Stephenson's worst: a bad knock-off of the Bobiverse series

Stephenson tries his hand at writing some fantasy/mythology... but only halfway through a book that started out as science fiction. The transition was jarring, and it's impossible to care about any of the characters, settings, constraints, politics and power struggles, etc. when the reader knows it's all just one big computer simulation and nobody is being forced to participate in any of it.

It's all as meaningless as a gigantic dream sequence, with "AnD tHeN i WoKE uP!" at the end.