IMO it is one of his best works. Nanotech/Networks/Crypto for the masses to understand. I read, loved and was caught up in the VR fever of the 90's via Snow Crash, and love his other books, but TDA is the one I'll never get rid of.
I loved The Diamond Age as well, although I remember mostly bits and pieces now:
* cult sex scenes
* a forced-participation theater that humiliates you using Occulus Rift-technology
* the Kill Bill-esque ending
* ... and, most of all, the idea of continous education using an immersive Minecraft-like book/world that expands in complexity as your education grows.
Too bad we (the hackers) never completed even a crude version of the Primer (the book in the last bullet point) for the young geeks out there.
TDA is an interesting take on the issues a post-scarcity world might face. Unfortunately my immesion in the book was broken in several places by cringe-worthy "computers will never be able to do X" tropes. For example, the Primer must get a human to read its text aloud because "computers will never be able to reproduce a human voice"; this is in a world where atomically-precise, molecular diamond nanocomputers can be essentially 3D printed for free.
I like your point; it compliments itself nicely with my previous one. Soon enough, computers may be able to do many things very well -- however, hackers are not catching up to corporations.
What I mean: if I remember correctly, in the DA world TV and big companies have as big as a grip on general populace as they have to day, but hackers are able to create alternatives, like the mentioned Primer for children's education.
In the real world, "hackers" (or those with the technical know-how to be one) love Apple and Google as much as the rest of the populace does, and leave the big things (OS, main APIs, maps, voice assistant, their personal data, ebook stores, videos available to young children) to them with very little opposition.
I think things will get more interesting when Oculus, Meta, Magic Leap and others get a little bit more entrenched (ass-u-me'ing it happens!).. give it another 10 years or so.. ;)
I think I've read all his books. But his work is pretty diverse, so you get to pick and choose based on taste and preference.
There was a time when I thought Snow Crash was the best. There was a time when Cryptonomicon was a lot of fun (still is). Nowadays I incline slightly more towards the 'philosophical opus' type of vibe that Anathem gives off.
Anyway, all his books are pretty good representatives of one sub-genre or another. He's a very good author, and he wrote in a lot of different keys through his career so far.
All are fantastic. I was put off by the beginning of Snow Crash initially, as there are some tongue-in-cheek bits that struck me as too campy. But I might not say that now, having read it a few times.
The Baroque Cycle is a massive piece of work spanning 3 volumes, comprised of 8 nominally independent books. If it seems intimidating, just try the first one and see if you're not hooked. I'd love it if there was twice as much material.
Anathem is by far my favorite. Its hooks take longer to set, but for me they set much deeper. There is a lot going on in this book, and it will truly blow your mind if you let it.
I'm reading Snow Crash at the moment for the first time.
The beginning is actually really tough going as a completely new reader today. It's just so ridiculous. I can see where he was coming from, as I grew up in that era, but it's actually pretty bizarre now given the reality is nation states, religion and banks turned out to be so much more powerful than corporations.
Which is one of the perils of predictions in ageing sci-fi.
I've been on a sci-fi kick recently of all the classics I never read (William Gibson, Ender's Game, The Mars Trilogy, Forever War, Starship Troopers, A Canticle For Leibowitz, Philip K. Dick, Hyperion Cantos, Ringworld) and re-reading some I've not read for a long time (Foundation Series).
I personally found that Snow Crash is by far the most dated book. Even Ringworld and the foundation series were better.
I dunno, I find Snow Crash dates much better than most cyberpunk - William Gibson included - precisely because the ridiculousness was intentional. Neal no more believed we'd actually be living in an anarcho-capitalist dystopia with samurai-wielding hipster-heros delivering pizzas for the Mafia than Aldous Huxley believed we'd actually be letter-graded and programmed into praising his Fordship from birth.
Some of the space opera, on the other hand, was so earnest and certain that we'd be flying around at light-speed by now you feel almost disappointed for the authors.
