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Notes -
Do you happen to remember how long it takes before it gets good? I thought I was a fan of Stephenson's spectrum all the way from "fun but too wacky" (e.g. Snow Crash) through "fascinating but too slow" (e.g. the Baroque Cycle), and Cryptonomicon is one of my favorite books ever ... but I put down Reamde before anything interesting had happened in it, and I've never bothered to pick it up again.
In my opinion, the first "good" / exciting part is the stolen credit card deal, which on my Kindle shows as page 67. It's a bit of a slowish start, with the exciting bits gradually getting more common as the story goes on. I wouldn't be surprised if some people would rather skim his long-winded explanations of things. But I think there's plenty of crazy and exciting stuff going on by the final third or so of the book.
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It doesn't get good. I think the best part is when the Russian hitman finds himself abandoned and alone in Xiamen and comes up with a plan to fix his suspicious appearance and reach the resident British spy lady. I guess that's it. There's some cool stuff later in the book, but if you want cool stuff, then Snow Crash is 95% cool stuff, as is Stross/Doctorow's Rapture of the Nerds. Personally I think Anathem has the best balance between a plot that stands alone on its own and cool stuff.
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