topics that include cryptography, history, SE Asian geography and the (heavily fictionalised) history of modern computing. A highly entertaining, thinking person's adventure novel.

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epic

excellent story, great characters, didn't want it to end. Have loved all his books as audio. excellent productions.

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William Dufris is amazing.

Now I'll leave the review of the book to people much better equipped to do so, but in short this comfort infodump of a book is right up my alley and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
But the narrator, William Dufris is absolutely amazing and makes this listen even more enjoyable. He got the characters and voices pat down, so that when he starts talking in a new chapter, the person speaking doesn't have to be introduced. You know who he is.
I've started downloading books now because he is narrating them.

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    5 out of 5 stars

Wonderfully mathematical entwined yarn

This book proves heart and maths can coexist, something a diehard nerd like myself already knew but rarely see blossoming in the outside world. Well worth a read for nerds and literary types. Makes me want to understand both the Second World War and number theory at greater depth.

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That was fun.

There's just to much to say.

Thoughtful, suprisingly romantic at times, entertaining for the most part, it's long, which can be daunting but is so very rewarding.

I saw other reviews about math being prevalent, there's only a couple of minutes of actually number talk over the 40 hours.

also as usual William Dufris, is just flawless.

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Wow

If you like history, science and a perfectly timed humor you must listen to this book. At 42 hour long I still found myself wanting more, Truly excellent!

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Brilliant, moving

I absolutely loved this story, the heroism of the ww1 men and the ingenious modern men. Who would have thought math could be so interesting?

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Neil Stevenson is a genius

My all time favourite novel. Such a phenomenal mind, and eclectic mix of science&history. Brilliant!

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    4 out of 5 stars

360 degree story

a bit to much mathematical detail for my taste, but otherwise very entertaining. liked it a lot!

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