Vernor Vinge is another great hard sci-fi author. "A Fire Upon the Deep" is a space opera epic if I've ever read one. Currently finishing up "Rainbows End", and wasn't sucked totally in until maybe 1/3 through, but now I'm hooked :)
Rainbow's End is one of my favorite books. I have probably read it 4 or 5 times since 2007. I find the ideas in it have gotten more accurate as time goes on.
I mention other cyberpunk that's not dated, I've read 2 or 3 of the Neuromancer series and that hasn't fared anywhere near as badly, the only glaring plot point I noticed in that is that no-one had mobile phones.
And when I refer to Foundation & Ringworld I meant that they are from the 60s and so have some weird cultural ideals as well as some (unintentional) misogyny & racism in the foundation series.
It was bizarre then. I was very skeptical the first few pages. I did not understand that the adolescent cheese was tongue in cheek until the second chapter.
> Anathem is by far my favorite. Its hooks take longer to set, but for me they set much deeper. There is a lot going on in this book, and it will truly blow your mind if you let it.
I've a major in Physics and it took me a couple readings to figure out all (well, most of) the connections therein. My favorite game to play while reading Anathem was figuring out where are the borders between historical fact (translated into the fictional world of Arbre, of course), current hypotheses within present-day science, and just downright fiction. Quick quiz: is "geometrodynamics" Stephenson's invention, or a term used in the real world? You get puzzles like that at every step, some easier, some harder.
A few examples that stand out:
Actual history of science - well, Thelenes, Adrakhones, Saunt Tredegarh, Saunt Muncoster, etc. (again, real people disguised under the mask of Arbran characters)
Current hypotheses - the whole Multiverse thing, the Fraa Paphlagon / Hugh Everett parallel.
Out-and-out fiction - eh... this is harder. The Wick, maybe?
And then there's Fraa Jad, all alone in a category of his own. :) I daresay one of the most striking, memorable characters in all sci-fi - if you get the point of the whole book.
Reamde starts off with a lot of interesting ideas, and then morphs into quite possibly the worst watered-down, airport-paperback, fourth-rate-Tom-Clancy-triller nonsense I have ever read. Avoid it at all costs. Unbelievable plot and character motives. ick.
Man I am almost done Reamde and would not recommend that to anyone. I have a massive vocabulary and I was still looking up words every few pages. Every time I suspected it was a synonym for a simpler word, and every time I was right.
Writing aside I've found the plot pretty slow with not much interesting happening for most of the Zula portions (ie. middle half of the book). Maybe Stephenson's level of detail just isn't for me but it really wants for editing.
Tastes differ. I thought it was a fun story and a quick easy read. I'd recommend it to pretty much anyone. My wife, mother, and sister, all of whom are big readers but none of whom are really in the target nerd demographic, all liked it.
Anathem and Diamond Age were harder for me because of the depth of ideas. I had to slow down and think to get through them.
Baroque Cycle was harder because of the sheer number of characters with multiple and/or similar names, which is realistic but annoying. There's a list of characters in the back of the first book, which helps, but it's annoying to have to keep the first book handy when you're reading the others.
Stephenson does have a reputation for starting great books and not knowing how to finish them. But I think I've gotten more than my money's worth out of all of them.
If you're familiar with his style, and you take Reamde for what it really is - stuff he played with while taking a break from "real work" after the massive Baroque trilogy - then it makes sense and it's quite enjoyable.
The Mongoliad is team-written, and it shows. It's a sprawling, uneven work, with interesting parts, but also tedious one. It is in no small part a vehicle for the authors' interest in the technical aspects of fighting with medieval weaponry.
In the parts of the Mongoliad I managed to make it through, there were characters and plots and swordfights the way you find characters and plots and sex in a porn flick. If that's your thing, you'll really like the book, but I'm just not that into swordfights.
The Baroque Cycle for a semi-fictional view of the beginnings of science - the Newton and Hooke era.
Anathem for an interesting take on the philosophy of science disguised as a sci-fi epic.