© Dan Brown
Don't take me wrong: I enjoyed reading Da Vinci Code (but much less
Digital Fortress). It's not so much that being a geek I know more about
computer security and cryptography (which are at the core of Digital
Fortress) than about history and theology (which are the heart of Da Vinci
Code), than the liberty the author takes with reality. I don't mean by that
all the small but difficult technical details that non-specialists don't even
start to imagin, but the small details that are (or should be) common knowledge,
or are at least easy to check.
For example, he claims in Digital Fortress that the Giralda in Seville has
a height of 419 ft (140 m) whereas it is actually 320 ft (97.5 m) tall.
Many people I've told this claimed “Whatever, it's only science-fiction after
all!” Well, in my opinion, writing science-fiction is not an excuse for
sloppy background research. Another example from Da Vinci Code: Brown
claims that Paris was founded by the Merovingians, whereas it did exist
already five hundred years earlier. What's the point in twisting reality like
that? It does not add anything to the story, so it can be reasonably
attributed only to sloppy research (some people mentioned that Dan Brown has a
hidden agenda. Whatever). And I won't even go into the details of biblical
history.
Well, the guy is a charlot,
and he proves once more that with good marketing, you can sell anything.