The most cigarettes...

[vaznetti]

I finished reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon this morning. Clocking in at 1130 pages, it was a good book to skim, which is pretty much what I did. It had a complex plot involving cryptography, computers and gold, set during WWII and in the present, or something like the present. Despite being bloated in Tom Clancy way it had some brilliant passages, especially in the WWII section. I think I've read the exchange between Donitz and one of his U-Boat commanders (on p. 485) a dozen times, and it makes me laugh each time. And you have to know that an author who can make U-Boats funny has some kind of talent. So all in all, entertaining.

It might be of interest to those of you who know or care about computers or cryptography.* It's the kind of brick that the B. H. and I usually buy to read on airplanes, although in this case I sent the B. H. off with the last two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, hoping to hook him on GRRM so that the plan aceofkittens** and I hatched to make him buy copies of the next one hardcover in the UK and send it to us might bear fruit. It seems possible, as he read the first one quite happily. Not that the B. H. is opposed to the notion of buying fiction in hardcover anyway; bookbuying is among his addictions. And it seems like one of the better reasons to have disposable income.

Now that this is done I'll return to Baudolino, the new Umberto Eco. It seems to be about the disjunction between story (i.e. the words for things) and reality (i.e. things) and therefore just like all other books by Umberto Eco.


*unless Stephenson is as careless on these subjects as he is on Greek mythology (in which he uses a metaphor that is crap; and yes, I am one of the people who can make that judgment). If that is the case, there would be factual inaccuracies which might well drive you up a wall.

**note to aceofkittens: did you email me? are we in some bizarre no-communication land?

Comments

Cryptonomicon

[rhi]

Yeah, I skimmed chunks of that one, too. Personally, I really wish he'd stuck with the WWII parts and left out the back and forth to present day. I got pissed off to be 400 pages into a 1100 page novel and still not have any idea *why* we were skipping back and forth 60 years. ::shrug:: Guess I just didn't really think the modern day stuff was essential to the novel.

Hoo boy, though, between the discussions on orgasm as necessary to rational thought (or not, for that matter, depending on which decade they were in) and the story of the woman who could only orgasm in/on high dollar furniture, I couldn't resist the snarky, genderist comments of 'Definitely written by a man....'

Now, what were the other books? Since I just finished reading The Fall of the Kings?

Re: Cryptonomicon

[vaznetti]

The WWII stuff was way, way more interesting, I agree, and the big payoff at the end was kind of a letdown, so I don't know that you missed much. (Although the portrayal of Douglas MacArthur was very funny. Colpetely loopy.) I tend to skip paragraphs in books which go on too long, so I just ignored the lectures and focused on the funny bits.

But yes. Definitely a man's book. And a man who does not appear to have ever met a woman that he liked enough to get to know.

I really do like the Umberto Eco book, by the way--it's fun to read and has the Archpoet in it (which you probably only would care about if you'd read a bunch of Medieval latin poetry, so never mind...)

Re: Cryptonomicon

[rhi]

::nodding:: Oh, yeah. The females in that thing... ::shaking head:: And I got to the end and said, 'They set molten gold loose down a channel that had been landmined?!? Are they out of what passes for their minds?!?" I just thought the current stuff was a little too carefully PC, I guess.

I've never managed to make it through an Eco book, sorry. Even Name of the Rose just drove me nutty. of course, if the first couple chapters don't grab me, I'm likely to give up. I'm bad that way.

George R.R. Martin

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

A Feast of Crows (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553801503/qid=1042998519/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-0688081-4247962?v=glance&s=books) should be coming out in April in the US. I still haven't read the third one yet; given how long I've waited, I'm just going to get it in mass market in a couple of months. I have a lot of his backlist to read as well.

Re: George R.R. Martin

[vaznetti]

I didn't realize that it was going to be out so soon. Good news. The third was the most engaging, I thought, so I have high hopes for the fourth.

Feast of Crows

[aceofkittens.livejournal.com]

Don't hold your breath. GRRM isn't even done writing it. :) You should check out www.georgerrmartin.com -- yeah, Amazon has it coming out in "April," but even if he finishes it tonight, it'll be at least October til it hits bookstores. :)

I did email you earlier, but probably to the wrong address. Still not king.

Re: Feast of Crows

[vaznetti]

Still prettiest, though.