Just finished Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol". I loved his earlier books, both for their plot and action, and for the new info he gives.
"The Lost Symbol" delivers when it comes to providing new information (at least for me!) but I have to say I'm very disappointed with the plot. Yes, Brown is a good technocrat when it comes to constructing a plot line that has "coming soon to a movie theater near you!" written all over it, but this time around there were too many incredible coincidences and skin-of-the-teeth escapes for my taste.
And IMO, the villain of this piece was just too unbelievable and too thoroughly evil. What's more, despite that one very nice twist at the denouement, what the villain was actually trying to achieve remained rather contrived.
It seems that Brown felt under pressure to outdo "The Da Vinci Code", and pulled out all the stops.
As for the info that Brown throws around in his books: had he just kept to a lively non-fiction book about noetic sciences, or about Freemasonry, or about architectural symbolism in Washington D.C., I would have loved it. Brown is absolutely marvelous when it comes to dredging up arcane facts about the use of symbols, and using them to further the plot. (Nice case in point: The Order Eight Franklin Square)
And the theological grounding is deep and intriguing. Maybe I should reread the Book of Revelations ...
"The Lost Symbol" delivers when it comes to providing new information (at least for me!) but I have to say I'm very disappointed with the plot. Yes, Brown is a good technocrat when it comes to constructing a plot line that has "coming soon to a movie theater near you!" written all over it, but this time around there were too many incredible coincidences and skin-of-the-teeth escapes for my taste.
And IMO, the villain of this piece was just too unbelievable and too thoroughly evil. What's more, despite that one very nice twist at the denouement, what the villain was actually trying to achieve remained rather contrived.
It seems that Brown felt under pressure to outdo "The Da Vinci Code", and pulled out all the stops.
As for the info that Brown throws around in his books: had he just kept to a lively non-fiction book about noetic sciences, or about Freemasonry, or about architectural symbolism in Washington D.C., I would have loved it. Brown is absolutely marvelous when it comes to dredging up arcane facts about the use of symbols, and using them to further the plot. (Nice case in point: The Order Eight Franklin Square)
And the theological grounding is deep and intriguing. Maybe I should reread the Book of Revelations ...
