NationStates Jolt Archive

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

As quick, entertaining reads, they're alright.

Well, luckily, both hatred and envy are not part of my emotional capabilities, so I don't understand anything of your post. ;)

I've only read the DaVinci Code. It kept me occupied on the 20hr flight from Aus to Europe, so it did its job. I wouldn't call him a literary genius though.

Yes! Dan Brown is a self-righteous panderer with no actual basis for any of his paranoid theories. The next person who says that the Da Vinci Code "raises some important questions" will be personally shot. In the face. Repeatedly. With a shotgun. By me. If Dan Brown had valid historical point, he wouldn't have published it as FICTION.

All of his books are the same ...

I like DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons but the others are crap.

The DaVinci Code doesn't bring up anything new, what it does do is put the points other folks have made into a best selling novel.

They're the bibliographical equivalent of a microwave meal compared to a real meal.

Dan writing is like crushed freezed peas, his plot is like the mess known as a 'steak' and his character development is like a wet mess pretending to be mashed potatoes.

They're the bibliographical equivalent of a microwave meal compared to a real meal.

Dan writing is like crushed freezed peas, his plot is like the mess known as a 'steak' and his character development is like a wet mess pretending to be mashed potatoes.
uhh, yummy!

Never read his stuff, nor do I care to. And I hate all the hype about the Davinci Code, with people taking A NOVEL so seriously.

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

How many of his novels did you read after discovering your hatred for them?

I had a teacher who required papers on Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Digital Fortress; so, I read them. I REGRET IT

I had a teacher who required papers on Angels and Demons, The Da Vinci Code, and Digital Fortress; so, I read them. I REGRET IT You could have read just one of them, and then cut and paste the names and locations into the rest, since the plot is pretty much the same in all of them.

I didn't read Dan Brown myself, but my mother read one crime fiction book of him (Deception Point)
And she said, the story was predictible and unbelivibale. Sometimes it sounded like a technical report, and the people were swearing all the time.

As she reads a lot of books, I believe her. She thouhgt, that Dan Brown is heavily overrated.

They are good reading for long plane flights.

I really like the DaVinci code simply because it outrages the Christian community. They are so determined to point out the fact a Novel isn't true!

Ahh well.

At least he has a non-rushed ending like Crighten.

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

You should envy me - I am not even going to read them besides fragments to laugh at.

Basically I don't like him because I hate lamers. If you are gonna make up a conspiracy theory, just try not to make stupid and easily verifiable mistakes like with that uber-tube. Otherwise - LMD. Would work only for an arcade game, or for religious people.

You should envy me - I am not even going to read them besides fragments to laugh at.

Basically I don't like him because I hate lamers. If you are gonna make up a conspiracy theory, just try not to make stupid and easily verifiable mistakes like with that uber-tube. Otherwise - LMD. Would work only for an arcade game, or for religious people.

lol, well said mate. I agree with you totally.

They are good reading for long plane flights.

I really like the DaVinci code simply because it outrages the Christian community. They are so determined to point out the fact a Novel isn't true!

Ahh well.

At least he has a non-rushed ending like Crighten.

They are? Most Christians I spoke to here in Ireland were actually the ones fascinated by the points of that novel. Atheists just didn't care one way or the other.

Me, I didn't like the book. The points have been made in a more eloquent, better researched and overall more coherent way by many other authors, not least Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum.
The technique was too obvious, the ending predictable pretty much from page 25 and the language reminded me a lot of a "Groschenroman", a cheap booklet from the newspaper stand.

Egh.

Envy me.

And while you're at it - you may whorship me as well! ;)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y223/GermanNightmare/Hail-1.gif :D

I've read Digital Fortress and found it boring and overlong, as well as being slightly bizarre (how good would a deaf hitman really be? If you were running from him, you wouldn't even need to bother with being quiet!)

I was also a bit puzzled with all of the computer terms and American agencies involved, as I'm not good with PCs or American government (I'm English :P)

I wasn't orginially going to read it, but I was stuck in Rhodes airport for four hours, and had nothing better to do. I may read the DaVinci Code just to see what all the fuss is about, but I loathe to put more money in the guy's pocket.

I wasn't orginially going to read it, but I was stuck in Rhodes airport for four hours, and had nothing better to do. I may read the DaVinci Code just to see what all the fuss is about, but I loathe to put more money in the guy's pocket.

How about charity shops? The one I work at reguarly has at least one copy

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

I've read the Illuminatus Trilogy. Meh, it was okay. I refuse, however, to read any of Dan Brown's stuff.

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was unoriginal. I read that whole "the chruch is trying to cover up the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene" plot in a Shadowrun (http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/)novel 10 years ago.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought it was unoriginal. I read that whole "the chruch is trying to cover up the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene" plot in a Shadowrun (http://www.shadowrunrpg.com/)novel 10 years ago.

