Dan Brown - Inferno

[desertgal]

Any number of people could enjoy his work, or Tom Clancy, or Maeve Binchly.

It was Maeve Binchy, just FYI, and, believe me, she knew what she wrote was lightweight and charming and intended to be enjoyed without being taken seriously. She didn't pose as an "intellectual" author or a literary giant. Just sayin'.

 

[Susheel]

I read The DaVinci Code first and then struggled through Angels and Demons. Didn't even attempt The Lost Symbol and I guess it will be the same with Inferno. Unless I happen to go on a beach holiday and the really educational tome I am carrying with me to read gets transmogrified (as they often do) by the salt water, sand and ozone into this.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Just out of interest: name one.

Popular writer who is a hack? Arguably worse than Dan Brown?

Stephen Donaldson

His "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" series has sold over 10 million copies. Many people think it is garbage, and they are probably right. He can spend 15 pages describing in infinite detail the anguish each character feels about what they have done or are about to do, with no action whatsoever! The protagonists are carrying around so much baggage you wish they would just end it all and let the rest finish the job. He sprinkles his prose with archaic words that you have to look up in the dictionary (and then find he is straining the definition). And this goes on for book, after book, after book...

And yet some of us have made the effort to appreciate his writing style, and are hooked on it.

Angels and Demons was readable, The DaVinci Code is essentially the same plot in another setting. Having read The Lost Symbol, all I can say is that he shouldn't have abandoned that plot so rashly.

This is a common problem for popular artists - they hit on a formula that people like, then feel they must keep regurgitating it. Some people like more of the same, but others are bored by it. Two other writers I can think of who have fallen into this trap are Terry Pratchett and Clive Cussler. I have given up reading books by these authors because they are all the same!

 

[elgarak]

I am going to predict it will feature a romance, a hot-button topic that he will misrepresent, limited POV switches to "trick" the reader about what is happening, and the Big Bad that everyone thinks is the Big Bad isn't and it is actually the trusted friend/mentor all along!

That's literally how every single one of his other books goes.

I read it, and you're right.

Except that it doesn't matter. I have read tons of books that contain (some or all) of these plot elements, and some are good, others readable, and a few are crap.

Inferno falls in the crap category, but not because these plot elements are there. It's because a lot of it doesn't make sense. If the behavior of the major players would have been normal and sensible, you could keep most of the plot intact, and had a much better story. As it is, it's crap.

 

[desertgal]

I checked it out from the library, and elgarek is right-the biggest problem with it is that the main characters don't behave in a realistic, normal way. Robert Langdon is being chased by ops and assassins alike, bullets are whizzing, RPV's flying over his head...yet he stops in the middle of all that danger to decipher clues from artwork images retained in his incredible photographic memory? I'm sorry, but no. HIDE, dude. RUN. SEEK SHELTER ELSEWHERE.

That's just the least of it.

 

[Megalodon]

If you don't want follow the crowd then read the Dan Brown title that people aren't constantly taking the piss out of:- Deception Point.

Or don't... really, don't.

No religious stuff to get upset about, plot twists that you won't figure out in advance unless you read it very carefully (or cheat), and a believable story.

Believable if you know nothing of marine sciences, physics... or actually anything, come to think of it. From ice bullets to saltwater rising over freshwater, mini-subs with thermal drills and all because of? Basically nothing really relevant... oh god, it was crap...

Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the Da Vinci's Code, but mainly because I read the portuguese translation. When I read the original I was surprised at how bad a bestseller author can write...

I guess the main secret is that he peppers the text with riddles and "secrets" that would have withstood the test of time. Of course, they are simple enough that the average reader will figure them out before the scholar, and feel very good about themselves.

 

[elgarak]

I checked it out from the library, and elgarek is right-the biggest problem with it is that the main characters don't behave in a realistic, normal way. Robert Langdon is being chased by ops and assassins alike, bullets are whizzing, RPV's flying over his head...yet he stops in the middle of all that danger to decipher clues from artwork images retained in his incredible photographic memory? I'm sorry, but no. HIDE, dude. RUN. SEEK SHELTER ELSEWHERE.

That's just the least of it.

I don't even mean that. (I put it in spoilers, just in case someone here wants to maintain some tension if s/he has not read it yet ).

For most of the book, Langdon has amnesia. As it turns out, the amnesia was GIVEN to him, and he was put in an elaborate setup with fake deaths, fake hospitals and partnered with a person with mysterious past that the hoaxers not completely trust.

Why?

Uh....

ummm...

It was a good idea at the time?

No really, THAT's what it's boiled down to. There's no good explanation for any of that. Brown was so fixated on the Langdon-with-amnesia setup that he forgot to justify it.

