Digital Fortress - Dan Brown

Advantages: Reasonably interesting
Disadvantages: Very poorly researched, not a page-turner

...with his re-released first book, Digital Fortress. With no-one offloading The da Vinci Code into charity shops yet, the obvious conclusion is that it is being kept because it is good. This, then, was the nearest theediscerning would get for a while. Like the more recent book, this 1998 debut effort concerns codes. Susan Fletcher is one of the world’s best code-breakers, even though by now her job is largely redundant. Her employers, the US Government’s ...
...behemoth at the heart of Digital Fortress. No-one is supposed to know it’s working, and cracking terrorist's codes with ease ~ the civil liberties people, moaning that everybody’s email was subject to shady Government scrutiny, had been told it was a failure. But working it is... until it gets stuck, with its own nemesis writhing away inside it ~ a code that changes key, impossible to crack. Susan Fletcher, then, starts the book getting called in ... Read review

Advantages: reasonably diverting plot
Disadvantages: very badly written, predicatble, boring in places

Despite hints from some people to the contrary, I am not a terrible book snob. I read crime, fantasy, s-f, thrillers and chick-lit quite frequently and historical romances from time to time. But even a 'genre' book needs to have a modicum of quality. Sadly, 'Digital Fortress' does not. It’s a debut novel of Dan Brown that has been re-issued due to the phenomenal popularity of the 'Da Vinci Code' and it is a blatant, mercenary and seemingly successful ...
...attempt to discount that popularity and generate some more revenue from a an earlier effort. 'Digital Fortress' is a thriller and thus I better start with presenting a bit of a plot. The plot is just about the only saving grace of the novel, and the factor that earns it its only star above 1. A code is created: and unbreakable algorithm that would enable everybody (including of course all the world's baddies bent on destruction of any of the pillars ... Read review

Advantages: Cracking good read
Disadvantages: Not a thing!

...happens next. ~ ~ Digital Fortress explores the somewhat vexed and very topical question of public privacy. The National Security Agency (NSA) in the USA has developed and built a new super code-breaking computer called “TRANSLTR”, ostensibly to keep tabs on terrorist activity on the Internet to make sure that they’re not using the World Wide Web to plan and organise their evil deeds. But it’s not only terrorist groups whose emails can be intercepted ...
...his threat to publicly auction Digital Fortress to the highest bidder, it will open the floodgates for all sorts of extremely naughty people to get up to all sorts of evil little pranks on the Web, none of which they’ll know the first thing about. Tankado has covered his back against any “dirty deeds” (assassination) by the NSA by posting his new encryption code on the Internet, and giving a copy of the key code (the password which unlocks its secrets) ... Read review

Advantages: Nicely structured storyline, compelling narrative, at times very exciting, thoroughly gripping
Disadvantages: Lead characters perhaps a little bland, not quite as good as The Da Vinci Code, some may be disinterested by the technical-talk

...eminently readable and very enjoyable. Digital Fortress, published five years earlier in 1998, was next on my reading list and it seems little attempt has been made to disguise the fact that it is riding high on the success of another book – somewhat bizarrely, the back cover is plastered with praise for The Da Vinci Code, and not Digital Fortress, the actual story awaiting the reader within. I was therefore intrigued to see if Brown was, so to speak, ...
...good then? Well, yes – Digital Fortress is a top-notch thriller that proves just as much a page-turner as The Da Vinci Code. Brown has once again gauged the level of complexity to a tee; setting the scene by explaining the relevance and evolution of code-breaking with regards to the NSA, whilst making it all that little bit more interesting and free-flowing than you would have thought possible. As in Dan Brown’s other works, there are once again ... Read review

Advantages: Fairly interesting plot, fast paced, easy read, exciting at times
Disadvantages: Poor ending, weak charactors, limp ending, not up to Dan Brown's other books

...relish that I picked up Digital Fortress. Not only was I a big fan of Dan Brown's other works, it involved computers, another of my interests. How could it miss? But it did. It missed on a number of levels. Not that it wasn't an interesting read. The story was fast paced enough to keep me turning the pages. The plot was interesting not only in context of the story, but it really made me think about the government and what it could be doing behind ...
...a secret branch of the government that protects the US from terrorists by tracking them on the web. They read e-mails, tracks the movement of people on the web and basically can find out anything about anybody. Susan Fletcher is their number 1 code breaker. She help to design their master computer which had never seen a code it couldn't break. The problem is, it's stuck. It is facing a code it can not break. It turns out there is someone out there ... Read review