[rrjjww]

At risk of derailing the conversation, I finished Cryptonomicon earlier this year and really enjoyed it. Any recommendations for similar books?

[eru]

The Baroque Cycle by the same author.

I didn't like Snowcrash nearly as much.

His Diamond Age is pretty good, too.

[linsomniac]

I thought Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir had a similar "feel", though it's more future-looking rather than past looking.

Daemon and Freedom(tm) by Daniel Suarez is another book (printed as two books, because reasons) that is ~1K pages but I've read 3 times (like Cryptonomicon).

Others in this thread have recommended The Baroque Cycle, but I just couldn't get into it. Ditto with Anathem. Maybe I should give them another try. However, I do love Diamond Age and Snowcrash.

[roughly]

If you can get past the absolute slog of a beginning, Anathem is amazing.

[0xEF]

Anthem is my favorite Stephenson book, by far. My copy is the only book I own with a broken binding because I've read it too many times. I don't think that one gets enough attention, especially from a world building and technical perspective.

[xarope]

yes, give it a try and try to get past the first few chapters. The first time I read it, the world building almost put me to sleep. Somehow I decided to give it another try on a long flight, and this time I grok'd the world building, and thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through to the end.

[brk]

Snowcrash? REAMDE was also good.

[jaggederest]

The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer is the sequel to Snow Crash, and is excellent and in many ways more relevant and subversive now, given that more or less Snow Crash has passed into retrofuturism as all the things kind of happened, like Jules Verne.

[themadturk]

So nice to find someone else who enjoyed REAMDE.