Dan Brown

I guess many of you out there have read Dan Brown's (DB) The Da Vinci Code. I did too. And I kinda liked it too. But I wasn't convinced that DB was the brilliant author everyone was claiming he was. The Da Vinci Code was a well-researched novel, and I feel that was the reason for it being so interesting. That and DB's habit of ending every chapter with a sentence that was pregnant with suspense; unnecerrary suspense. It was okay at first, but as I progressed through the book, it got kinda irritating. In order to decide for myself, whether DB was a good author or not, I went out and bought his other three books; Angels & Demons, Deception Point and Digital Fortress.

Angels & Demons was the precursor to The Da Vinci Code, and was interesting. But it had common elements with The Da Vinci Code. I assumed this might be the case because both the books were about Robert Langdon. Read Deception Point. And thats when I realized that DB writes to a formula.

This is how it goes. In the prologue, someone dies under mysterious circumstances. And that someone has a secret. An earth-shattering secret. A secret which costs him his life. Anyway, while dying he leaves behind some clue / information which becomes the basis of the entire novel. And the protagonists of the story are a guy in this 40s who is a walking encyclopedia and women drool all over him and he doesnt seem to realize it cos he is too engrossed in his work; and a woman who is in her 30s and has the IQ of Einstein and the body of Cindy Crawford. These two are usually thrown together by chance and a romance blossoms between them through the novel. Every chapter in the novel ends with a sentence that conveys absolutely no information but is full of suspense. (I find this very very irritating. Its very similar to the tactic used in Hindi teleserials on Star Plus / Sony). And after a thrilling ride that takes the protagonists to different exotic locales across different continents, the protagonists somehow solve the issue, after a shocking revelation that one of the characters was not what everyone thought him/her to be. And in the end, the protagonists have sex.

Bah! I couldnt take more of this, thats why I've decided not to read Digital Fortress until I read some two or three other books. So, I'm starting off with San Andreas by Alistair McLean.