I just read Davinci Code

[Flow73]

I finally gave in and read DVC last week, it wasn't bad and I had a long layover so I picked up Angels and Demons right after. Angels and Demons was much better in my opinion but dragged on far to long at the end. I borrowed Deception Point after and enjoyed it the best, but started to pick up a theme for Dan Brown books. While they all have some amaingly researched details the plots all seem so similar and start to resemble an action film where the hero dodges twenty machine guns etc...

[thirddan]

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A and D > Digital Fortress > DaVinci > Deception Point...imo...

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Digital Fortress was the worst by far.
-James

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yeah, this is the one that i have had the most disagreements with others over...people ive talked to liked one or the other, but rarely liked both regarding Deception Point and Digital Fortress...

[Duke]

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A and D > Digital Fortress > DaVinci > Deception Point...imo...

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Digital Fortress was the worst by far.
-James

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I think that whichever one you know most about ends up being the worst by far. Pretty much anyone in software will be throwing up in their mouth at several points during DF.

The biggest problem I have with Brown is that he'll get a lot of things right, and then really miss the boat on some fundamental "fact" and discredit everything else he has to say (unless you're already familiar with the material, and can pick out what's right and what's not on your own).

I can either give the guy credit for being smart, and call him intellectually dishonest by throwing around a ton of falsehoods after creating an environment that is supposedly factual, or call the guy an idiot who doesn't know most of what he's trying to talk about. Either way I'm not too happy.

That said, I read all 4 books. In order of story quality, I'd rank them as AD, DVC, DP, DF. But maybe DF was a better story than I'm giving him credit for, and was just sickened by so much of it being blatantly absurd.

~D

[Duke]

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***Angels + Demons Spoiler***

I thought it was slightly better than the Da Vinci Code and I really liked DVC. But does it bother anyone that Langdon jumps out of a helicopter from thousands of feet up and survives the incident with nothing but a few scratches?

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There's some aspect of suspending disbelief whenever you're going to read a work of fiction, and that's a much smaller leap to take than pretty much every other fake fact in the book. Hell, at least Dan Brown knows what drag is.

~D

[PorkPieHat]

FWIW, I thought the speech by the camerlengo near the end of A&D was maybe the best 'argument' for religion I have ever read. I'm about as atheist as they come and even I was ready to start tithing after reading that.

[James282]

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A and D > Digital Fortress > DaVinci > Deception Point...imo...

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Digital Fortress was the worst by far.
-James

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I think that whichever one you know most about ends up being the worst by far. Pretty much anyone in software will be throwing up in their mouth at several points during DF.

The biggest problem I have with Brown is that he'll get a lot of things right, and then really miss the boat on some fundamental "fact" and discredit everything else he has to say (unless you're already familiar with the material, and can pick out what's right and what's not on your own).

I can either give the guy credit for being smart, and call him intellectually dishonest by throwing around a ton of falsehoods after creating an environment that is supposedly factual, or call the guy an idiot who doesn't know most of what he's trying to talk about. Either way I'm not too happy.

That said, I read all 4 books. In order of story quality, I'd rank them as AD, DVC, DP, DF. But maybe DF was a better story than I'm giving him credit for, and was just sickened by so much of it being blatantly absurd.

~D

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Yeah, I totally agree with what you are saying. Brown, of course, backpedals out of this by saying that 'he' isn't saying these things, and that his characters are. This of course seems like total BS because his characters present this information as cold hard historical or technological fact as opposed to their own opinions, but I am still able to enjoy the books from a plot standpoint simply because I tie it in with other suspensions of disbelief.
-James