Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods- -World War II and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho, morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment 2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a convoy, we send out an observation plane first. Of course, to observe is not its real duty--we already know exactly where the convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed. Then, when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it suspicious."

All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which the grandchildren of the WWII heroes--inimitable programming geek Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe--team up to help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment 2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

Das Buch geht mit der Fantasy und Science Fiction box auf die Reise.

It´s been a while since I read this book. Though I like Neal Stephensons more fururistic storys more (Snow Crash is of course an alltime-favourite as I like the cyberpunk-theme a lot), I think that this one was pretty good, too.
A little bit confusing at times it was not too easy to read but in the end I liked it.
It stays in the box.

Das Buch kam mit meiner Fantasy und Science-Fiction Box an.

Reist in der Umzugsbox Fantasy mit.

Kam mit meiner Umzugs-Fantasybox an.

Neal Stephenson steht auf meiner "irgendwann mal lesen"-Liste ... ich bin gespannt!