i do love diamond age, which made me weep, but i hate its ending almost as much as i hate the ending of snow crash. i love me some neal, but like kevin smith, his endings do suck. i'm currently 1/4-through system of the world and i'm afraid to finish it because i've really loved the whole baroque cycle and i'm pretty sure the ending is going to bite hugely.

quicksilver is excellent, mostly because eliza is really the first well-drawn chick that neal's written, and because i lurve daniel waterhouse. lurve him. [ahem. i also love jack, but who wouldn't love a syphilitic pirate on a quest for redemption?] the confusion is just a teensy bit pretentious in design, but good. i could go on and on about the brilliance of baroque-as-prequel-to-crypto, but suffice it to say that you won't regret diving in [now somewhat available in paperback, i think].

i'm also re-reading zodiac, which is hilarious in it's datedness, and haven't yet gotten to the big u. as always, i highly recommend the article that inspired crypto: mother earth mother board. and in the beginning was the command line is simply must-read material for any windows/mac-bashing geek under the age of 30.

and finally - did you know he's written two trashy thrillers under the psuedonym "stephen bury"? they suck, but i own them!