This book was the delight of my summer (last summer). And it took a lot of the summer to read it, though every sentence was sheer delight. I love great big fat books that are dense with meaning and rich in detail. I like hard science fiction. I like speculative, futuristic themes based on historical accuracy. I like complex characterization and action adventure. I like a realistic AND hopeful vision of the future. This most recent masterpiece by Neal Stephenson has it all.

"Cryptonomicon" is both historical fiction and futuristic speculation, covering the decades between World War II and a time in which our information-based economies, political systems, culture, and philosophies were/are coming to a full simmer.

On one end of this time continuum, Stephenson tells the fascinating story of the wartime race to decode the German and Japanese military plans, and the proto-geeks who built the first digital computers to save democracy. Several decades later, the geek/hacker descendants of these mathematical genuises have become the information entrepreneurs of the new millennium who are trying to establish an "Information Haven" on an island in the South Pacific. Stephenson weaves the two stories together and delivers a fictional account of the major discoveries by which higher mathematics and cryptography were translated into computer software businesses and created the Information Revolution we are experiencing today.

This book is a major education in the connections between mathematics and digital science, post-modern individualism and the astounding changes in our world economy built on that combination. It is by no means a casual read. I had to pay attention, but Stephenson makes a complex subject as interesting as possible. Couched in historical terms and enlivened by good character development, it becomes almost explicable to a dunce like Jaguarwoman. One of the best character studies of hacker geek culture I've read yet can be found in this novel.

And then there is the language. I'm telling you, this guy can coin a phrase. I had to underline hundreds of unconventional and innovative phrases that rang like crystal, so that I could incorporate them into my own vernacular. Reading this novel is also a constant rediscovery of the malleable properties of the English language.

And just to throw in the kitchen sink: there is no shortage of hack and slash testosterone adventure here. Adrenaline junkies can fill up with Stephenson's action sequences. The intrigues of the closing days of WW II have more than enough drama and tragedy to satisfy the most jaded palates.

This book is a watershed in so many ways, if you don't read it you will be hopelessly shut of a really important knowledge loop. If you do read it you will come away with a deep sense of understanding many perplexing issues . . . a little bit better. And you will have had a really good time.o