Goes back a helluva lot more than 10 years, my friend...

I hated digital fortress with a passion

Only book I read of his was Da Vinci Code, which was rather dull. I'd heard many rave reviews and I kept reading and reading waiting to get to the good part.

I gave up on the last page, there was good part. The characters are one dimensional, the plot contrived, and the "puzzles" either simplistic or so obscure that they would be impossible to figure out.

Abysmally researched, written, planned and presented. You could lose a small town in a number of the plot holes in the Da Vinci code.

Only book I read of his was Da Vinci Code, which was rather dull. I'd heard many rave reviews and I kept reading and reading waiting to get to the good part.

I gave up on the last page, there was good part. The characters are one dimensional, the plot contrived, and the "puzzles" either simplistic or so obscure that they would be impossible to figure out.

Yeah I was rather depressed at the reviews it got too … It was alright but nothing breathtaking

They are? Most Christians I spoke to here in Ireland were actually the ones fascinated by the points of that novel. Atheists just didn't care one way or the other.

Me, I didn't like the book. The points have been made in a more eloquent, better researched and overall more coherent way by many other authors, not least Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum.
The technique was too obvious, the ending predictable pretty much from page 25 and the language reminded me a lot of a "Groschenroman", a cheap booklet from the newspaper stand.

I agree. But comparing Eco to Brown is like comparing the Beatles to the monkeys. Not the Monkeys. The monkeys.

His strength is in being able to capture that Hollywood formula. His novels read like blockbuster screenplays. The only thing I like about them is how he uses unity of action to convey the relentless rhythm of the story. it would be nice if the rhythm of the book changed, or the characters did, or anything else for that matter.

What's wrong with Dan Brown's writings?
Where to start...

For one, it's obvious the chief protagonist is just Dan Brown acting out all his wet dream fantasies: Handsome 40 year old genius professor who gets caught up in some world-shattering affair and has a beautiful young woman fall in love with him. Pretty much the plot to every one of his books there.

His handling of the female protagonist is clumsy at best. She's just a bit of 1 dimensional eye candy that falls for Dan Brown - whoops, I mean Robert Langdon, and is there solely for Langbrown to patiently explain to her (in other words us, the reader) the story and plot, so we can marvel at how intelligent and clever Langbrown is.
Usually at least once every chapter.

His way of explaining and introducing characters is appalling and incredibly lazy. eg. DaVinci code, chapter 2(?), Langbrown is woken by phone ringing. Before he answers it, he lies there and spends about 3 pages 'remembering' who he is, where he is and what he's there for. Said recollection includes a woman reading out an newspaper article to an audience that details all about him.
Now I ask you: When was the last time you were woken by a phone call and instead of answering it, spent several minutes reflecting over your life and creating a mini-autobiography?
Sure, it brings us the reader up to speed as to who Langbrown is, but what a dreadful, lazy, hamfisted way of doing it! Just simply appalling writing.

He spends at least 1/2 of each chapter recounting the previous one. If you removed this crap, the book would have been 1/2 the length. It made me wonder whether Brown was being paid by the word (like pulp writers of yore).

The 'facts' he used throughout the book were anything but. Wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that he proudly states on the cover that everything contained within is truthful and has been extensively researched. Brown couldn't even get the geography of Paris or London correct. Let alone any of the other stuff, like DaVinci, Knights Templars, The Priory of Sion, Opus Dei...And don't even get me started on his abuse of the Fibonacci sequence, let alone his hamfisted way of introducing it.
In the book, Langbrown sees the sequence but has to have the pretty chick tell him what it is. He then 'remembers' spending a whole friggin' unit on it for the course he lectures in! What sort of idiot can lecture on a subject and not even recognise it? But then, everything he spends the next 3 pages recalling (for our benefit) in his lecture about Fibonacci is a lot of utter tripe. So maybe we can forgive Langbrown for not knowing a Fibonacci sequence when he sees it.

Speaking of facts, his random insertions throughout the book made it feel more like Brown was just wanting to show off his 'amazing' and 'extensive' knowledge and intelligence - just so we can admire him. At regular intervals throughout the book.

When backed into a corner, Brown whips out the good ol' Duex ex Machina to help our hero "with a single bound, he is free!"
Example: The chief antagonist in DaVinci has a manservant. Somewhere near the end of the book, the manservant, for no reason whatsoever, suddenly recalls that he has a fatal peanut allergy. Cue a few pages later, and guess how he's killed off?
It felt so much like Brown got to that point and was stumped as to how to dispose of this minor character. So he just flicked back a few pages, randomly inserted, 'the manservant sits there and thinks, "wow! I can't eat peanuts! I'll die if I do! wow!"' and then gets back to the spot he was working on and, "Oh, no! I've eaten a peanut! Apparently, I'm allergic to them! urgggg....."
Again, simplistic, dreadful writing.



