I have no idea how you can cope with all that utter irrelevance in this. While reading I started thinking that Stephenson tried to create a "moment" by overstreching. A scenery. Something you see in those slow artistic movies for example. But then there is another problem. Stephenson is unable to describe the environment in which the scene plays. Instead he concentrates on completely irrelevant details in the current area. A good example for this was when the protagonist traveled a region where former cities were. It looked like that: "...traveling along those dead cities we've learned to distinguish the time period in which the cities have been build...". But he describes not a single one. You end up having absolutely no picture of the environment. He tells you that there are launch pads and anti-missile turrets but not how they look. Instead he drags you through several sentences regarding the steel rubble they get from the cities. Spoiler: it's rusty. Same poor writing goes for character development (main character is supposed to be clever according to the context but is plainly stupid and really slow...), basic aspects like the love story or the weird way he describes women.
I don't know. Maybe I'm just too demanding but I currently read through some of Alestair Raynolds works and it makes Stephenson look like a rich school boy whos private teacher was afraid to mark the basic mistakes for him.
I've read Snow Crash many years ago. When Neuromancer and the art of those times was still in my head. Fortunately because it was exactly the same thing. Please read Snow Crash again and try to focus on the world he un-describes. I had the feeling like Stephenson took it for granted that you've already read Gibson or Sterling and knew how the world is supposed too look like so he can concentrate on world details that are completely irrelevant for the story and make no sense without describing the place they stand in.
You see...I fell twice for Stephenson which was a mistake on my side so I'm pretty angry on myself and try do divert the fault to him...
If you read Stephenson for character or environment description, or even a coherent story, you will have a bad time. If you want to read about strange ideas from a guy who spent way too much time thinking about submarine cables, you may have a good time, if that's your thing and you like the topic he is currently interested in. I am (usually) in the latter category.
Reynolds is a different guy. Better story teller, more conventional ideas to me. (I like and have read about all his books too).
If you like Reynolds, try Peter Hamiltons series, especially the Nights Dawn trilogy.