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Cryptonomicon
Can a sunken submarine and a Nazi war code determine the future of the Internet?
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Cryptonomicon
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By Neal Stephenson
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Avon Books
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$27.50/$39.50 Canada
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Hardcover, May 1999
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ISBN 0-380-97346-4
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Review by A.M. Dellamonica
 awrence Waterhouse is an eccentric cryptographer working for Allied Intelligence during World War II. Part of a highly classified code-breaking detachment, his duties include coming up with elaborate plans to prevent various enemy factions from realizing that their codes have been compromised. These plans are then executed by Bobby Shaftoe, a supremely competent and extraordinarily gung-ho Marine who has no idea what his often strange orders
are meant to accomplish. But Shaftoe is a survivor, a man who doesn't trouble himself over irrational commands.
The war, as experienced by Shaftoe and Waterhouse, is one of two which play out in Neal Stephenson's new book, Cryptonomicon. The story alternates between the 1940s and the present day, where a bloodless legal battle is being waged between corporations and governments. In the middle of this web of lawsuits is Waterhouse's grandson, Randy. Randy is trying to establish a data haven, a secure computer system whose carefully encoded information will be impervious to government tampering or censorship. Global freedom of information--and the triumph of freedom over totalitarianism--depends on his success.
A chief goal of the data haven is to enable electronic fund transfers, preferably conducted in the haven's own currency. The need for bullion to back this currency is clear. To save the haven, Randy must decipher his dead grandfather's mysterious actions during the war years, doing his sleuthing while simultaneously being stalked by an old enemy, falling in love, fending off bankruptcy, and staying out of jail. As his efforts to unlock the past reveal hints of a massive World War II conspiracy...
Adrenaline and depth
Cryptonomicon showcases Stephenson's well-established strengths, especially his ironic, hyperactive writing style. The integration of cryptography theory with the narrative flow is both innovative and deft. More importantly, the depiction of World War II covers historical ground usually ignored by other authors, and it will create fresh horror in the minds of readers who have become inured to the standard imagery of the era. It is this that makes Cryptonomicon an important work instead of a lightweight thriller.
The book is carried almost entirely by male characters, which is understandable given the masculine domination of both intelligence circles and Randy's world of hackers and role-playing friends. Readers hoping to encounter a female character like Y.T. from Snow Crash will be disappointed by the imbalance, the more so because Stephenson creates women so intelligently. Amid Stephenson's current crop of men, those involved in World War II are the most compelling, but their tale is far less urgent, as readers already know who won their fight.
Cryptonomicon's overall effect is a strange one. While thoroughly enjoyable, readers familiar with Stephenson's other novels may feel that he is beginning to repeat himself. Randy is a maladjusted nerd and uncomfortably similar--especially as he falls in love--to the protagonist of Stephenson's novel, Zodiac. And where Snow Crash had intensely interesting passages about language development, Cryptonomicon has math. The similarities are countless and minor, and luckily none are strong enough to spoil the book. Stephenson fans will still love this novel, but the ideal audience for it might well be a reader who has never encountered his earlier work.
Overall, Cryptonomicon transcends its weaknesses to offer plenty of food for thought, and it does so without sacrificing humor or entertainment value.
This is compelling, funny, and exciting all at once. You will laugh out loud...and then find you're utterly terrified 10 pages later.
-- A.M.
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The Silicon Dagger
Today Kentucky, tomorrow the world
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The Silicon Dagger
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By Jack Williamson
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Tor Books
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$23.95/$33.95 Canada
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Hardcover, April 1999
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ISBN 0-312-86540-6
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Review by D. Douglas Fratz
 hortly after completing a book about violent political trends in modern society, Clay Barstow's brother is killed by a letter bomb. One of the examples
he pointed to in his book was McAdam County, Kentucky, and its local militia. Clay thinks someone in McAdam is responsible for his brother's death, so he heads to Kentucky to see if he can discover who the killer is.
Clay decides to go undercover as a graduate student who's studying history at the local university. In McAdam, he finds a small-town rural America steeped in secrecy and paranoia. He meets a dizzying array of local characters, many holding extreme anti-government political views, and learns their convoluted history.
Colin McAdam is the waning patriarch. His daughter, Beth, is a history
professor who is strongly protective of her two very different brothers. One brother is Rob Roy, a computer software genius. The other, Stewart, is the leader of the powerful local militia, the Kentucky Rifles. Cass Pepperlake is the local newspaper owner and one of the few political moderates. The McAdam sheriff, district attorney, and state senator are part of the political machine controlled by a rich local named Rocky Gottler, who orchestrated the financial ruin of local lawyer and businessman Kit Moorhawk. Father Garron is a militant, anti-abortionist television
evangelist.
The folks of McAdam view Clay with suspicion from the start, and they soon figure out that he is not just another history student. When Clay is framed for murdering a local woman, he becomes a fugitive. In hiding, he watches on TV as the Kentucky Rifles, led by Stewart McAdam and assisted by his brother Rob's high-tech secret weapon, declare that the county is seceding from the United States. Soon they are successfully defending themselves against federal troops.
Williamson keeps on ticking
The Silicon Dagger is a departure for Jack Williamson, who, during his unprecedented 70-year career as a science fiction writer, has been
best known for space-adventure novels and not near-future thrillers. Ironically, the novel's strengths center around its look at extremists in modern-day middle America, while its failings involve the science fictional element, the "silicon dagger" that allows the local militia to deter the U.S. military forces.
Williamson paints a scary picture of the threat of right-wing militant
extremists in small-town America. Domestic terrorism is a phenomenon
of the 1990s that is difficult to understand or diagnose. The McAdam County
Kentuckians, and the local politics in which they are embroiled, seem both
familiar and uncomfortably incomprehensible. The various attitudes underlying
their movement for militant secession--anti-abortion, anti-government,
pro-racism, pro-individual rights--do not seem logically consistent. Nor is it
logical that a local group could really hope to improve their lives by declaring themselves independent from the rest of the country. Yet Williamson does a creditable job of making the situation in McAdam believable, and the plot suspenseful and compelling.
Far less believable is the high-tech weapon invented by local software genius Rob Roy McAdams. Its invention would require breakthroughs in basic physics that seem highly unlikely coming from someone with essentially no scientific training. Williamson wisely refrains from providing any real details regarding how the weapon works, but what information he does provide seems contradictory.
The Silicon Dagger is a good near-future thriller, and it shows that Jack Williamson remains capable not only of writing well, but of branching out into new subgenres. But this book might have actually been better with a more subtle and believable science fictional device--or even none at all.
It's amazing that Williamson, in his 90s, still writes with youthful vigor, displaying none of the self-indulgence we've seen from other great SF authors in their later years.
-- Doug
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