Anathem was the last passable novel before Neal Stephenson started writing "stories" around a sci-fi concept, rather than writing stories. A throwback to Zodiac, perhaps. Snow Crash and Diamond Age were his best works.
Diamond Age has my favorite concepts of any of his books, but the plot is pretty forgettable to me. Like I can't even remember most of it and I've probably read that book 5 times.
I tried several times but could never get through Diamond Age. Snow Crash is one of my all time favorites and Zodiac was stellar, but that one just never clicked for me.
