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Our 3rd quarter is here. I can hardly believe it. We will be reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Discussion leader is Jamie.

Yay, it's almost time for total immersion in Cryptonomicon!

I'm splitting up the book into 3rds for discussion questions, so tune in for more questions soon.

Preliminary/Getting Started Questions

1. This is a long, complex book, with several timelines and a lot of characters. Do you have any favorite tricks for keeping track of all the characters and settings in books like this?

2. Are you excited or intimidated (or bored?) by all the math in this novel? (I enjoy math, but honestly this novel makes enough sense even if you just skim through the math bits to get back to the story.)

3. Neal Stephenson tends to include lots of jargon-rich tangents that can go on for many pages, and many readers comment on these 'nerdy'/'boring'/'interesting'/'educational' sections of his books. Do you enjoy tangents in novels? As you read this book, do you appreciate the rich detail of these sections, or do they bog down your reading? Do you have any favorite tangential segments in this book?

4. How do you like the characters in this book? By page ~350, do you feel you can relate particularly well to any of the characters? Who is your favorite character so far?

5. Congratulations on finishing the first third of this book(if you haven't got there yet, go back and read a bit more before tackling this question). If you were not focused on reading the 1001 Books list, and if you were not hoping for the extra points from participating in this Quarterly Read of Cryptonomicon, would you be excited to keep reading this book? Are you enjoying it? Is the plot starting to make sense?

Great questions Jamie...I have not started reading yet but I can answer question #1: I tend to use different color post its for different characters in long complicated books. I sketch out a timeline on a big post it in the front of the book. The "system" usually falls apart but it at least lets me think I have a system to launch into a complex book.
I have not read a great many Stephenson books but the ones that I have, I have to admit that I wish he had a better editor that could help him constrain himself. However, perhaps the tangents ARE the book...we will see

Gail wrote: "Great questions Jamie...I have not started reading yet but I can answer question #1: I tend to use different color post its for different characters in long complicated books. I sketch out a timeli..."

This is definitely one where some sort of system may be helpful. It jumps back and forth between WW2 and the late 1990's, and there are lots of tangents. I don't usually chart out characters when reading, but while re-reading this one over this next month I may try making some sort of chart to see if it really is as confusing as it seemed in my first reading. This is my 4th Stephenson book, so I am not super-surprised, but I still felt a bit muddle-headed by the end of this one.

I read this a long while back and really enjoyed it. Would like to read it again, but doubtful, but will see.

I am about 1/3rd into the book now. I think Pip will be amused by this observation but the book reminds me of The Kindly Ones. They are extremely different books in almost every regard especially tone and word craft but I am having a similar experience reading Cryptonomicon in that after I have read a few chapters I start to live in the book. I am not in a hurry to turn the pages because unlike a thriller or a character development piece, it isn't all that important to get to the next section. Most quarterly reads, even if they are long, don't impact me this way.


2. Are you excited or intimidated (or bored?) by all the math in this novel? (I enjoy math, but honestly this novel makes enough sense even if you just skim through the math bits to get back to the story.)
I think the math and the serious codebreaking is a way of getting the reader into the characters uniquely analytical heads. I don't think I need to understand the math so much as become slightly obsessed about seeing the world through the eyes of someone who is able to not only understand the math but be consumed by it.

3. Neal Stephenson tends to include lots of jargon-rich tangents that can go on for many pages, and many readers comment on these 'nerdy'/'boring'/'interesting'/'educational' sections of his books. Do you enjoy tangents in novels? As you read this book, do you appreciate the rich detail of these sections, or do they bog down your reading? Do you have any favorite tangential segments in this book?
I have appreciated a number of tangents in which I learned something about spiders or submarines and even what exactly it was like to be on Guadalcanal during the worst of it. Others I could have done without.

4. How do you like the characters in this book? By page ~350, do you feel you can relate particularly well to any of the characters? Who is your favorite character so far?

I am not quite at p.350 but perhaps because I have spent the most time with him I am liking Bobby Shaftoe who is mostly just confused. In Randy's story line, I am intrigued by Amy also and less interested in the whole Randy, Avia, Tom, John etc. group. Enoch Root is also interesting but I haven't got any understanding of him yet.

5. Congratulations on finishing the first third of this book(if you haven't got there yet, go back and read a bit more before tackling this question). If you were not focused on reading the 1001 Books list, and if you were not hoping for the extra points from participating in this Quarterly Read of Cryptonomicon, would you be excited to keep reading this book? Are you enjoying it? Is the plot starting to make sense?

I would definitely keep reading.

