Cryptonomicon

Cryptonomicon is a 1999 science fiction novel by Neal Stephenson. Describing events in two different time periods—World War II and what was then the modern era—the novel tells the connected stories of a large cast of characters (many of the characters in the modern-day sections are descended from characters in the earlier time period). Stephenson uses many elements of magical realism as well science fiction to craft a dense narrative centered on the themes of codes and code-breaking.

The novel begins in 1945 Shanghai, where Corporal Bobby Shaftoe is part of a detail that fetches stacks of paper out of a military building and then burns the paper. The men working in another section of the installation are code-breakers who have been deciphering messages sent by the Nazis using their Enigma Machine, which they do not realize the Allies have cracked.

In the next section, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a mathematical genius attending Princeton, meets mathematicians Alan Turing and Rudolf von Hacklheber. Turing soon returns to England. He writes to Waterhouse, but it is clear from the stilted style of his letter that he is prevented from saying anything about what he’s actually doing due to government secrecy.



Waterhouse attempts to do his patriotic duty by joining the Navy, but his unimpressive physical condition and lack of coordination land him first in the band, then in the cryptography school. His mathematical skills soon make him one of the leading code-breakers, and he contributes a great deal to the compendium of code-breaking procedures the Navy is compiling, known casually as the “Cryptonomicon.’

The story then jumps to the 1990s. Randy Waterhouse, Lawrence’s grandson, and his business partner Avi are meeting in Manila to discuss a new business venture. They communicate electronically using encrypted messages. The two have had several business failures in the past. The encryption Avi insists on is much more powerful than necessary, but Avi believes that computing power will eventually break most encryption systems, and he is paranoid about government interference. They found the Epiphyte Corporation and set up an office in the Intramuros. They hire Semper Marine, a company owned by Douglas MacArthur Shaftoe (Bobby’s son) and Douglas’ daughter Amy, to lay underwater cable. Randy is very attracted to Amy.

Back in World War II, Bobby Shaftoe meets Glory, a Filipino girl, and is smitten. He also meets a Japanese soldier, Goto Dengo, and they become friendly.



Shaftoe, involved in the battle of Guadalcanal, suffers from PTSD; Enoch Root rescues him from the battle’s aftermath. Bobby is reassigned to Detachment 2702. Detachment 2702 engages in missions that Bobby finds puzzling. He is not stupid, and slowly pieces together that the strange operations of Detachment 2702 are designed to confuse the enemy about Allied plans. Lawrence Waterhouse is part of the leadership of Detachment 2702; when Alan Turing and his team in England broke the Enigma encryption, Waterhouse and Turing realized that if the Allies used every piece of intelligence gleaned accurately, the Germans would soon realize that their codes had been compromised. Detachment 2702 is part of a scheme to obscure the fact that the Allies can read every single message the Nazis send. Bobby once again meets Enoch Root in Detachment 2702—oddly, he is the chaplain.

Goto Dengo finds himself assigned as an engineer to build a huge bunker in the mountains in Japan. He is mystified as to the purpose of the installation.

In the 1990s, Amy Shaftoe points out treasure still sitting on the ocean floor after it was dumped during World War II, and her father, Douglas, suggests to Randy that any treasure found while laying the cable should be split between them, on the condition that they do not tell a famous treasure hunter sitting offshore known as The Dentist.



Randy and Avi meet with potential business partners, revealing that Epiphyte will be a data haven based in the Sultanate of Kinakuta, a secure digital fortress outside of any government’s control, which will enable them to protect the privacy of their customers’ communications. They also plan to create a digital currency backed by gold. Randy begins to suspect some of his partners cannot be trusted.

In World War II, Lawrence has been assigned to a remote island off the coast of Scotland, where he pretends to send messages about U Boats as part of Detachment 2702’s work. He begins a relationship with Margaret, a woman who comes to clean and keep house, even though he is certain she is a Nazi spy. Lawrence is informed that the Nazis have broken the allied merchant shipping codes; he devises a scheme wherein the codebooks are allowed to be captured so they have an excuse to change their codes without revealing they can read the German messages. Bobby Shaftoe and other members of the Detachment arrive and travel to a grounded U-Boat. Bobby manages to pull a safe from the wreckage, which contains gold bars with Chinese characters on them and unencrypted messages.

Goto Dengo discovers that the bunker he is building is a suicide mission; the Nazis transport huge amounts of gold there, planning to cause a collapse of the mine shafts—with the Japanese trapped inside to ensure secrecy—in order to securely bury the treasure. In the 1990s, the Shaftoes discover encrypted documents telling of the location of the secret gold bunker. Randy is arrested on false charges and must use every bit of his hacking skills to both confuse people listening in on his attempts to crack the encryption and convey that information to his friends.



Cryptonomicon’s sci-fi elements no longer seem very speculative in the modern day, but the thrilling adventure aspects are as effective as ever.