Having finished the Baroque Cycle, I have started re-reading Cryptonomicom and find I'm enjoying it even more this time, given the added relevance of all the characters.
Perhaps people new to Stephenson might want to read them in that order from the start.

Marvel at the magic of the pre-quel. It explains the shit you were always kinda curious about but the writer was either too lazy or too overworked to publish.

Are you seriously suggesting Cryptonomicon needed to be any longer?

quote:

---

posted by NightShadow:
Marvel at the magic of the pre-quel.

---

will do

i dunno, but i read;
1 snow crash
2 diamond age
3 cryptonomicon
4 the diamond age
5 the big u
6 cryptonomicon
7 zodiac
8 cryptonomicon
9 quicksilver
10 the confusion

waitin' for system, and i been lookin' at the diamond age kinda funny again lately. (forced myself to sell crypto as to get it outta my head!!!)

am in the middle of reading it again. talk about unputdownable....

Cross-post.

I think it sounds like Diamond Age is the verdict. Some guy at a party last night told me diamond age, too.

It's entirely possible that Stephenson had some ideas for the Shaftoe family background running around before he wrote Cryptonomicon, which he may have sprinkled in to add weird flavor and then fleshed out in the Baroque Cycle. If I was in the business of writing books I might do something like that.

quote:

---

Originally posted by dayliner:

Reading through Crytonomicon again, I think it _must_ have been written after, or at least concurrently with, the Baroque Cycle. For example, at one point Waterhouse's descendant Randy sees "what looks to be two samurai swords" in the trunk of the car owned by the nephews of Amy, the girl who he's dating and who is a Shaftoe herself. The swords are never mentioned again. The reference makes little sense unless you've read the adventures of the Shaftoes in the Baroque books.

---

I thought about the swords too. I actually read Cryptonomicon for the second time while I was in the middle of System of the World. I put down System and picked up Crypto because I needed to be reminded of some of the intricacies of the latter. Noticed the swords.

**** SPOILER OF THE ENTIRE SERIES BELOW/READ AT OWN RISK ****

Also, the gold that the Shaftoe operation is getting out of the submarine in the last part of crytonomicon is, in fact, the same gold that Waterhouse stamped in binary in System. It is, in fact, the same Solomnic gold that brings Newton and Waterhouse back to life in the Baroque Cycle. There is that, and it is still never explained what the hell Enoch Root has in his damn box in Crypto.

Oh, that's great, that's exactly what I need. Yeah, I have all this spare time lying around, I definitely need to soak that up with a re-read of crypto. Freaking thanks, folks!

spoiler alert
Yes, I realized that about the gold too. All in all, there is too much in there for him not to at least have planned out the whole bloodly series (including Cryptonomicon) from start to finish.
As for the box, isn't that a dream? Doesn't Shaftoe see it while in a malarial haze, or recovering from one his inumerable injuries?
Sorry Shadoth but if you liked it the first time, you'll find it SO much better after reading the Baroque Cycle.

Sounds like he lifted part of the plot to CNMICON from Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen...



Not to fault him, I love Newton.
Still haven't gotten past the first few chapters. I think I left off in mid flight.

Second, I strongly advise reading the Diamond Age. It's almost biblical!

quote:

---

Originally posted by dayliner:
_spoiler alert_
Yes, I realized that about the gold too. All in all, there is too much in there for him not to at least have planned out the whole bloodly series (including Cryptonomicon) from start to finish.
As for the box, isn't that a dream? Doesn't Shaftoe see it while in a malarial haze, or recovering from one his inumerable injuries?
Sorry Shadoth but if you liked it the first time, you'll find it SO much better after reading the Baroque Cycle.

---

SPOILER BELOW

Shaftoe does sort of 'dream' the whole box incident when he has malaria... however, remember that Enoch is also brought back to life by Rudy with that same box while they are in Norway. I suspect that Root has some of that Solomnic gold in that box, but one can never be sure.

I am wondering if Stephenson isn't going to continue the story and do the 18th or 19th century companion to the whole series. I wonder this because several things are still unresolved. For instance, how did the Nazi's actually END UP toting that gold around? Last we knew it was in Liebniz' cellar on its way to the Immortal Russian Jew. Additionally, I still want to know what the fuck Enoch really IS... is he human? Has he been made timeless by alchemy? Same with the Jew.

[edit]
Also, I can't remember where it is, but somehwere Rudy alludes to the fact that he knows what that submarine gold actually is. How does he know that?

Oh, and Stephenson has admitted that when he wrote Crypto. he also essentially wrote all three of the other novels. Notice how the last two, in particular, came out in rapid succession (like 6 months apart I think). Confusion was still in hard back when System came out. I think he said something at one point about how his publisher was a bit miffed that he had written 4 1000+ page novels at one time... but don't quote me on that. I remember reading something to that effect, but I could be hallucinating. I do know that he at least had the Baroque Cycle in mind when he wrote Crypto.

With my luck, Stephenson himself is going to read this and berate me because I am being libelous or something. So, in my defense, let me say that reality is totally subjective and nothing I ever say can be taken as true since our senses fool us all the time.
[/edit]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vec,