I quite like most of what Powers has written. His big flaw is that, to me at least, writing always seems hard for him - as if he has to labor over every sentence. And, admittedly, his characters are bit of the cardboard cutout variety. Still, he was writing novels about Big Ideas when that was horribly untrendy. I'd recommend Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, The Prisoner's Dilemma, The Goldbug Variations, and Galatea 2.0. The last one is sort of autobiographical, so it helps to have read a few of his previous novels.