Lord of the Ring[s] (Digital Fortress - Dan Brown)

Name: sirg0508

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Product:	Digital Fortress - Dan Brown
Date:	13/11/05 (622 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A good story which is still up to date even written in 1998

Disadvantages: A lot of computer jargon, far too many characters

Beginning like a badly clichéd romance novel the story introduces two characters, Susan [Fletcher] and David [Becker] as they are about to be unexpectedly parted. The story delves into their past and how the met, Susan's history as a Cryptographer and realises the book to be that of codes and mathematics. Susan works for the NSA which is almost unheard of in the world but the strongest decoding facility breaking into worldwide e-mails and catching people like terrorists as they send encoded messages which are then decoded by NSA and they save the day. But something goes wrong when a code that is unbreakable enters circulation essentially meaning criminals could get away with anything which would previously have been dealt with and perhaps even the end of the world. The man behind this code threatens to put it into public circulation if any harm were to come to him which the prologue deals with in the form of his death in Spain…

Digital Fortress as the title of the book is also the name given to the unbreakable code. The name fits perfectly as it suggests that it is mathematical but at the same time protected which is in fact the whole problem to cracking the code as the formula is metaphorically inside a locked safe where the code is the key.

Although the book was first released in 1998, it is obvious to see why it was relatively unheard of until his later successes. It is littered with computer jargon which I can see a lot of people could have problems with even with several years experience of computers. This book is in reality still quite up to date which is surprising having been written about seven years ago where technology advances so quickly yet it holds the readers attention because it concerns a common subject a lot of people know about so really the ideas evoked are conceivable.

The characters however in my opinion are not so believable. How plausible is it to find two attractive people with a lot of brains and ability to save the world from destruction? The characters like David and Susan are made out to be physically attractive which may look good on the screen but everyone has their faults which always seems to be omitted from the book with that pair. There are a lot of characters in this book from various destinations in the world which does make it a little harder to follow. Even just half way through the book there are at least a dozen faces to get your head around. They each have roles and many are trivialised although relevant to the plot just seem to take up space confusing the reader.

The book just isn't that exciting. With others there is a desire to read the next chapter and the next but there are weak lines to convince the reader find out what's going to happen such as "There's been a setback" and "There was no way he could have known". David, a professor, isn't actually that prominent in the book at the start as it sets the story up with a lot of background into cryptography. His character is probably the worst in the book with inconvincible plot and everything seems to be based on being in the right place at the right time. The materialistic matters like money are never any problem with Dan Brown. If his characters need it, they have it with no questions asked about where it came from. This just isn't reality.

One positive aspect of the book is its presentation. Written in short chapters usually alternating between Susan at NSA and David as he is jetted off to Spain the book is easy to follow and easy to pick back up when put down. Irritatingly, some are even as short as less than a page which just breaks the story up when it could easily have continued carrying the pace a lot quicker.

The language used through the book is that of what seems another language such as the talk about "Rhyolite satellites in geosynchronous orbit" (I'm lost too) but with part of the book set in Spain, there are quite a few pieces of Spanish dialogue. I don't speak a word of Spanish but Dan Brown cleverly takes the Spanish and introduces its English meaning into the context or else the book would be written for the niche of Spanish mathematicians which I am not. As more characters are introduced the dialogue splits to French and German too but following the Spanish, generally gives the meaning in English.

The book does follow a steady pace and has the themes of romance but primarily it is a thriller. While it is all highly technical, the descriptions of the settings and characters although limited to around a paragraph do create interesting images. The ending is satisfactory although Dan Brown seemed to take a couple of ideas including the ending and put them into his later novels which although the books are unrelated do link them in all one way or another. I seemed to be saying 'well get a move on then!' as the dialogue did seem to waffle on a bit when it was exciting but this just seemed to be an average book.

I have read all of Dan Brown's novels (as it stands so far) and there is a common background which reappears in each - a secret society or agency that hardly anyone knows about. This does bring a lot of mystery to his books and shows that a lot of research has been put into them but this is a work of fiction so the facts as they seem to be stated may not in fact be true.

At £3.99 I am glad I didn't pay the full retail price of £6.99 as it just doesn't live up to Dan Brown's later works. (I actually paid less for his other books). There is a good subject choice which I am sure could interest a lot of people but it is let down by the overuse of jargon which isn't understandable but I suppose shows Dan has done his homework in researching these matters. It is fiction and the book is only given merit now through his success of The DaVinci Code but should perhaps be put on the back shelf. If I had read the books in the order they were written I may have been more impressed but I seemed to have read them backwards from the best to the worst. Every writer has to begin somewhere and if this book had been a huge success Dan may not have tried his hardest to create better work. I'm only going to recommend this book if you are even slightly interested in computers and have never read any of his other work… other than that, stay well clear.

Price: £3.99 (Amazon)
ISBN: 0-552-15169-6
Pages: 510
Stars: 2/5

My recommendations of his books from best to worst:

Deception Point
The DaVinci Code
Angels and Demons
Digital Fortress

Summary: Well he had to start somewhere!