The new "DaVinci Code"

[Galt]

is supposedly "The Rule of Four". Times best seller, one of the guys I work with apparently knows the two guys who wrote it.

I read DaVinci Code. Not very well written -- kind of cheesy, but it was an interesting story, very compelling. I think I read it in about 15 hours over the course of two days.

Then I read Angels and Demons. Same author, same type of book. Takes factual events, places, people, pieces of art, etc and fictionalizes certain aspects of of the meanings behind them, passes it off as fact, writes a drama around it as all the information comes out.... and boom. A beach book is born. You are getting entertained by reading a novel, and at the same time you fool yourself into think you're getting educated as well.

So I read those two books. Pretty interesting, and when I read reviews in People, the Times, the Globe, etc that said it was like Davici Code, but better written, I jumped all over it.

I'm like 1/3 of the way through it (it's less than 400 pages), and it SUCKS. The whole book has been inane backstory. There has yet to be a coherrent plot, and with only 400 pages you'd think that there wouldn't be so much useless clutter that doesn't move the plot along. It's like the random plotlines of the Sopranos over the last few years.

Anyway, if anyone tries to get you to read it, tell them you have it on good authority that it sucks balls.

I might amend my review when I finish it. But on the universal 10-point scale. So far: 5

[Gooch]

Deception Point by Dan Brown is pretty good...as is Digital Fortress

[Arpikarhu]

i just dont get it. da vinci code sucked! poorly written and the basic premise is from a discredited manifesto written by an insane nun.

[Galt]

I said it was poorly written, post stealer.

[diceisgod]

Anything that's not the bible is the devil.

[Kid Afrika]

Ha ha, you guys are nerds. Wait, what? :-o

[Gooch]

i just dont get it. da vinci code sucked! poorly written and the basic premise is from a discredited manifesto written by an insane nun.

fiction is an amazing thing....author can do what he wants.

and i disagree that it was poorly written. it's pretty basic plot structure/thriller, but written poorly? hardly. Dan Brown is pretty concise and straightforward...and his books strengths are on the concepts and information, true or not, that he wraps around that straightforward narrative.

[Galt]

By poorly written, I mean that it was cheesy. The italics he uses for inner thoughts and accentuation are pretty lame. Some of the phrases and words he uses are just so lame

[Goatweed]

I just finished reading the latest in King's The Dark Tower series (the next & last book 7 comes out in November I think). Anyway, I thought it was really short and didn't do much to add to the story, other then just extend it slightly. he could've done more, and hopefully this isn't a prelude as to how the last book will be - each volume up until now has been nothing short of amazing.

[Goatweed]

He (King) also managed to write himself into the story which I thought initially was a clever way to tie in all of his books into the world of the Dark Tower, but after letting it sink in I think it came off a little bit cheesy.

[Gooch]

By poorly written, I mean that it was cheesy. The italics he uses for inner thoughts and accentuation are pretty lame. Some of the phrases and words he uses are just so lame

that i agree with. he's very basic.

but the books make good summer reads.

I think I want to read Hunter S. Thompson's RUM DIARY next, since they are making a movie of it starring Johnny Depp, directed by Benicio Del Toro.

[Arpikarhu]

the gunslinger books have been good up until wolves of calla. it was a direct rip-off of seven samurai.

[Gooch]

shit...i have that book on my "next to read" pile. that bad????

[Goatweed]

the gunslinger books have been good up until wolves of calla. it was a direct rip-off of seven samurai.

yeah, that argument was made when it came out and I tended to agree with it - but I kind of took that and put it in the back of my mind to see how it fits the story. A lot of the series was based on The Magnificent Seven, Lord of the Rings, etc. and there are direct rip-offs throughout - that book as a whole seemingly being mostly that. But in the grand scheme of the story, it works.

[Arpikarhu]

i am worried that he rushed through it just to be done with the series and the end will be weak. wolves of calla certainly supports that theory.

[GonzoStyle]

who gives a fuck, the clinton book comes out in 2 days!!!

I already have mine pre-ordered.

[Arpikarhu]

ny times- "eye crossingly dull"

[Mad]

The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history.

Waste of money.

[GonzoStyle]

Cause the NY times prints the truth and nothing but...

[diceisgod]

any newspaper without a sports section is not to be trusted