Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Have you ever hated yourself for finishing a book? For a long, long month, I resisted my own desire and my wife's urgings to drop the book. I should have listened. The book badly needs editing, the characters are shallow, and the author's (very) high opinion of himself stains the pages. There are two crypto-analytic themes to this book: World War II codebreaking and the struggles of a modern day cryptographic computer company to turn profitable. By page 500 (of the 910), I had no idea how they related; by page 700, I had an inkling but no longer cared. I only finished because I felt some undefined need to do so. I would guess that by the time Stephenson wrote this book, he had enough critical and financial success that he was able to demand no restraints from his publisher. Consequently, the writing meanders and much of it is irrelevant. Stephenson dedicates three pages to description when three paragraphs (and sometimes only three sentences) will do. Worse yet, many of these wanderings are completely unrelated to the story, such as discussions of Captain Crunch and wisdom teeth. By page 300, the reader can see when these airy insignificances arise, and to continue, he or she must painfully wade through them. Most of the characters in the book share the exact same personality: gruff and cynical. The exceptions are academics, who are portrayed as wimps with no grasp on reality, and East Asians, who all have a personality similar to the characters from Shogun. Otherwise, a World War II Marine shares the same personality as a modern day billionaire-investor who shares the same personality as a modern day entrepreneur. An example of the same-flavor feel of Stephenson's characters: One character (Enoch Root) was an Army Priest during World War II and dedicated himself to peaceful causes afterwards. By the time one of the modern characters encounters Root, in a jail cell in the Phillippines, Root (who must be at least in his mid-eighties) has been running a Church in the Phillippines for a number of years. Nevertheless, Root describes the goddess Athena as a virgin who was "leg-f***ked [] once but did not achieve penetration." This same character uses the word "dissed," just like any modern fifteen year old boy. Character development, needless to say, is non-existent in this book. On the plus side, Stephenson has encyclopedic knowledge and an expansive vocabulary. Even this becomes a turn-off, however: Stephenson's writing reflects a man who thinks of himself as intellectually beyond the realm of mere mortals. Perhaps he is different in real life, but he comes across as the geek in high school who justified his social-ineptitude by the fact that he got great grades (especially in math!). That same geek who got great grades lost many arguments because he lacked intellectual and logical skills outside of "book learnin'." Stephenson is like that: For example, he ticks off a long list of German and American technological advances during World War II, but then concludes that the Allies won because America stood for technological advance while Germany stood for mindless warfare. In another story line, Stephenson's modern day protagonists set out to create a data bank near the Phillippines that is protected by the most advanced cryptography in existence. These protagonists are some of the most brilliant computer code-writers and cryptographers in the world, and they are attempting to set up a company which hides information so well that even governments cannot access it. These same brilliant people are shocked to discover that criminals are keenly interested in the project. Again, Stephenson has incredible knowledge but weak logical skills. Why give the book two stars instead of one? There are some redeeming aspects of the book: I liked the aspects of cryptography and analysis, a subject to which I have never paid much attention. Any book that I can learn from cannot be all bad.