But he uses Cryptonomicon as his personal petri dish to explore some wide-ranging ideas. He has written several of my favorite hacker novels over the last two decades, including Snow Crash, The Baroque Cycle and Reamde. When I describe Cryptonomicon as the best hacker novel I’ve ever read, I use the word “hacker” from the old-school definition – meaning, not computer trolls who spend their time breaking into systems for fun and profit but technological wizards who have a genuine passion for learning about how things work and making the world a better place with that knowledge. There is something for everyone here, and you owe yourself the pleasure of finding your favorite part. You will be fed cybersecurity history, rollicking adventure, heartbreaking tragedy, the pleasures and perils of a multigenerational family, and the awkwardness of several geek love stories all told from the hacker perspective. You do not skim through this looking for the good parts, but if you take the time to embrace the journey, you will not be disappointed. The result is a multigenerational treasure hunt worthy of an Indiana Jones adventure, but unlike Indiana Jones, this is not a light read. His collection of fictional and nonfictional characters orbits each other across a thousand pages and propels the reader through dual timelines of World War II and the dot-com startup decade of the 1990s. Stephenson delights in explaining how all of these things go together. The author, Neal Stephenson, describes a story that is set around the intersection between the discovery of world-changing math insights and the incipient designs of our computer science founding fathers. To me, Cryptonomicon is the quintessential hacker novel. I said during the introduction to this series that I wouldn’t focus purely on technical literature, or even just nonfiction, for that matter.

Cryptonomicon pages