Here’s a fascinating Salon.com interview with author Neal Stephenson from April. (You may need to view an ad before getting to see the whole thing.)
(I’ve just begun reading The Confusion, the second book in Stephenson’s “Baroque Cycle,” and I love it as much as the first book.)
I just finished Cryptonomicon, having read Quicksilver and The Confusion first. Not the order in which I would recommend reading them. Good stuff, though.