Neal Stephenson, you're killing me!

If there was a reading olymipcs, the triathlon would involve reading three Neal Stepehnson books in a year as their length, heft and girth are enough to test any reader's stamina. This year I completed just this challenge, having read Anathem, Quicksilver and Cryptonomicon.

Whew.

The book that started this mania was Anathem, which I simply could not put down. Even at 900 pages, I devoured it in less than two weeks and if you are going to take on Stephenson, I suggest that you start with it.

Cryptonomicon was probably the second runner up. While it was another 900 page tome, it read much more quickly than I thought it would. The mathematics which pops up here and there throughout the book appealed to me in a deeply geeky way. And while I am quick to point out when a novel of this size could benefit from some serious editing -- I don't think that applies here. If you are going to read Stephenson, part of the appeal is the quirky, geeky, and sometime hilarious asides that crop up on a regular basis. While the main story could go on without them, something would be lost.

I think I'll stay away from Stephenson for a while and give myself time to recover, but I'm sure I'll be back. How can I resist?

I have to mention Simon Singh's The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography -- which looks at crypto in WWII, as this is the focus of Cryptonomicon.  If you read or have read Cryptonomicon, it would be a fabulous companion book.

Comments

[carolyn]

i looooooved cryptonomicon. loved. and it went way way way faster for me than the follow-up prequels did.

[Paul Lamb]

Gee, I've been reading a 600-page Iris Murdoch novel for three weeks and I'm only half way through it. I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that.