With this extraordinary first volume in what promises to be an epoch-making masterpiece, 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. As an added bonus, the e-book edition of this New York Times bestseller includes an excerpt from Stephenson's new novel, Seveneves.

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 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; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

Kindle Feature Spotlight

Length: 1168 pages	Word Wise: Enabled	Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Page Flip: Enabled	Audible book: Audible book Switch back and forth between reading the Kindle book and listening to the Audible book with Whispersync for Voice. Add the Audible book for a reduced price of $13.70 when you buy the Kindle book. Available

Customers who bought this item also bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Neal Stephenson

902

Kindle Edition
$7.19
Neal Stephenson

158

Kindle Edition
$6.74
Neal Stephenson

201

Kindle Edition
$9.24
Neal Stephenson

45

Kindle Edition
$19.99
Blake Crouch

3,441

Kindle Edition
$9.99
Neal Stephenson

3,594

Kindle Edition
$13.12

Product details

File Size: 2544 KB
Print Length: 1168 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0380788624
Publisher: William Morrow (March 17, 2009)
Publication Date: March 17, 2009
Language: English
ASIN: B000FC11A6
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray:

Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #12,246 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Japanese
- #7 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Australian & Oceanian
- #14 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Historical Fiction > Asian

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

Be the first video

Your name here

Customer reviews

Write a customer review

See all 1,581 customer reviews

Top customer reviews

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Jason Gordon

A Fantastic Story

March 5, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I find it difficult to believe I could like this book any more than I do. I've tried to read other works from Mr. Stephenson in the past and I found them unreadable, mostly because I picked them with an expectation of some science or fantasy, or some combination of both. That was my bad. I approached this book with a completely open mind which allowed me to become involved with these incredible characters right from the start. This is a great book. The plot is incredibly involved, deep in math knowledge and World War 2 intrigue, and filled with a cast of incredibly complex yet very approachable characters.

14 people found this helpful15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Engrossing, imaginative story - great introduction to Neal Stephenson

December 17, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Stephenson might be the smartest person writing fiction today. He has some of the most imaginative books out there, including futuristic and in some cases prophetic works such as The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (Bantam Spectra Book).

This is a good introduction to Stephenson. It's set in current times (actually more turn of the century, being published in 1999), with parts also set in WWII. It deals with interesting issues of war, computing, and economics. It ties together disparate story lines so that they come together beautifully in the end.

There's action, characters you'll root for, intrigue, and prose that's magnificent. Stephenson is one of the few writers that makes me sometimes stop and re-read a sentence just because of its sheer artistry.

If I had to make a criticism, it's this: as brilliant a writer as Stephenson is, he tends towards abrupt endings that feel like he just got tired of the story and wrapped it up in a hurry. But this is a tiny price to pay in a book this good.

16 people found this helpful17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Boris Starosta

Brilliant, fast paced historical and near futurist adventure

May 9, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

It won some Science Fiction prizes, but in reading it I'd say there is not much science fiction. Instead there's a fair bit of science fact, mathematics/cryptography principles (taught by the way), historical fact and mis-en-scene (and historical fiction/drama), and a bit of futurist thinking (i.e. before bitcoin was invented, Stephenson in effect proposes something like it, except for it would be backed by gold, which bitcoin is not). What is uniquely entertaining is that Stephenson weaves actual famous historical figures into the story, and although it is clearly fiction, you get the sense that what these people did and how they interacted is quite plausible, because Stephenson of course bases their actions and personalities in what is known about these persons.
The other thing I like about this story is the fast paced, adventurous, and far-fetched situations the characters get into. One character is introduced by way of a survival story, where over the course of a couple days or weeks he survives against the most ridiculous odds, over and over again... and yet Stephenson manages to suspend your disbelief the whole way through.
There is also lots of humor.
There is very little sexual content in one part of the story, developing one of the characters. It is not graphic.
The violence is sprinkled in here and there, mostly in the WWII part of the story. It is not central to the story, but certainly serves illustrating the intense situations you might find yourself in in wartime.
If your interests tend toward tech and history and adventure, you'll love this book.
I am now reading Stephenson's prequel Quicksilver (written after Cryptonomicon), set in pre-revolutionary Boston and the European Enlightenment. The same entertaining style but in a more slowly moving story loosely including a cast of giants (Ben Franklin, Isaac Asimov, etc.)

11 people found this helpful12 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Matthew H. Dick

A modern classic ...

June 30, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is one of the finest books I've ever read, and I've read a lot, from pulp to classics. It should definitely be on the list of "several hundred books you should read before you die." It is highly entertaining, extremely well written, and fast moving from start to finish. But it is literature; if the author had lived in the 19th century, he'd have been rubbing sleeves with Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. He's that good. When I search for contemporary examples similar is originality, skill, and scope, what comes to minds is "We, The Drowned" by Carsten Jensen.

The thread running through the book is cryptography, during WWII and in the modern era as computer encryption and hacking to circumvent it. The book gives good historical insight into the massive contribution Allied cryptographers made to the war effort in breaking German and Japanese codes, and into the difficulty of concealing from the enemy the fact that these codes had been broken. The historical and present-day periods are linked in that the characters in WWII are either still alive in the present-day part of the story, or are the grandparents of the present-day characters. I found the main characters in the book to be believable and well developed. There are mildly technical descriptions of coding and codebreaking throughout the book that are, however, geared to the lay reader and can be read or skimmed according to the reader's inclinations. I personally found them readable and interesting. The book also gives an insight into how mathematicians' minds work, with humerous illutrations such as one of the WWII characters mathematically characterizing the 'Horniness Index' as it applies to a young woman he's fallen in love with and the effect of this on his work. Sketches like this were simply fun to read. Overall, the book deals with serious issues, but the underling tone throughout is one of wry humor.

Caution: Don't pick up this book unless you have a good chunk of time. It is over 1000 pages of addictive reading.

3 people found this helpful4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Hannibelectro

If you can deal with the pace, there's a lot to be found

November 29, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Neal Stephenson is a fantastic writer. I have enjoyed everything that I have read by him.
This was the hardest book of his for me to finish but it still was wonderful.

It's about cryptography, the military, Alan Turing and so much more.

My only complaint was that is was a very slow pace to the book. It's incredibly detailed and I could not imagine how to write it any better or faster. It's simply a dense read. A good dense read

6 people found this helpful7 people found this helpful

Helpful

Comment

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway

This item: Cryptonomicon

Set up a giveaway

What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?

Kindle Edition

Yuval Noah Harari

5,095

$14.99
Kindle Edition

Neal Stephenson

902

$7.19

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.