Like a lot of nerdy scifi writers, NS's characters can come off a little... archetypal rather than complex or subtle. It's a lot more pronounced in his shorter works, as there's a lot more internal dialogue in his longer ones - if you find that a deal breaker, it's not confined to the start of the book.

It might help to think of the characters as archetypal because he's writing about the future and these archetypes will be present in the future - the people who make history will seem a bit cartoonish because they'll be more extreme in their behaviour.

And if that doesn't satisfy you might still like his longer books like Anathem - the characters were still recognizeable there, but there was a lot more humanity to their behaviour.