by Neal Stephenson. It's pretty much a story of buried treasure split between four characters: Randy Waterhouse is a present-day programmer trying to make ends meet and working with his friend Avi on his latest information-tech-business-foray, Lawrence Waterhouse is an Allied intelligence officer in WW2, and Bobby Shaftoe and Goto Dengo are troops on opposite sides of that same war. Each of them is through numerous events drawn to the Philippines, where their histories intertwine and each plays his part in the search for the Japanese war gold, most of the time doing so quite unwittingly.
Stephenson's techyness comes through greatly in his writing, allowing the immediate plot to be distracted by Randy's hacking and coding, Lawrence's statistical analysis and pipe organ playing, and guest star Alan Turing's code making and breaking. The thick plot is almost as circular as the Kite Runner but never enough to be predictable, dragging the reader on a fantastic journey to the ends of the earth with each character before pulling them all together in one final giant twist at the end, where every little nuance and hidden link collides in one near-perfect plot finish.
Must-read, especially if you like intellectual stuff with quirky algorithmic puzzles :D
like, 9.3/10 if I have to
Very professional piece of writing!
ReplyDeleteShould read it :)