Funny — I've been recently re-leafing through it to find _just_ the Babylonian infodumps. (though I failed at "skip ahead 5–10 pages whenever there is an action scene", because they're too good :-)

For me the blurring of religion/biology/code boundaries was brilliantly interesting (even if factually unconvincing). If you skip these infodumps, consider going back later.

-> for those who like that meta-liguistic angle, Laundry Files series by Charles Stross may be fun. It has some similar "Enochian" language used for programming zombies / magic / etc. (the tone is quite different though, more of a horror comedy, and varies between books as he's parodying different material.)

-> on the "collapse of government" angle, Diamond Age by Stephenson is almost a direct continuation. plus very cool nano-tech. (2nd half has few scenes using humans bodies in a gross way.)

-> if you like a large Quest crossing both physical and intellectual world, well, almost any Stephenson book :)