I'd actually go with publication order myself...

Nice username!

It's what happens when you sign up for Slashdot while reading Cryptonomicon without doing any checks as to where the name actually comes from!

I tried reading the first of the Baroque Cycle like 5 times. Could never make it more than 1/4 through it before losing steam. Anathem was the worst for me though.

The Baroque Cycle made double-entry bookkeeping click for me, bizarre as that sounds. The whole cycle is a long, long read. But there are nuggets that make it well worth it.

Anathem really picks up after the first 400-500 pages.

I am the rare Anathem reader who enjoyed the slow first part more than the active later parts. The initial world immersion was fascinating. The Big Event and subsequent faster paced developments were a lot less memorable. But I also enjoyed the instructional sections about whaling in Moby Dick.

I laughed. It's both true, and very not helpful. It's the equivalent of a fairly long not-so-great book before a pretty good book. Hard agree.

Also agreed, although I enjoyed some of the philosophical debate in the early portions of the book so I would put Anathem higher in books I enjoyed from Neal Stephenson

The first part of the book is super slow and boring, but it does get much better later on and what they setup is necessary for the story.

personally, I found Anathem to be fun the whole way through, but Baroque Cycle has like only one enjoyable part at the end of book two

You Should not read fall under any circumstances.

Seriously: life is too short.

(I say this as a huge NS fan)

Cannot possibly agree more. It's an absolutely terrible book.

REAMDE was ok, except the sections about the MMO which frequently left me catatonic with cringe. In Fall, the whole book is that cringe.

I really liked Fall, even before the Cryptonomicon tie-in.

It’s not high art, but I probably enjoyed it in my top 5 books of the year.

Different people have different tastes, I just find it funny when people make generalized statements like “this book is so bad, no one should ever read it.”

If you like mythology and scifi, then you should absolutely read it

I read Cryptonomicon, then the Baroque Cycle, then Cryptonomicon (or a long period of years) which has nice tie-ins to each other.

However I disliked Reamde enough that I didn't start Fall. Is it better?

Fall is, IMHO, nowhere near as good as Reamde. But I've always been a technothriller fan, and Reamde is pretty high on my enjoyment list.

I loved both in totally different ways.

But I would read the phone book if NS wrote it.