1. I’ll be fully honest: I’m a bit of a cheater when it comes to sorting out long complex books. With both this one and Vanity Fair (which was my TBR this month) and books like them, I will read the character list and premise on Wikipedia if available beforehand. I’m not someone who tends to get bothered by spoilers , and I enjoy looking for foreshadowing/literary devices while I’m reading or listening, to the extent that knowing broadly what happens doesn’t typically ruin something for me. I also often listen to audiobooks while working, so knowing vaguely what’s up beforehand helps me follow while being productive. This was definitely the case for this book with the jumping in and out of timelines.

2. I enjoy the math in this novel. I have a pretty decent level of academic/professional experience with conventional math from getting a STEM degree, and I’ve always enjoyed it. But, I am admittedly a novice when it comes to computer science and cryptography, so learning about it has been a cool experience for me so far. There’s this one passage where he explains multi-level encryption with the metaphor of a broken bike wheel that blew my mind a bit, not gonna lie.

3. My enjoyment of tangents in novels is largely related to my interest in the tangent topic and how much I think it will add to my appreciation of the book. Like in Moby Dick, the Whale biology bits had me way more interested than the whaling business bits. I understood why the architecture tangents were in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I wasn’t super enthralled by them and sped-read them.

Overall, I agree with Gail that in this book the tangents are kind of hit or miss. Some of them I don’t especially care about, where others (like the aforementioned bike-wheel one) I really appreciated. I think the presence of many tangents itself contributes to the theme of the novel nicely though, as it is fundamentally about the idea of the dissemination of information, so I get it. I think they are justified.

4. I don’t strongly like any of the characters in this novel so far, which is one of the factors reducing my overall enjoyment/appreciation of it. Especially the Epiphyte set. I mean, I thought the inclusion of Turing as a supporting character was super cool, and I liked his relationship with Rudy. I don’t hate Lawrence or Bobby, but I’m not especially in love with them either.

I feel like this while this book is strong on a factual level, it is weaker on a human level. Like, I very much see why this book has a revered cult-status among silicon valley bros, and hardcore cypherpunk nerd boys. It’s rich on details that cater to those interests, weaker on interpersonal exploration, but also most of the characters of importance have some degree of nerdy “nice-guy�-ism surrounding them.

Lawrence has this in the way he discusses women as a sex outlet, but I especially dislike Randy for this. I genuinely hated the passage in the book where the academics “gang-up� on him about having privileged access to information technology know-how due to coming from a well-off STEM heavy family- which is true. And he rebuffs that with the “nuh-uh cause I don’t feel privileged, I feel like I worked hard on an individual level!� spiel. It’s framed like the academics are being pompous and ridiculous to this self-made man- but they are fundamentally right. I work in STEM and come from a very non-STEM working-class family. I am the only person in my large lab that this is true for, and that whole thing rubbed me the wrong way. The whole libertarian ethos of the epiphyte people is just not my cup of tea personally. If this was a worse written book overall, it would definitely annoy me more.

5. I think my huge difference in tone to answers 2 and 4 demonstrate pretty well that I have mixed feelings about this book so far. It strikes me as a smarter version of the James Rollins type novels my mom loves that I used to read as a teenager. I think certain things about it work extremely well and are 4 or 5 star worthy, but others are much weaker and are 1 or 2 star worthy. It’s sitting on a 3 overall for me right now, but I’m fully open to that going up or down as it goes on. I’m set on finishing all the books on the list, but if I wasn’t, I don’t know whether or not I’d be incredibly hyped to finish it. With a book like this though, I think I’d have to see how all the threads come together before I judge it, so would likely continue it regardless.
The plot makes sense because, as mentioned, I’m a terrible large-book cheater (lol), and I’m cautiously interested about how the journey is going to unfold.

1. This is a long, complex book, with several timelines and a lot of characters. Do you have any favorite tricks for keeping track of all the characters and settings in books like this?
Not really. If a book includes a character list, I will refer back to it a lot, though. The frequent setting switches are keeping me on my toes.

2. Are you excited or intimidated (or bored?) by all the math in this novel? (I enjoy math, but honestly this novel makes enough sense even if you just skim through the math bits to get back to the story.)
A bit bored, actually. I do well with mathematical concepts, but do not enjoy numbers, as a rule.

3. Neal Stephenson tends to include lots of jargon-rich tangents that can go on for many pages, and many readers comment on these 'nerdy'/'boring'/'interesting'/'educational' sections of his books. Do you enjoy tangents in novels? As you read this book, do you appreciate the rich detail of these sections, or do they bog down your reading? Do you have any favorite tangential segments in this book?
I do enjoy tangents, particularly if they are interesting. Some of the tangents in this book are very interesting, others not so much.

4. How do you like the characters in this book? By page ~350, do you feel you can relate particularly well to any of the characters? Who is your favorite character so far?
I have not bonded with any of the characters yet, but I am only 1/3 of the way in. Sadly, I have yet to bond with the book as a whole. I see the great ratings, but I am hovering at the three star mark. I hope the 2nd and 3rd installments change my current mindset.

