I finished reading "Anathem" last weekend. I hate to be one of those fans who always claims "the old stuff was better," but Stephenson's style of expounding on cool ideas via novels works much better for shorter books like "Snow Crash." It often seems like Stephenson considers character, setting, and plot to be the unfortunate necessities of writing a novel. When reading "Anathem," "Quicksilver," and to a lesser extent "Cryptonomicon," I felt like Stephenson wasn't really interested in writing the book -- what he really wanted to do was sit down and have a dorm room-style brainstorming session where he and the reader go back and forth about the uses of cryptography, what if the Roman Catholic Church were based on math and science rather than religion, or how Newtonian physics and calculus are really the fundamental principles defining the modern era.

Somehow, "Snow Crash" was quick and funny enough that it didn't get bogged down by Sumerian mythology, linguistics, the nature of post-governmental society, etc. No single concept required elaborate exposition; Stephenson was able lay out the world of the novel without devoting 200 pages to plot-less description. If "Snow Crash" is close in spirit to "Neuromancer," "Anathem" is way out near "Atlas Shrugged."

Hrm. De gustibus non disputandum est, as they say, but what I like about the Baroque Cycle, for instance, was that there was a lot of material. Something brief, say the last harry potter book, takes me a day or two to read. I could see how something that long and wandering wouldn't be for everyone though. I think his best is Cryptonomicon, which tells several good stories, is good sci fi, but isn't too awfully long.