This book started out strong for me. I really enjoyed it up until about the half to three quarter mark when it jumps forward in time.

I enjoyed the early books by Stephenson but when the Baroque series came out I went cross eyed trying to read it, and Anathema. So if you enjoyed those, maybe that's where my taste for his style breaks down.

Once the book stopped talking about the event, and moved forward in time things drug on for me. It finally started picking up near the end for me and started enjoying it again, but Mr. Stephenson gets too involved in his fiction without explaining it for me.

Example would be the Kath Two/Kath Three. There was always something in the back of my head nagging at 'what is this, why does it matter' portion of the events. Even that subplot resolved for me badly and keeps bugging me after I put the book down. What was that about? what was it? why?

Probably no fault of the author, just something that bugs my analytical brain when it comes to reading stuff. This is probably why I was unable to finish the Baroque books and the Anathem, the universe didnt make sense to me so I got lots in my own internal dialogue while reading it.