I have a love/hate relationship with his writing – he adores going off on tangents, and action often gets put on pause while he savors them (REAMDE has several

I have a love/hate relationship with his writing – he adores going off on tangents, and action often gets put on pause while he savors them (REAMDE has several long paragraphs of a character pulling themselves onto a boat, admiring the hull, praising the usefulness of the tires lashed to it, etc). But it also introduces me to so many lovely things in the process. That moment in Cryptonomicon was quite cool.