Book Review: Dan Brown "Digital Fortress"

This one was written before the others, and naturally it's being sold as "by the author of the da Vinci Code" - Poor Mr. Brown will be remembered for naught else. Of course, I use poor in a non-monetary sense here.

In any event, to discuss the book: Like all of Dan Brown's books (see my review of Deception Point) this is a compelling and fast-paced thriller. Based around a cryptography threat to the US's National Security Agency, there are (as usual) 2 parallel stories, one based at the NSA, the other in the field, both stories culminating together at the end.

The Digital Fortress is an unbreakable code which threatens the ability of the NSA to eavesdrop on emails and other transmissions. Naturally, the intelligence agency doesn't want this to happen, and this is the basis of the plot in the book as the heroes try desperately to find a way to decode the Digital Fortress.

It's quite interesting to read this, as I think it was written before da Vinci code, and the style overall is a little less hectic from the start. Rather than being written entirely as a series of short 2 page chapters, the chapters are a little longer and taper down towards the end. This is a very effective means of heightening the tension and gripping the readers' attention, and works rather more powerfully as it coincides with the crescendo in the story itself.

There are still the twists and turns that are evident in the Da Vinci Code, and the other books (he's written 4, you know) and he has a very demanding style of writing.

His accessible and stimulating style is the reason his books atrract the reader, and I may have said this before, but reading Dan Brown makes the act of reading itself very compelling and exciting, which is brilliant! The more people read his books, the more people will become interested in reading books generally, which I feel is A Good Thing!

Better than lots of other fiction. Better than most other fiction! Keep writing Dan! Marked 21/23. Get and read it!