_Snow Crash_ is good fun, and I really liked the speculative elements. It led me down the path of becoming a Stephenson junky which, coming from someone that tries to avoid reading many big novels by a single author, breaks a bit with my own principles. _Cryptonomicon_ need hardly be mentioned anymore, considering it's repute, but lately I've been reading the "prequel" trilogy consisting of _Quicksilver_, _The Confusion_ and _The System of the World_. It's set in the same literary universe, centering on events in the late 17th and early 18th century, basically tracing the early days of science. They also feature some quite humorous fictionalized versions of real life historical figures. At some point I'm probably going to look into _Anathem_ and _Seveneves_ as well. All that said, Stephenson has a rather particular style which seems to be very polarizing, but I definitely encourage giving him a shot.
_Anathem_ is great. Very slow build up. The interwoven theme of race, religion, time and space makes it well worth the slow construction of the world. Here's a video of him speaking at Google for the book tour http://youtu.be/lnq-2BJwatE
I've read several Stephenson novels and the only one that didn't follow the pattern of:
[great, great first 3rd]
[2nd third: OK, this isn't as good, but I think he's setting up for something in the last 3rd so I'm still on board I guess]
[last 3rd: oh f_ck you this is awful.]
Was Cryptonomicon.
The one that did it the worst was The Diamond Age, which followed that pattern so strongly that it made me swear off Neal Stephenson forever. At one point he has to have one character tell us what another character's motivation has been, in a conversation with that character, in a scene that exists solely for that purpose, because there's no possible way the reader could have puzzled it out otherwise. And that's just one of the problems. What a disaster, and what a great first third. Still makes me mad.
Although it's a bit violent and has some... interesting mechanisms (as I was told: it gets weird)
Also, the nostalgia comes baked in because it was written in the 90s. Still super relevant though