Granted. And I certainly think Stephenson is the weaker of the names I'm about to mention. But I don't exactly remember stellar plots from Gibson (earlier work

Granted. And I certainly think Stephenson is the weaker of the names I'm about to mention. But I don't exactly remember stellar plots from Gibson (earlier works) or Ridley Scott either. The cyberpunk-influenced genre is essentially defined by everyday troubles, draped with techno-decoration. Personally, that's one of the reasons I like it. The fusion of slice-of-life pedestrianism w/ in medias res pacing always came across as more believable than any grand opera. Statistically, significantly rare interesting events are far more likely to happen to a janitor than the King / Queen of the Universe.