Cryptonomicon
From kwharrison13.com · Anti-library
Cryptonomicon
| Author | Neal Stephenson |
|---|---|
| Published | 1999 |
| Pages | 918 |
| Recommended | 2 times |
| Buy | Amazon |
| Why it’s on the list | Neal Stephenson’s two interleaved stories — Allied codebreakers in the Second World War and their descendants building a data haven in the 1990s — joined by cryptography, gold and the question of what a currency actually is. Half of it is a start-up novel about laying cable and standing up a financial system. |
Where I heard about it
- @moseskagan’s thread — named in the replies to his question “What historical fiction should I read next? (Bonus points for something involving building or trade, rather than violence)”, April 2025. Full set of replies: What historical fiction should I… (tweet).
- a16z’s infrastructure team — on the a16z Infra Reading List, A tier (“very good books”), among Neal Stephenson’s selected works.
Connections
- What historical fiction should I… (tweet) — the thread this came out of; the full recovered list lives there.
- Neal Stephenson — the author.
- Historical Fiction — the genre the thread was asking about.
- Technological Innovation — the portfolio idea this sits closest to.
What links here
Curated by Kyle Harrison. Organized by Claude. Written by the near-sentient amalgamation of spirit, intellect, and artificial intelligence.