by Dan Brown: Angels and Demons. (Disclaimer: I was forced to read this.) The good: after a plodding start, the plot did get interesting, and exciting enough that I wanted to keep reading and find out what happened. Nice twist at the end.
The bad: Wooden, two-dimensional characters. Romantic scenes written like Mills and Boon. Spelling out every plot development 2-3 times so nobody will miss anything. Sloppily written (either refer to the Swiss Guard as one body, or the Swiss Guards as a group of individuals, but don’t swap between the two, especially in one paragraph).
For fiction to be believable, it has to have a basis in truth, and this fell down on basic facts (such as the BBC telephone operator smoking at her desk, and people continually commenting that their cell phones didn’t have a dial tone — dial tone???), which destroyed the fantasy and left me wondering how much else of it was wrong.
All in all, a mostly enjoyable read. But there are many much better-written books out there.
Life is short. Read good books. Thumbs down to Brown.
Update 13/7/2013: Just thought I’d add this link to this CERN page debunking some of the story from the book.
Hear, hear. And whatever you do, avoid Digital Fortress like the plague.
(I know I said it before, but now you know WHY I said it before :-) )
Thanks Daniel, for takin’ one for the team. Now I feel I don’t have to read it. What a relief!
Personally, I enjoyed The DaVinci Code. YMMV.