I've read Snow Crash and some of Crytonomicon, currently on hold. Based on that admittedly limited exposure, I rate Stephenson as an excellent, entertaining, erudite author, but to put him on the same plane with Pynchon is a stretch too far, in my opinion.

I've read just about everything of Pynchon's except Mason & Dixon, including most recently Vineland, twice, the second reading coming directly before I read Snow Crash, so I feel particularly qualified to register my opinion vis-a-vis the two authors, to wit:

Stephenson is quite good; Pynchon is one of the towering figures in American literature.

S
Inaugural Great Books participant, cryptologist, roving critic-at-large ;o)