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Cargando... Cryptonomicon (1999 original; edición 2002)por Neal Stephenson
Información de la obraCriptonomicón por Neal Stephenson (1999)
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Inscríbete en LibraryThing para averiguar si este libro te gustará. Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. Cryptonomicon is mostly spent see-sawing across a half-century divide of two generations between World War II and the late 1990s. Its central topic is cryptology, and it was written written when one could still be idealistic about cryptocurrency. It is an enormously long novel made up of short, single-sitting chapters, and it includes such apparent digressions as a gratuitous Penthouse "reader's" letter (365) and a functional Perl script (480). My favorite chapter was certainly "Organ" (569 ff.), which built on the running conceit that the electronic computer had been inspired by the programmability of a pipe organ. But it also punned on the organ of generation belonging to 1940s viewpoint character Lawrence Waterhouse, whose libido takes center stage for most of the chapter. It offers hilarious notions regarding a global Ejaculation Control Conspiracy, and supplements this theory with a walk-on character's paranoia about the Bavarian Illuminati's engineering of the well-tempered musical tuning system as a medium for subliminal corruption. Cameos by historical figures, including Alan Turing, Ronald Reagan, and General MacArthur, are handled amusingly. Although Stephenson's acknowledgments page disclaims any supposition that the book is a roman à clef regarding his own family, there are certainly some other characters and businesses given new names to insulate our actual world from their fictional deployment. For reasons I can't quite fathom, for example, he calls the Linux operating system Finux. The ubiquitous use of present tense, general narrative sprawl, and conspiracy theorizing all reminded me of the work of Thomas Pynchon, and in particular Gravity's Rainbow. (Pynchon later tried out a hacker yarn of his own in Bleeding Edge as well.) Although Stephenson is published as a genre author, I think the comparable Pynchon books are actually more science-fictional than Cryptonomicon. I have read other reader reaction that took issue with the end of this book. I didn't find it weak or dismaying at all, but I think the last five chapters (after "Return") need to be read as denouement, or they will suffer the appearance of anticlimax. My biggest surprise was just how unexpectedly, gobsmackingly funny this book was! Like many of Stephenson's books, the ending on this one seemed a little... off. But I will almost certainly read/listen to this again, just for the humor. And I heartily recommend the audiobook version. It makes the size of the novel seem less daunting.
You'd think such a web of narratives would be hard to follow. Certainly, it's difficult to summarize. But Stephenson, whose science-fiction novels Snow Crash (1992) and The Diamond Age (1995) have been critical and commercial successes despite difficult plotting, has made a quantum jump here as a writer. In addition to his bravura style and interesting authorial choices (Stephenson tells each of his narratives in the present tense, regardless of when they occur chronologically), the book is so tightly plotted that you never lose the thread. But Stephenson is not an author who's content just to tell good stories. Throughout the book, he takes on the task of explaining the relatively abstruse technical disciplines surrounding cryptology, almost always in ways that a reasonably intelligent educated adult can understand. As I read the book I marked in the margins where Stephenson found opportunities to explain the number theory that underlies modern cryptography; "traffic analysis" (deriving military intelligence from where and when messages are sent and received, without actually decoding them); steganography (hiding secret messages within other, non-secret communications); the electronics of computer monitors (and the security problems created by those monitors); the advantages to Unix-like operating systems compared to Windows or the Mac OS; the theory of monetary systems; and the strategies behind high-tech business litigation. Stephenson assumes that his readers are capable of learning the complex underpinnings of modern technological life. Pertenece a las series editorialesContenido enContienePremiosDistincionesListas de sobresalientes
Fiction.
Science Fiction.
Historical Fiction.
HTML: 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 U.S. 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 Waterhouse 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 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. .No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Google Books — Cargando... GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999Clasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio:
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It is somewhat surprising I had not hitherto stumbled on this work previous to now. Certainly, I had heard many references to this particular novel, but had never stumbled across it in my path. It was with some surprise then when I finally did in a used bookstore.
The novel starts out somewhat slowly and since the work is over a 1,000 pages you can expect that the plot will move more slowly than a book of smaller length. Stephenson's writing style is markedly different here than from his other works, but there are certain themes present here that are echoed in his future works. One could posit, in a sense, that each work is a continuation in a universe that Stephenson has concocted viewed at different angles. Indeed, certain characters, such as Enoch Root, appear--and certain themes like the desire to be immortal and Greek myth permeate the work throughout in patterned ways.
As is expected with any novel, certain characters die off, and Stephenson does the job of telling the story well enough that you, as the reader, sort of hate to see it happen. He likewise does a good job of allowing chapter endings to dangle in a suspenseful sort of way only to reintroduce them later at a slightly different point in time. In a sense, the reader has to be brought up to speed so that one can understand where one is in the unfolding plot. This is good in the sense that it keeps the mind agile, but is a little confusing at times as a final statement about a previous suspenseful matter may reach resolution in a future chapter in about the middle of completion. One must be a little on the alert to be sure one has not missed the transition.
On the other hand, the work bends "Back on itself" in the sense that themes introduced are bent and turned back around later although not always explicitly stated. It is left to the reader to notice these small bends and permutations. A familiarity with Greek myth, as is true in most of Stephenson's other work, is helpful.
The book decries in the beginning that it is not attempting to reveal any secrets. However, the story Stephenson puts together offers a plausible alternative history to events that did actually occur. The characters are the same as ones that appear in history and have dialogs that are similar to the ones they truly had. One wonders if there is not a Roman a Clef that Stephenson is somewhere secreting, but of course, he assures us that his work is not trying to reveal any secrets. Of course, in the world of the Cryptonomicon, we, the reader, especially by the end of the book know that this is exactly what he wants us to believe and that, above all else, we should be very, very suspicious of. ( )