Talk about contrasts. The 19th book I read this year was Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” commonly known as “Blade Runner”. The cheap mass market paperback edition, prominently emblazoned with the movie title and poster, checked in at 246 pages. So Cryptonomicon is roughly 4.6 times as long as a noted classic of the genre.
I’m not sayin’ Stephenson could use a little editing, but I’m just sayin’. I think e-mail messages in Cryptonomicon might have taken up 246 pages by themselves.
Another interesting contrast is between Dick’s book and the movie that resulted from it. Other than some names, hovercars, and the concept of runaway androids from space, the book and movie don’t have a lot in common. C.f. dense urban LA setting (movie) vice sparse, lonely SF setting (book). Gives new meaning to the term “adapted from.”