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(Including Common Lisp, added Robert Morris)Greenspun's Tenth Rule of Programming says, that any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. You would be correct in such a statement. If it isn't, well, this happens. I finished reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson about a week ago. Snow Crash or The Diamond Age are natural places to start. I don't remember a book that I both liked and didn't like this much!Arrgh! However, this is not a book that I can dismiss regardless of whether I like it. Maybe a star for the number of laughs I got per 100 pages. You could say I'm a fan of his work. If it isn't, well, this happens. You would be correct in such a statement.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, is to techno-intellectuals as Bryant-Denny Stadium is to redneck college football fans: it is a monument. My list of unread, prepurchased titles sat neatly in a stack by my disused fire-place and none of them set me alive with anticipation. I've read it twice, recommended it to others, and I'm sure I'll read it again. I thought he would never be appeased until I begged him to stop with a deck of cards, morse code and a wide variety of pleading looks!I am FINIIIIIISHED! The voice actor gives the different characters different voices, etc. My list of unread, prepurchased titles sat neatly in a stack by my disused fire-place and none of them set me alive with anticipation. The precise date of this storyline is not established, but the ages of characters, the technologies described, and certain date-specific references suggest that it is set in the late 1990s, at the time of the internet boom and the Stephenson also includes a precise description of (and even Since the original printing of the script, Stephenson has made several changes. So I hopped on the subway, rode into Union Square and strolled over to B&N on 17th street and found wOne day I went out shopping for a book. I am glad I finally got around to reading this as I had read so many sterling reviews and I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson (4.0 stars. I am glad I finally got around to reading this as I had read so many sterling reviews and I am a big fan of Neal Stephenson (Neal Stephenson performed his usual wizardry in "Cryptonomicon", a very long book that is a sequel to "The Baroque Cycle", which was in fact written later. I have several friends who love This book took me over a month to read, with a couple of short books sandwiched in between. whirls from WWII cryptography and top-secret bullion shipments to a present-day quest by computer whizzes to build a data haven amid corporate shark-infested waters, by way of multiple present-tense … Snow Crash or The Diamond Age are natural places to start. It might sound dangerous to some but just plain stupid to computer geeks such as myself. I thought it didn't have an ending! Cryptonimcon is crazy dense and full of nerdI don't recommend starting with Cryptonomicon. And that's how I came up with The novel's Cryptonomicon, described as a "cryptographer's bible", is a The action takes place in two periods—World War II and the late 1990s, during the Circa 1997, Randy Waterhouse (Lawrence's grandson) joins his old Fictionalized versions of several historical figures appear in the World War II storyline: Is "Big Bang Theory" your idea of reality TV? If he hired a first yr EE student to clarify some basic principles, snipped about 500 pages and got some ritalin, this book might be tolerable. And while most of the book seems to operate under the idea that the rich dentist is the main threat to Epiphyte, he suddenly tags out and a Chinese guy that we’ve only seen as a slave during WWII is revealed as the hidden hand behind it all very late in the book, yet we have no present day scenes with him. Then I recommend this Aspire for fluency in geek speak? However, it's not enough “savoir faire” for any of the content to make sense. Stephenson's prodigious new yarn (after The Diamond Age, 1995, etc.) Fortunately for him, he is vastly smarter than me so while he was quite generously acting annoyed he was probably thinking to himself, "Maybe one day I will spoil math and engineering and the details of Riemann zeta functions for Conrad." Snow Crash– 162,578 The Diamond Age – 189,043 Cryptonomicon- 411,810 Anathem – 333,837 Popular Novel Word Count The Worlds Largest Word Count Encyclopedia You could say I'm a fan of his work.

His writing style is dense and there is a great deal of information being presented to you.

He does have some technical background (he drops Unix hints and anagrams the name of a supposed deity who dies and then later comes back w/ no explanation??) I have several friends who love My four-star rating will likely puzzle those friends of mine who have had to listen to me piss and moan about this novel for the past six months.

[ The stuff with Andrew Loeb, a litigious asshole who once drove Randy into bankruptcy, showing up as an arrow shooting/knife wielding attacker wearing a business suit in the jungle at the end seems to come out of the blue since he’s really only appeared in flashback form before that. I don't remember a book that I both liked and didn't like this much!Aspire for fluency in geek speak? I mean, it's a messy sprawling epic that's almost too clever by half and full of hilarious characters and history just-so tweaked to accommodate them and also pure unadulterated geekiness.