An interesting interview with Neal Stephenson. I’m working my way through Cryptonomicon, and although it’s slow going, it’s still pretty interesting. It’s not really so much about cryptography itself (there are no silly “oh no, he’s only 13 bits away from breaking the asymmetric vault key on the RS/6000!” scenes) as it is about scenarios where it’s a subtle influencing factor, in wartime and business, and the kinds of people (proto-geeks, if you will) you might find involved.
I haven’t read Cryptonomicon yet, but Snow Crash and The Diamond Age are great. The endings are pretty abrupt, but that makes them more realistic to me, as life doesn’t usually ties up all the loose ends into a nice neat “The End”.