Avoid the Abridged Criptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

I mentioned a few days ago that I was preparing to read the book Criptonomicon by Neal Neal Stephenson .  Well, I was duped by audible.com.  I had downloaded an audio book from audible and I was under the impression that it was a full version of the book.  In fact it was an abridged version which means a shortened version of the book.

Some people like abridged books, but I despise them.  To me it’s like renting a movie and hitting fast forward through the whole movie.  You read a book for the experience you don’t read the book to get to the last page, if that were the case people which is by the last page of books and scrap the rest.

Unfortunately there wasn’t a very good disclaimer on this particular book when I downloaded from audible.  In fact I’m pretty sure there was no disclaimer at all, so I basically paid full price for a partial book.  Now I’ve read this book before the old-fashioned way and was looking forward to the audible version because other Neal Stephenson books have had excellent audio quality and good programs.

This started off well and did have good quality, but it rapidly started jumping and fast forwarding and it has completely removed all the funny parts from the book.  In a way it’s kind of ridiculous.  I feel as if I just read a book after taking an appetite suppressant like hoodia.

Listening to this partial book is given me something to chew on, and since I read it before I’m not terribly hungry for the book, but at the same time I know that I haven’t had a full meal.  So I definitely would not recommend the abridged version of Cryptonomicon from audible.  It is definitely not as good as the entire book which I highly recommend it’s one of my favorite books.