comparing stephenson and gibson is interesting - gibson basically does no story-based exposition in a lot of his work, and stephenson can't help but dig into the nitty gritty details that support the world-building and story development to an almost obnoxious (but informative!) degree.

i used to really enjoy Stephenson (especially having not gone to college- i feel like i was exposed to some interesting ideas through his writing that i might not have otherwise).

now that i'm a bit older, i find him to be kind of a know-it-all blowhard, especially in light of his extremely-lucrative work with what are basically the precursors to the giant horrible corporations he wrote about so disparagingly.

i still enjoy snow crash, and i want to re-read cryptonomicon and anathem, but it's really hard to weigh the message he used to send against his more recent work in meatspace.