Still, it's made him a multi-millionaire, so I guess he's doing something right.
I just wish people wouldn't rave about how great his works are.

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

I keep getting that jackass mixed up with Dale Brown the (tax fraudester) cheap disposable fun techno-thriller author. :headbang:

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

I don't like them because his characters are totally uninteresting.

His male leads are such over-blown ego fantasies that it's laughable. Tall, handsome, athletic, brilliant, popular...you find yourself expecting Brown to describe how Our Hero is also hung like a horse and sleeps with a different supermodel every night.

His female characters are given a thin layer of "spunk" over what is essentially the same old helpless sex-bot bimbo you'll find in any pulp novel. They are always sexualized hotties who can't help but fall for Our Hero. Boooooring.

What annoyed me (at least in the Da Vinci code) was the way he kept dropping little reminders to make sure no one forgets that Robert Langdon is an intellectual professor from Harvard. (It was a joke he shared with his Harvard colleagues.) But then maybe that's just me.

Personally, I don't like them because they're predictable, unoriginal, and bland.

If you like them: feel free to say why.
If you agree with me: good for you.

If you haven't read anything by Dan Brown yet: I ENVY YOU.

If you're interested in a truely good conspiracy theory novel, read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. It just might open your eyes and mind.

I haven't read anything by Dan Brown but if you are saying that the Illuminatus Trilogy is much better then I am avoiding his books like the plague. I was not impressed with the Illuminatus Trilogy at all, one of the very few times I have ever regretted wasting money on a book

I was also a bit puzzled with all of the computer terms and American agencies involved, as I'm not good with PCs or American government (I'm English :P)

The overwhelming majority of computertalk in Digitall Fortress is bullshit. So don't feel bad for not getting it ;)

I also assume that real life high-IQed women working for a decryption division would not be stumped by "without wax".

As quick, entertaining reads, they're alright.

I agree. I must say I was more than a little taken aback by the whole Da Vinci Code brouhaha, though. It was a novel, people!

I haven't read Dan Brown's novels and I don't mean to.

First, I think most contemporary fiction isn't worth reading.

Second, I dislike everything I hear about the book which gets the most gossip, "The Da Vinci Code" and I am wary of the content of the rest of his books because of it.

I agree. I must say I was more than a little taken aback by the whole Da Vinci Code brouhaha, though. It was a novel, people!

If it was a good novel it'd be different. It's not.

If it was a good novel it'd be different. It's not.

:D I didn't say good, I agreed that they're easy, quick reads, eminently suited to a plane ride or an idle day on the beach. Mad did a parody a few months ago, around the time the movie came out, but it was disappointing, though the centerfold of Alfred E. Newman as the Mona Lisa was worth the price of the magazine.

If it was a good novel it'd be different. It's not.

That's always the way though.


I cannot stand Brown for pretty much the same reasons as Demented Hamsters gives and also because he treats his readers like idiots.

I have to say I quite liked the ambigrams. Shame Brown didn't come up with them

They are? Most Christians I spoke to here in Ireland were actually the ones fascinated by the points of that novel. Atheists just didn't care one way or the other.


Here they were. It seemed like every church(I live near 10 of them) had something along the lines of "The Truth about the Da Vinci code" on their serman boards for several days. There was a great deal of effort to point out that the book is work of fiction "DUH!" I kind of got the clue when the book had "a Novel" on the cover.


Me, I didn't like the book. The points have been made in a more eloquent, better researched and overall more coherent way by many other authors, not least Umberto Eco in Foucault's Pendulum.
The technique was too obvious, the ending predictable pretty much from page 25 and the language reminded me a lot of a "Groschenroman", a cheap booklet from the newspaper stand.

Sorry I guess Long Plane ride wasn't explicit enough. It was supposed to mean it's good "fluff" reading.....

:D I didn't say good, I agreed that they're easy, quick reads, eminently suited to a plane ride or an idle day on the beach. Mad did a parody a few months ago, around the time the movie came out, but it was disappointing, though the centerfold of Alfred E. Newman as the Mona Lisa was worth the price of the magazine.

I finished the book cover to cover in about 5 hours. Honestly wouldn't do that again. Hell I've read Battlefield Earth three times, and at 1100 pages I'd read it again before I read Dan Brown's stupid crap. Atleast BE is somewhat entertaining in a mindless way.

I agree. I must say I was more than a little taken aback by the whole Da Vinci Code brouhaha, though. It was a novel, people!

A novel that pretends to be rooted in fact. Just like most of his other novels.
Unfortunately, most of the facts are made up. But people have a hard time believing that.

I hated digital fortress with a passion

It's still better the Jurassic park the move!

"I know this os. This is UNIX!"

Nice flight simulator GUI! :p

It's still better the Jurassic park the move!