5. Congratulations on finishing the first third of this book(if you haven't got there yet, go back and read a bit more before tackling this question). If you were not focused on reading the 1001 Books list, and if you were not hoping for the extra points from participating in this Quarterly Read of Cryptonomicon, would you be excited to keep reading this book? Are you enjoying it? Is the plot starting to make sense?
Honestly, I don't think I would be excited to keep reading if I wasn't focused on completing the list. The most exciting part for me is that I will have another huge book behind me. Oddly, I did plan on reading this book before I started the list, but I may never have actually got around to reading it since it isn't my usual type of book. My reading tastes have changed a lot since I first added it to my TBR list. As to the plot, I think it is starting to make some sense.

I finally got this book in audio form from the library early in August and started listening. Then, I almost immediately realized that someone else has it on hold, so I only have 21 days to listen before I will have to wait for the probably three weeks to get it back. I've been listening to a couple hours a day and realized I should come check out the discussion again.

1. This is a long, complex book, with several timelines and a lot of characters. Do you have any favorite tricks for keeping track of all the characters and settings in books like this?

Sometimes I refer to or make character charts, but on this one I just dove in and kept listening. I had to go back several times when it switched time/setting to make sure I knew who the current characters were, but by 1/3 of the way through I pretty much had them settled in my mind.

2. Are you excited or intimidated (or bored?) by all the math in this novel? (I enjoy math, but honestly this novel makes enough sense even if you just skim through the math bits to get back to the story.)

I enjoy the math, but also since I'm listening while doing other things (often driving) I'm not paying really close attention to the details of the math. A couple times I almost wanted to stop listening until I could refer to print or copy some things down, but I just kept listening because I am in somewhat of a time crunch to finish the audiobook.

3. Neal Stephenson tends to include lots of jargon-rich tangents that can go on for many pages, and many readers comment on these 'nerdy'/'boring'/'interesting'/'educational' sections of his books. Do you enjoy tangents in novels? As you read this book, do you appreciate the rich detail of these sections, or do they bog down your reading? Do you have any favorite tangential segments in this book?

Generally I enjoy these tangents and I do not at all find them distracting from the main story line. Some are more interesting than others, but none have bored me.

4. How do you like the characters in this book? By page ~350, do you feel you can relate particularly well to any of the characters? Who is your favorite character so far?

I did not stop at 1/3 of the way to consider this question, but I don't think I had really connected to or chosen any of the characters as favorites. I agree with a comment above that this novel is not a strong character novel. I can easily distinguish the characters and have no trouble keeping track of who is who, but I also don't feel a connection to any of them at this point. It wasn't until about half way that I found some more interesting and entertaining.

5. Congratulations on finishing the first third of this book(if you haven't got there yet, go back and read a bit more before tackling this question). If you were not focused on reading the 1001 Books list, and if you were not hoping for the extra points from participating in this Quarterly Read of Cryptonomicon, would you be excited to keep reading this book? Are you enjoying it? Is the plot starting to make sense?

Without the 1001 list, I doubt I would have ever picked up this book. However, if for some reason I had and made it a third of the way, I was definitely interested enough to keep going.

1. This is a long, complex book, with several timelines and a lot of characters. Do you have any favorite tricks for keeping track of all the characters and settings in books like this? I wished I had taken notes the first time I read this book. I read a lot of books with split settings like this, but for some reason this one confused me more than usual. The second time I read this one, as I was hosting the group discussion, I did make lists of characters and how they fit together, which made the story make more sense, but by then I had already slogged through the story once unaided.

2. Are you excited or intimidated (or bored?) by all the math in this novel? The first time through I read all the math and code sections pretty closely, but the second time through I just skimmed those bits and the story flowed a bit better.

3. Do you enjoy tangents in novels? As you read this book, do you appreciate the rich detail of these sections, or do they bog down your reading? Do you have any favorite tangential segments in this book? I usually enjoy tangents in novels. None of the tangents in this book really stuck out as amazing, but I did like reading about how codes are made and how they can be broken.

4. How do you like the characters in this book? By page ~350, do you feel you can relate particularly well to any of the characters? Who is your favorite character so far? By this point in the book the first time through I had no favorites, and was not really connecting with any of the characters. The second time, I kinda liked Waterhouse, but I never really liked any of the Epiphyte characters.

5. If you were not focused on reading the 1001 Books list, and if you were not hoping for the extra points from participating in this Quarterly Read of Cryptonomicon, would you be excited to keep reading this book? Are you enjoying it? Is the plot starting to make sense? I was still pretty confused by this point in this book, the first time through. My sisters both really like Stephenson, so I would have had to eventually read this book anyway, but based on how I was feeling about it after finishing the first 3rd, I might have put it aside again this year if I was not reading it on a deadline and for the 1001 List.