I usually avoid Stephenson (only because it's so wordy and I don't have much free time) and hadn't even read the wikipedia tl;dr of Anathem, but you mentioning

I usually avoid Stephenson (only because it's so wordy and I don't have much free time) and hadn't even read the wikipedia tl;dr of Anathem, but you mentioning it together with A Canticle for Leibowitz caused me to read the first few paragraphs of the wiki page for it and now I'm going to make an exception and find time to read it. Thanks!