I first read “Cryptonomicon” by Neal Stephenson shortly after it was first published, in around 1999-2000. I re-read it recently and parts of it made much more sense 🙂
For anyone who is remotely interested in mathematics, computing, cryptography, World War II history and an author who doesn’t shy away from multi-page digressions about the same, “Cryptonomicon” is a must-read novel. It’s not for the faint of heart, however, given that it runs in at more than 900 pages in a reasonably small font. However, there’s plenty of interest and it’s written with a great deal of humour. If the idea of a novel which includes complex calculus, graphs and perl scripts strikes you as appealing, then this is the book for you. 🙂
I’m deliberately including no plot details here, simply to avoid giving any spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read it before: suffice to say, however, that it weaves together plot lines from different periods of history (typically “the present”, at the time the book was written; and World War II).
I really must read the follow-up novels soon, too. If you want a gentler introduction to Neal Stephenson’s work, try “Snow Crash” instead: it’s still fairly geeky, but not to the same extent.