Cryptonomicon zooms all over the world, careening  conspiratorially back and forth between two time periods––World War II  and the present. Our 1940s heroes are the brilliant mathematician  Lawrence Waterhouse, cryptanalyst extraordinaire, and gung ho,  morphine-addicted marine Bobby Shaftoe. They're part of Detachment  2702, an Allied group trying to break Axis communication codes while  simultaneously preventing the enemy from figuring out that their codes  have been broken. Their job boils down to layer upon layer of  deception. Dr. Alan Turing is also a member of 2702, and he explains  the unit's strange workings to Waterhouse. "When we want to sink a  convoy, we send out an observation plane first.... Of course, to  observe is not its real duty––we already know exactly where the  convoy is. Its real duty is to be observed.... Then,  when we come round and sink them, the Germans will not find it  suspicious."

   All of this secrecy resonates in the present-day story line, in which  the grandchildren of the WWII heroes––inimitable programming geek  Randy Waterhouse and the lovely and powerful Amy Shaftoe––team up to  help create an offshore data haven in Southeast Asia and maybe uncover  some gold once destined for Nazi coffers. To top off the paranoiac  tone of the book, the mysterious Enoch Root, key member of Detachment  2702 and the Societas Eruditorum, pops up with an unbreakable  encryption scheme left over from WWII to befuddle the 1990s  protagonists with conspiratorial ties.

   Cryptonomicon is vintage Stephenson from start to finish: short  on plot, but long on detail so precise it's exhausting. Every page has  a math problem, a quotable in-joke, an amazing idea, or a bit of sharp  prose. Cryptonomicon is also packed with truly weird  characters, funky tech, and crypto––all the crypto you'll ever need,  in fact, not to mention all the computer jargon of the moment. A word  to the wise: if you read this book in one sitting, you may die of  information overload (and starvation). ––Therese Littleton    ––This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.