"I know this os. This is UNIX!"

Nice flight simulator GUI! :p

First rule of Hollywood, computers never work anything like they do in the real world. Even if explicitly basing said computer systems on real systems they must be completely different.

I finished the book cover to cover in about 5 hours. Honestly wouldn't do that again. Hell I've read Battlefield Earth three times, and at 1100 pages I'd read it again before I read Dan Brown's stupid crap. Atleast BE is somewhat entertaining in a mindless way.
Well, it did keep you off the streets for five hours. :D

A novel that pretends to be rooted in fact. Just like most of his other novels.
Unfortunately, most of the facts are made up. But people have a hard time believing that.
That's what I meant, the whole thing surprised me. The Da Vinci Code was given to me by friends after a discussion that was facilitated more by alcohol then it was by anything else. They were very enthusiastic about it and the whole "Holy Grail = Mary Magdalen" schtick. After I read it I was as polite as I could be.

Here they were. It seemed like every church(I live near 10 of them) had something along the lines of "The Truth about the Da Vinci code" on their serman boards for several days. There was a great deal of effort to point out that the book is work of fiction "DUH!" I kind of got the clue when the book had "a Novel" on the cover.


To be fair to the Christians though, there are plenty of people who believe the stuff written in the book. Not helped by the way FACT is emblazoned upon the first page.

First rule of Hollywood, computers never work anything like they do in the real world. Even if explicitly basing said computer systems on real systems they must be completely different.

You MEAN all computers are not binary based??????

You MEAN the aliens in Independence Day might have had different kind of computing??????

;)

Not all movies are like that.

I wouldn't say I "hate" Dan Brown's novels; I get too much enjoyment out of mocking them to feel any terrible antipathy. The Da Vinci Code is unquestionably one of the worst-written books I've ever encountered, from its paper-doll characters to its formulaic plot to its pathetically obvious and/or just plain stupid "riddles" - but it's quite fun to laugh at. :p

My friend lent me Deception Point. It isn't the worst book ever, but it was bad. Very bad. Not Siddartha, not Interview with the Vampire, not Myst. But bad.

I'd rather have re-read my Bay Networks IPX routing book again. It was marginally more exciting than Deception Point, had better plot twists, and the characters are more interesting. For example, it has ~ and |, plus ; ! :D

He's an easy read. I don't have strong emotions about his writing either way. I've read all of his books, but I won't reread any of them, and I won't buy them.

Yes! Dan Brown is a self-righteous panderer with no actual basis for any of his paranoid theories.

you said it yourself, it's fiction. F.I.C.T.I.O.N. George Lucas has no basis to believe that there are human like aliens living "in a galaxy far far away". Do you attack it for that?

Who gives a damn if it is not supported, it's fake.

Dan Brown writes gratuitous, non-style shit.

As A O Scott famously called "da vinci code:"

'Dan brown's best-selling primer on how not to write an English sentence'

I've read a lot of fiction in my free time, and Dan Brown's isn't that good. My biggest impression of his books was that they were like one big run-on sentence with little time given to developing characters or backgrounds. There are authors that do pure action writing with weird-ass occult premises much better than him, and others that create better characters within the confines of an incredibly unreralistic plot with better style, pace, and resolution than him. The only thing that made him so famous was the controversy the Da Vinci Code generated, IMO.

you said it yourself, it's fiction. F.I.C.T.I.O.N. George Lucas has no basis to believe that there are human like aliens living "in a galaxy far far away". Do you attack it for that?

Who gives a damn if it is not supported, it's fake.

I have a felling that Lucas doesn't go around saying things like this:

On May 25, 2003, Brown gave an interview on CNN with anchorman Martin Savidge:

Savidge: When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline?
Brown: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is … all that is fiction, of course, is that there's a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.

or

In an ABC TV special around the same time, Brown was asked a similar question;


Interviewer: This is a novel ... If you were writing it as a non-fiction book, would it have been different?

Brown: I don't think it would have. I began the research for The Da Vinci Code as a skeptic. I entirely expected, as I researched the book to disprove this (Jesus/Mary Magdalene/Grail) theory. And after numerous trips to Europe and about two years of research I really became a believer. I decided this theory makes more sense to me than what I learnt as a child.

Several months later, on NBC's The Today Show Brown was pushing the same message:

Matt Lauer: How much of this is based on reality in terms of things that actually occurred?"
Dan Brown: Absolutely all of it.
(Today Show, June 9, 2003)


From: http://www.historyvsthedavincicode.com/fiction.htm

And, to everyone saying Dan Brown is great because he could make people believe simple lies - he isn't. In this he doesn't hold a candle to Ron Hubbard, who managed to write even more patent nonsense, selling his pulp fiction, and there is about 100 thousands people who have really believed even that. Dan is nowhere near. It is the church who used him to their and as a side-effect his benefit.