My main problem with this book is that it tries too hard to be realistic, when it is anything but. Stephenson spends so much time on detailed physics and technology, but I didn't trust it to be correct and there was way too much of it, presented too much like "this is real science!1!", for me to suspend my disbelief and accept it as "in-fiction true".

And when Stephenson got to the biology, which he goes much less into detail on, I felt vindicated. This is Science Fantasy trying very hard to be Science Fiction and it ends up being unsatisfying to me as either.

Is it worse than his early books? I don't know, maybe I've just become pickier as I get older. But I can't recommend this one unless you really like long descriptions of orbital mechanics and you don't know enough orbital mechanics to think it's impossible for an apocalypse to happen like this.