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Originally Posted by Penforhire
While it was enjoyable and explored several large themes I continue hesitating to dive into the Baroque cycle. His ancestral/reincarnated lead characters are just too cute as a concept. I figure to tackle Anathem first.
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I don't feel that it detracts from The Baroque cycle, though. The characters stand very much on their own merits; and Daniel, Jack and Eliza seemed far more rounded and real than any of their line in Cryptonomicon. Maybe because they'd had three chunky books and one timeline to develop over, as opposed to one book with two time lines.
Anathem is a very good read too.
Although with all those four boooks... they are wordy as well as lengthy, if that makes sense. They're not as snappy as Snow Crash, certainly.
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I was a little disappointed by the Diamond Age. I consider myself an above-average reader and still I had to work too hard to flesh out the background.
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There's parts I like about Diamond Age, and a lot more I really wanted to like. It's not his strongest book, unfortunately.
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It probably hurt that my gut feeling is if we ever manipulated nanoscopic self-replicating machinery to that extent we'd kill our entire race before gaining the control suggested there (e.g. Crichton's Prey or maybe just grey goo).
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Or
pink goo 