As I said, the annoying thing is that the whole setup is bull. There is very little plot changing necessary to remove these problems.

 

[smartcooky]

If you don't want follow the crowd then read the Dan Brown title that people aren't constantly taking the piss out of:- Deception Point. No religious stuff to get upset about, plot twists that you won't figure out in advance unless you read it very carefully (or cheat), and a believable story.

Or don't... really, don't.

Too late. I read that some years ago. Earlier I said I hadn't read anything of his, but I remember reading Deception Point, so I must have forgotten it was by him (it was pre Da Vinci Code, so I guess he wasn't as famous then). I don't remember it being all that bad.

What do recall is that there was an earlier book with a similar base premise (a meteorite under the ice that supposedly contained xeno-biologicals). The book was called "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", and it was done much better. It was also made into a very good movie ("Smilla's Sense of Snow") with Julia Ormond in the lead role of the bitchy "ice scientist" Smilla Jespersen.

The book is worth a read.

 

[Megalodon]

Too late. I read that some years ago. Earlier I said I hadn't read anything of his, but I remember reading Deception Point, so I must have forgotten it was by him (it was pre Da Vinci Code, so I guess he wasn't as famous then). I don't remember it being all that bad.

What do recall is that there was an earlier book with a similar base premise (a meteorite under the ice that supposedly contained xeno-biologicals). The book was called "Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow", and it was done much better. It was also made into a very good movie ("Smilla's Sense of Snow") with Julia Ormond in the lead role of the bitchy "ice scientist" Smilla Jespersen.

The book is worth a read.

It would be entertaining, like most of his stories, if it wasn't for the smug "all the science and technology here is real and the story could have totally happened!" gimmick. Because then he starts with ice bullets, and goes down from there. And I'm not even talking about the terrible writing or the covert plagiarism.

In the end I think he writes good screenplays, but mediocre books.

 

[Susheel]

As I said, the annoying thing is that the whole setup is bull. There is very little plot changing necessary to remove these problems.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

Its just a couple of minutes

 

[jimbob]

Has anyone read the UK Telegraph's very amusing article on "renowned author Dan Brown", entitled "Don't make fun of renowned author Dan Brown"?

Well worth a read.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10049454/Dont-make-fun-of-renowned-Dan-Brown.html

Bumped, because that *is* worth a read.

 

[Myriad]

Too late. I read that some years ago. Earlier I said I hadn't read anything of his, but I remember reading Deception Point, so I must have forgotten it was by him (it was pre Da Vinci Code, so I guess he wasn't as famous then). I don't remember it being all that bad.

I remember Deception Point being absolutely terrible. The entire premise depended on the outcome of a U.S. Presidential election being swung by the success or failure of a NASA research project.

I'm sure we'd all remember that amazing election year, when everyone forgot about the economy, wars, crime, education, privacy rights, health care, the environment, terrorism, and foreign policy, and instead stood up as one and demanded a chief executive who could properly administer a SETI program. If anything remotely like that had ever happened.

 

[CORed]

There's already a book by that name, by a somewhat better writer.

Two, if you count the one by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournells (which was based on Dante's, but with sins updated for modern times). I don't think it's in print, but it was a clever and entertaining bo9ok.

 

[CORed]

...
the Big Bad that everyone thinks is the Big Bad isn't and it is actually the trusted friend/mentor all along!
...

I haven't read any Dan Brown books, but I got sick of that gimmick after reading the third Tom Swift book when I was about nine.

 

[catsmate]

Two, if you count the one by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournells (which was based on Dante's, but with sins updated for modern times). I don't think it's in print, but it was a clever and entertaining bo9ok.

There's also Strindberg's autobiographical novel, a Star Wars book and Dicks' novelisation of the Doctor Who story.
There are probably more.

 

[GT/CS]

I don't even mean that. (I put it in spoilers, just in case someone here wants to maintain some tension if s/he has not read it yet ).

For most of the book, Langdon has amnesia. As it turns out, the amnesia was GIVEN to him, and he was put in an elaborate setup with fake deaths, fake hospitals and partnered with a person with mysterious past that the hoaxers not completely trust.

Why?

Uh....

ummm...

It was a good idea at the time?

No really, THAT's what it's boiled down to. There's no good explanation for any of that. Brown was so fixated on the Langdon-with-amnesia setup that he forgot to justify it.

As I said, the annoying thing is that the whole setup is bull. There is very little plot changing necessary to remove these problems.

And

why did the evil genius write the clue-filled poem on the back of the death mask? That seemed to be a stupid thing for a genius to do.

They sliced and stitched his head just to make him think he was shot. WTF????