Publishers say Dan Brown’s next novel, The Lost Symbol, will be released on September 15.
From the article:
Doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the quality of the book Mr. Mehta could coax out of Dan Brown. SLATFATF was not Adams best work by a long shot. Dan Brown isn’t that good of a writer in the first place.
I imagine the new the book will be complete garbage but continue to make him money anyway.
And how much is Dr. Evil demanding so that he won’t release the book?
Is it too soon for me to start calling it sh!t and feeling sorry for people who actually read it and enjoy it?
Shouldn’t the OP read like this:
New Dan Brown novel to be released! In this year which is 2009! The publishers hope it will be a “whale” of a novel, which is a humorous reference to Moby Dick, a famous novel by a famous writer.
:: shrugging ::
I refuse to feel bad about this. For years I’ve been saying “We have to kill him! Now! Before he types again!” and all you guys kept replying, “No, Skaldimus! Preemptive murder is WRONG! We have to give the sanctions time to work! I’m sure he’ll never use wordpad again!”
I warned y’all this would happen. You ignored me out of some misguided sense of “morality,” whatever the hell that word means (there is no M section in my dictionary), and no you are paying the price.
Can someone explain the hate for him/his books? I read them both on vacation years ago and I enjoyed them enough as pool-side reading. Not classic literature by any means, but I’ve noticed a lot of disdain for him (not just this thread) here.
I read The Da Vinci Code way before all the hoopla, primarily based on Janet Maslin’s rave review in the New York Times: In this gleefully erudite suspense novel, Mr. Brown takes the format he has been developing through three earlier novels and fine-tunes it to blockbuster perfection. Not since the advent of Harry Potter has an author so flagrantly delighted in leading readers on a breathless chase and coaxing them through hoops.
http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/nytimes.html
I thought it was OK; terribly written, yes, but still a very interesting topic. I thought the “plot” was a waste of time, but I enjoy conspiracy theory thrillers so the book held my attention.
I’ve heard that Brown was deeply, deeply hurt by all the criticism, however. Given that and the fact that this latest novel has been delayed for years, I’m wondering if maybe he really really tried on this next one! Is it possible he actually came up with a compelling story for The Lost Symbol?
Trivia: I actually met Brown when The Da Vinci Code was first released and he said he would never, ever allow anyone to make it into a movie! He said it would be difficult for him to write about Langford after seeing him portrayed onscreen. By the way, the name he said Hollywood was throwing around for Langford in the early days? Hugh Grant. Who may have been a much better choice when you think about it.
I don’t understand it either. I’ve read his books and they’re a fun quick read. I think it’s the same reason people always hate on Stephen King - they write popular fiction and if the masses like it then it must be terrible.
I think it’s the notion of The Da Vinci Code being taken seriously as a lightly-fictionalized expose of a historical conspiracy that arouses most people’s ire.
For me, it’s the incredible stupidity of his premises and poverty of his research into those premises. For instance, in one of his – well, I hate to call them novels – in one of his violent sodomizations of the English language, he begins by asserting that anti-matter is a perfect source of energy because when an antiparticle and regular-matter particle annilhilate one another, they create energy without any distressing pollution–no radiation or anything like that. The incredible stupidity of that statement, combined with the infelicity of his typng style, put me off him.
Of course, the fact that he’s 159862 times more successful a writer as I am does not help matters. But so is Pat Conroy, and I don’t hate HIM.
I meant “Langdon,” obviously
Stephen King is a fairly adept writer. He’s not Faulkner, but I don’t hate him and sometimes envy him his talent as well as his money. It’s not about pop fiction; it’s about craptastic pop fiction.
By your logic I should also despise J. K. Rowling, which I don’t, because she is not craptastic.
Haven’t we been punished enough?
I’ve only thrown two book across the room, unfinished. The DaVinci Code and Twilight.
Coincidence?
In fairness, I did skim through DC to find out if I was right about the ending and I was. When *I * can figure out the ending of a book, it is crap.
