Digital Fortress by Dan Brown

Dan Brown offers yet another best-selling thriller, less known than Da Vinci Code and in my opinion certainly not as entertaining or convincing.

When the National Security Agency discovers a new means of encryption capable of changing the balance of international power, Susan Fletcher, a brilliant mathematician as well as her fiancé David Becker, a talented linguist and university professor, are called to the rescue.

In this novel, the reader gets to look at the issues of cyberspace control and American intelligence through the eyes of fiction. Dan Brown's book is without a doubt a pulsing thriller, frought with suspense and action. He definitely had to do a lot of research to add some credibility to a plot filled with scientific and new technology detail. And that's about it...
You get the picture. I was merely entertained but far from beeing impressed by this book. Surprisingly, the characters totally lacked personnality. The hero is handsome, intelligent and has to save the day while the heroine is beautiful, intellingent and has to save the day. Cardboard stereotypes with no depth whatsoever. And the dialogue couldn't be poorer ("Oh my God! David, you're a genius!") especially since all the characters are supposed to have monster IQs. Big disappointment also when it comes to the plot which is really hard to swallow and is ruined by several inconsistencies. Okay, I'm aware that this is fiction, but once math and science are brought into a book as significant components, there are many readers who will be bothered when those are mishandled. I went on several Internet sites where average computer engineers talk about the book and they were either appalled or amused by the errors it contains. Reading those comments may change your perspective of always taking the author's word for it.

One thing is for sure, this book suffers by comparison with his other novels such as "Da Vinci Code" and "Angels and Demons".

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07/05/2006

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