"Deception Point" by Dan Brown - should I keep reading?

[Skald_the_Rhymer]

@Excalibre

Perhaps Dan Brown deliberately depicted his protagonist as being intelligent enough that he didn’t buy into that silliness. Granted, it would require a bit more subtlety than I would expect out of Brown, but it doesn’t strike me as that unreasonable.

I don’t mean to be a jerk about this,

Don’t worry, you’re not being a jerk.

**ut this started with a post you made in which you were complaining about the usage and making extravagant (but, sadly, ultimately unmerited) threats

I thought of them as deliberately over the top and facetious.

not about Dan Brown’s depiction of his character as using it. I hope you understand now that it’s not really incorrect, except in the eyes of one particular field of study (and in that case, it’s a bizarre inconsistency that amounts to a shibboleth regarding one person’s name rather than a general practice when identifying artists.)

I can’t say I agree with you about it being restricted to one particular field of study, as I’ve heard both art history and general history professors make that claim. Maybe it was just a fashion in my college. Anywhistle, we can just say YMMV, and I’ll promise to only threaten Brown’s life because of his egregiously horrible prose style. 'Kay?

[Excalibre]

@Skald the Rhymer

I thought of them as deliberately over the top and facetious.

I can’t say I agree with you about it being restricted to one particular field of study, as I’ve heard both art history and general history professors make that claim. Maybe it was just a fashion in my college. Anywhistle, we can just say YMMV, and I’ll promise to only threaten Brown’s life because of his egregiously horrible prose style. 'Kay?

Oh, I have nothing against threats of violence. Especially against people like Dan Brown.

[Siege]

A few months ago, I read Deception Point after first listening to then reading The Da Vinci Code and I had a revelation. Dan Brown is a hack! He’s nothing earth-shattering, nothing great, and certainly not the threat to western civilization or religion some made him out to be. Now, I’ve nothing against hacks – one even lived with me for a while during his separation, and I was a Clive Cussler fan for years. On the other hand, when you remove the trimmings, there isn’t that much difference between the two books I read. It’s one stunning escape to another as our hero and heroine escape the evil massive conspiracy. I’d say Deception Point had the more improbable escape and I was wondering how he’d pull it off.

Wee Todd, Deception Point doesn’t get any better. In fact, depending on where you are in the book, it may get annoyingly worse. I’ll put the spectacularly improbable rescue in a spoiler box.

At one point, our band of heroes are stranded on an iceberg in the North Atlantic, having been chased there by, I believe, Navy SEALs. They are rescued by a nuclear submarine which our heroine summons by tapping out an SOS on the iceberg. She just happens to know that this particular sub would be in the area.

Dan Brown’s book are nothing more than fast-paced, mindless thrillers. They’re not bad for beach reading or listening to on a long car trip, but they are to literature what a fast food hamburger is to gourmet dining.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

Actually, your spoiler isn’t quite right, not that what actually happens is any more credible.

She taps out an SOS knowing that an array or microphones on the ocean floor will catch it and hoping an aircraft will be sent out to investigate

[Wee_Todd]

Oh, I’ve already given up on the horrible thing. And it’s cured me of any faint desire I might have had to read “DaVici Code” too. Bonus! I’m reading the 'Ware reries by Rudy Rucker now. Ah, much better!

[Eureka]

@Thudlow Boink

I read it, and I found it, and Dan Brown’s other books, to be entertaining, but I read them fast and didn’t pay much attention to the writing style. I suspect that if I tried listening to them read aloud, I might very well end up ramming Phillips screwdrivers into my ears. If you don’t like it so far, it’s probably not worth it to you to keep reading.

No Phillips screwdrivers available, though there was a Toryx screwdriver in the glove compartment.

Actually, listening like that was the perfect way to “read” that book. This way, there was always someone with me who had “read” the exact same amount of the book, so that when the need to roll my eyes got too intense, I could turn off the CD player, comment to my mother, she’d respond, maybe we’d talk for a moment about traffic or the scenery, and then we’d turn the CD player back on to find out what happened next.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Eureka

Actually, listening like that was the perfect way to “read” that book. This way, there was always someone with me who had “read” the exact same amount of the book, so that when the need to roll my eyes got too intense, I could turn off the CD player, comment to my mother, she’d respond, maybe we’d talk for a moment about traffic or the scenery, and then we’d turn the CD player back on to find out what happened next.

MST3K’ing audiobooks?

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

[QUOTE=OneCentStamp]
Also, *Digital Fortress * had twists that were spoiled if the reader knew Spanish.QUOTE]Yes! I’ve been trying to explain this to people lately, but not expressing myself very well. The two main characters are both supposed to be accomplished students of Spanish. So while Dan Brown might think he’s making a difficult riddle, it’s actually childishly easy to solve.

[OneCentStamp]

@bluethree

Yes! I’ve been trying to explain this to people lately, but not expressing myself very well. The two main characters are both supposed to be accomplished students of Spanish. So while Dan Brown might think he’s making a difficult riddle, it’s actually childishly easy to solve.

Here’s the one that comes to mind:

Main Character Boy writes a note to Main Character Girl that his love for her is “without wax,” which in Spanish is sin cera, or sincere. It’s a bad play on words. And for me, instantly obvious, because I had a friend in Ecuador named Cynthia whom I used to call “Without Aunt” – sin tia, which in Spanish is pronounced the same as her name.

family size, industrial, weapons grade hack = Dan Brown