Not for me. I simply call it like I see it. Dan Brown writes for two audiences: people who don’t really care to pay attention to what they’re reading and people who aren’t capable of actually keeping two ideas in their heads at one time. I for one don’t care to be thought of as belonging to either group.
If you’re writing thrillers, the one thing I ask of you is that you be able to thrill me. Dan Brown’s plot twists couldn’t surprise a slow-witted child of 12.
[spoiler]That Jesus had red hair is established early in the book. That he repeatedly speaks of the one red-haired character in the entire book in glowing, borderline angelic prose is apparently supposed to completely escape the notice of the reader.
Surprise, surprise. She’s Jesus’ descendant. No, really?[/spoiler]
Add to that the fact that his professor of “symbology” (or whatever term he used when he couldn’t find semiotics in the dictionary) solves problems in manner more akin to Encyclopedia Brown than an actual scholar. “OMGZ! This thing in front of me! It just happens to conform exactly to a concept I just happen to know! I rule!”
Oh, and don’t even get me started on the coded text.
Without revealing any plot points, does anyone else find that all four (yes, I read all four) of his books follow the same formula? (Especially in terms of certain revelations regarding the main antagonist)
Keep in mind he’s not writing for either the science-literate or the literarily-inclined, so the fact that he’s not a particularly great writer in literary terms and that he dumbs things down isn’t really important.
In other words, he could have written a perfectly written sentence about how antimatter/matter annihilation is about as close to a perfect energy source as we’re likely to get, because antiprotons and protons annihilate each other, with no radioactive waste, and a lot of energy released, a lot of which is in the form of neutrinos, and the rest is in fast neutrons, heat, light, etc…
But he didn’t, because generally speaking, outside of people who are either science wonks who can’t just roll with it, or dorks with literary pretenses, people are more concerned with the story and characters than they are with the actual form of the writing or the strict technical accuracy of the science in a book.
Nitpicking either one in a popular novel is like those history dorks who catalog the anachronisms in movies (“AH! Col Beauregard’s revolver is a Remington 1858- they weren’t in service at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862 because they came in in 1863!”) People don’t give a shit- it’s a cap and ball revolver in a Civil War movie, which is close enough.
What a jerk! You’re right lets get him!
Seriously I as well don’t know what the hate-on for Dan Brown is either. Are his novels much different than Jason Bourne series?
I enjoyed his novels, when I read them I found them hard to put down and powered through them in a day or two. Great entertainment. I liken them to a pop-corn action movie, when I went to see “the Rock” I knew wasn’t going to see LotR: RotK or God Father II, I was watching a action movie where you check your brain at the door.
Do I believe in the “conspiracy theory” in the Da Vinci code? No, not really. Do I believe in Jesus? No not really. Yeah there may have been a guy named Jesus around 0AD, did he walk on water and or make water into wine? Not a chance. Did he have a wife and kid? Who knows, I hope he got some.
Does it rock my religious beliefs as a confirmed Catholic? Nope.
I think people are jealous of a successful writer. And if his writing truly “sucks” then I’m sure he wouldn’t have sold the millions and millions (and millions) of books he has.
I say leave the guy alone, if you like his books, read them. If you hate your books don’t read them.
MtM
Despite the hyperbole of my first post in his thread, I don’t care if OTHERS read him. Well, that’s not entirely true. If my stepdaughter were to start reading him I would be inclined to say, “Okay, Cinderella, let’s go out to a really expensive restaurant of your choice so I can explain why Dan Brown is full of beans.”
I was explaining why I can’t stand him.
The thing is, that wouldn’t have been hard to do. All he had to do was say “no radioactive waste” rather than “no radiation.” Chance one word slightly and add one more. Writers who are lazy with their research earn my scorn.
Yes. They’re so poorly written. So, so, so poorly written.
Let me just say that I have no problem with pop lit - I like Tom Clancy, Ken Follett, W.E.B. Griffin, John Grisham, and Stephen King. But Dan Brown doesn’t belong in this group - he is simply not a good writer.