Stephenson's books are all very lush, partially meaning they lack a good editor. "Reamde" is the weakest of the recent books.
"The Baroque Cycle" is very enjoyable... it is like Braudel's Capitalism cycle reimagined as a made for TV movie.
"Cryptonomicon" defines the 90's in a similar way to "Bonfire of the Vanities" for the 80's.
However, Stephenson's books all mix BIG Ideas with too much kinky sex for young audiences for my taste. Stross's "Accelerando" has the same problem as does anything Pynchon has ever written.
For sci-fi, my choice would be Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" which might be THE defining post 9/11 book. "Spook Country" and "Zero History" are weaker books in the triptych in that universe.
"Pattern Recognition" is clean and spare. However, one of the best books I have read in the last few years is "Wolf Hall". It is such a spare book... it is beautiful, like some eastern work of art. If you can catch when the protagonist and his widowed SIL end up sleeping together, your reading skills are at college level. "Bringing up the Bodies" is in a different style... I hope the third book is more like the first.
