“Techies love Neal Stephenson’s novels… He produces them in
longhand,transferring the text to a computer running the geek’s
delight: the Linux operating system.”
“Stephenson’s publisher hopes Cryptonomicon will be his
breakout book. The tech set will devour it, of course – it’s
cracked Amazon’s top 10 list before publication – but its ambition,
style and depth might well win over newbies, too. One early
reviewer griped that its digressions “might appeal to NSA chiefs,
computer nerds, and budding entrepreneurs, but ordinary readers are
likely to balk.” Extraordinary readers, however, should seek out
the best novel ever written on a Linux box.”