Books I love: Cryptonomicon
For a sci-fi novel, there’s not much sci-fi in this book (one ambiguously immortal character named root being the exception). Cryptonomicon could be better classified as nerd-fi. It speaks to Neal Stephenson’s talent that my decidedly un-nerdy, quasi hipster cousin is loving it — it’s just a really good yarn, in which the nerdy characters are in touch with their bad-ass sides, the bad-ass characters are in touch with their nerdy sides, and the protagonist gets the girl.
I re-read it for what must be at least the fifth time last month, and it’s managed to stay engaging, which places it way up there with my all-time favorites.
October 28th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
[...] It being tough to go out and be social, I’ve been trying to distract myself with the media — books (Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, Cryptonomicon and Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck), and Netflix (Bottle Rocket, Cashback, Heroes, Delicatessen, This is Spinal Tap). But a wise character in a movie once said, “if you don’t make it yourself, it isn’t fun. It’s entertainment.” So, yesterday, I took Uncle Synapse up on his offer to run around in the woods and shoot my coworkers with paintballs. Running around the woods like a chipmunk on acid screaming and yelling and getting all muddy: nice. Shooting coworkers: meh. Welts: not so nice. Props to Dylan for wearing his drum major costume to play. [...]