Da Vinci Code - The Review

[if you plan to read it - don't read this]

Over a lazy, sunny IOM weekend (i.e. last weekend) I read the Da Vinci Code from cover to cover while sat in the garden.

What a great book, a real page turner; clever, slick and pacy. But mostly, it made me think about the dark history of Christianity.

The Knights Templar, Priory of Sion, Opus Dei etc., it was all fascinating. And even though Mr Brown is clear about the story being fiction, he tells us that the organisations and histories supporting the story are fact. This adds SO much to the book.

Also, I was awed at the level of research this guy must've done. His knowledge of his subject matter was astounding. I've always wanted to write a book, but reading this made me think that I might not be up to it. Could I ever know a subject so intimately?

Then I started reading another of his books - Digital Fortress. This book is based in the world of Encryption, a world that I spent a few years working in.

I've only read five chapters, so I can't comment on the plot, but I've read Chapter 4, the Chapter in which Mr. Brown shows his grasp of the intricacies of Ciphers, Modular Mathmatics, Key Distribution Schemes and Parallel Processing.

Oh no!! He has no understanding at all. None. The book (which I might still finish) is based on the vague suppositions of a moron. It would be like writing a book about aeroplanes if you thought that planes flew by flapping their wings REALLY HARD.

So I looked up some of the 'facts' on which Da Vinci is based. Interestingly, it turns out to be all fact; assuming you read the National Enquirer and have a subscription to the Beano.

Am I to believe that these writers (Brown, Clancy, Crichton et al) just make this sh!t up?

I've decided to write a book about a terrorist group that build a Nuclear Bomb. They get their Plutonium from Laxey Pharmacy and use a centrifuge made from Dinosaur Eggs to extract the required "pixie dust" that powers it. And pass it off as fact. I'll be a millionaire.