The Cryptonomicon
I finished Neal Stephenson's The Cryptonomicon the other day. It was, simply, a divine reading experience - must have been the most fun reading a book I've had in a long time. Stephenson always has this skill of taking several different story threads, seemingly completely unrelated to each other, and then combining them together in ways that are completely novel, and yet at the same time make complete sense when you look at them in retrospect. This skill is especially notable in Cryptonomicon, because the stories start out separated not only in place, but in time, as well: we start with a US Marine, Bobby Shaftoe, fighting World War II in Shanghai; Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a slightly-autistic American math wizard who attends Princeton and is a contemporary of Alan Turing; and Randy Waterhouse, a hacker and computer geek engaging in a new e-business endeavour at the end of the 20th Century. The ways in which these storylines dovetail themselves is an amazing feat of plotting - I couldn't help but think that reading this would be akin to watching Hadyn compose a piece of music.
As far as the plots are concerned, I don't want to give away too much to anyone that might eventually want to read the book. Let's just say that, like Stephenson's other books, this one can safely be said to have it all: hacking, cryptography, nazis, gold, nazi gold, action, suspense, computers, sex, comedy, haiku, oddly-named Welsh stereotypes... all that and yet I've barely stratched the surface.
One of the reasons I think Stephenson's work is so wonderful is that, although he's a science fiction writer, he never forgets that the 'fiction' should be primary to the story, and that the science in the story should serve the fiction elements. At the same time, though, he manages to balance this with science that is completely believable and well thought-out; the only other writer that I can think of that can make the process of reaching scientific conclusions that thrilling is Robert J Sawyer, which definitely puts Stephenson in august company.
I'm seriously considering lifting my current book-buying embargo to pick up Quicksilver, the next part of
Stephenson's epic. I don't know what it is that would cause an author to write an 1,100 page novel, and then think "what I really need to do now is discuss those same ideas without the limitations of a single novel", but this is one time that I am really glad that he did.