Bullshit meter on a hair trigger… that one’s a keeper. I’m going to be saying that all the time now.

Anathem is pretty hard to beat, its true. Have you read Snow Crash, Luke? It precedes Diamond Age and it takes place in the same world- in fact one of the main characters from Snow Crash makes a small cameo in DA- kinda cool.
I agree with you, Neal does over simplify and over-explain quite a bit- but they are very enjoyable books. I could hack the ‘System of the World’ series. Too heavy and plodding. Hmm. Reamde was quite good, actually- a little schizophrenic at times, but Neal has alot of that in all his books.
Looking back at my post, I come off a little schizo myself, sorry. I need some rest.

Maybe you should give Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon a go. I’ve not read it myself, but he got Bruce Schneier (yes, that Bruce Schneier) to invent a cypher you can implement with a deck of playing cards, purely to add to the book’s cryptographic verisimilitude.