Rating: 
Summary: Beach/Airport/Pool Read
Review: Like other readers, I was disappointed after the quality of both the DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons. This book seemed forced into the Dan Brown formula: ridiculously capable people drawn into dangerous, dark situations (shades of Hitchcock) masterminded by a secretive evil genius whose identity is revealed just at the end (the evil genius seems always to be a major character, friendly with and intellectually sympathetic to the cause of the protagonist)and violent hijinx ensue. Good does win out and the book ends when the protagonist gets into the sack with whoever he/she has been thrown together with by trials and tribulations engineered by EG referred to above. All of this sprinkled with liberal doses of real fun, eyepopping mind-bending technology/history. None of this is terrible (in fact, Michael Crichton has made a fortune by hewing to his similar code), but after 3 books it gets a little dreary. The good news is that Dan Brown evidently appreciates that, and so the more recent books are better: more clever, and more reliant on ambiguous evidence rather than easily debunked factual assertions. Reading it is still more entertaining than watching TV.
Rating: 
Summary: Now I know why Dan Brown is considered a good author
Review: Now I know why Dan Brown is considered a good author. Deception Point is as good as DaVinci Code is bad. There may be many readers who read DaVinci Code first and moved onto Dan Brown's other thrillers. That is what I did and I'm glad because from page 1, Deception Point is an engrossing thriller.NASA has found a meteor in the Artic and the President of the USA sends civillian scientists to confirm NASA's startling discovery. What they find ignites a page turning cat and mouse game where nothing is quite what it seems. The plot is somewhat implausible in that NASA is at the center of a presidential election. Also, I found the twists and turns and plot points not to be that surprising. But what made this book great was not finding out what the big NASA conspiracy was, but following the characters as they learned about each new twist and turn. Brown puts his civilian scientists Tolland and Sexton and Corky through some tough moments and situations, and they manage to survive. The ending of the book was a letdown, but the journey is what made this book fun to read.
Rating: 
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: Now this book was FUN!
Deception Point is the sophomore book from Dan Brown. This book is worlds better then his first book Digital Fortress. It has everything you want in a political thriller with a little science fiction thrown in. There's sex (not to much enough to make it titillating), greed, political, power grabbing, and a nice little touch of family discord. The main characters are well developed and will be easy to cast for the movie (this one BEGS to be made into a movie!). I will not bore y'all with my casting (I've tried to be good and not color my reviews with how I cast then while I ready them.). The good are good and the bad are very very bad. It's a fun read that you will not want to put down until the last twist is turned!
THIS IS A MUST READ
Rating:
Summary: Excelent
Review: Over the summer I took the time to read through all of Dan Brown's books. This is definately one of the better books.
Dan Brown has a way of making the least suspicious charactors be the bad guy, but in that always attemps to justify why they are doing what they are doing. In Deception Point he does his best job at this.
The story flows very fast, and you will have trouble putting the book down. Prepare for a couple of long nights and sick days.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre but Entertaining Fluff:
Review: Reading Dan Brown's second novel, it's remarkable how quickly his characterization abilities evolved. "Deception Point" has only one good thing going for it: It's conspiracy/scientific plotline. The book has cardboard standins instead of fully formed charaters. If he couldn't write action well, this book would merit no stars. The book starts, like his others, with a mysterious murder, this time in the Arctic Circle. Then, it moves to Washington DC, and introduces us to Rachel Sexton, a top intelligence analyst with the National Reconnaissance Office, and the only daughter of presidential candidate Sen. Shelby Saxton. Sen. Saxton is perhaps one of the worst writter characters ever concieved. He is the epitome of corruption, both political and moral, the kind of stupid yet evil politician that exists only in very poorly written novels like this one. His daugter, of course, is the exact opposite, hates her father, misses her sainted mother who has died, and wants to do good in the world and protect her country. The first chapter has them meeting for an emotionally chilly breakfast. Then, the story diverges, one following the Senator as he campaigns for President on the bizzare platform of essentially eliminating NASA, and the other following Rachel to the headquarters of the National Reconnassiance Office, which Brown describes as the CIA without the leaks, assasination plots, and general incompetence. Rachel is called upon by the President to go to the Arctic circle and verify the results of several scientists who have been working on NASA's discovery of a very special meteorite. I won't give away what's special about the meteorite, but Brown certainly gives it away as soon as "NASA", "Meteorite" and "Arctic Circle" are mentioned. It's not hard to guess. That he goes on for about 100 more pages before actually saying it is emmensely annoying. You want to hurt him for forcing you to page through the very poorly written Washington/Presidential Campaign subplot. On that subplot, since Sen. Sexton is the political bad guy, the President is a lot like Martin Sheen's fictional President Bartlett, only morally perfect and not prone to quoting latin to show how smart he is. Brown, who did SOME research on Catholic "history" for "Angels & Demons" and "DaVinci", apparently has never been to Washington DC, seen a documentary about politcs, or ever followed a camapign in his life. He has no knowledge of the city, the way things work in DC, or, apparently, how campaigns for President are conducted. His "power politics" dialogue is poor enough to make a high school creative writing class look like Shakespere. And when the plot actually gets intersting he keeps shifting to the utterly dull Washington story. The Arctic story involves a conpiracy so massive it could destroy the President and elect the hideous Sen. Sexton to office. Since Sexton has the moral character of a paper cup, it's obvious who we're rooting for, though Brown does his usual "lets keep 'em guessing" routine, giving us about a dozen potential top villians until we fidn the real one. I think I guessed who was behind it pretty quickly. It's amazing "Angels & Demons" came out so soon after this poor effort, as that had an incredibly complex conpsiracy that I don't think anyone could crack. This one could be solved by Encyclopedia Brown on an off day. Anyway, Rachel and her scientist love interest are pursued by assasins once they learn a conspiracy exists. They have to warn the Bestest, Most Nicest President Ever that he's being set up. It's fast paced and reads well, as Brown does know how to write interesting action and throws his heros into mortal danger. In this, you can see his talent already. The other problem I had with this book is the same one I have with the other two that I have read by Brown. He includes an author's note saying "The Delta Force, the National Reconassiance Office and Space Freedon Federation are all real organizations. The tchnologies described within all exist". Well yes, Delta Force, the NRO, and the SFF ARE real organizations, however they aren't real in the way Brown describes them. Delta Force cannot be used as a personal black ops/assasiantion team for whoever decides to use them. The NRO is not the largest intellgence agency in Washington, but is in fact a rather small operationa that ANSWERS to the CIA, and I'm pretty sure the SFF isn't full of nasty evil people bent on destroying science. Brown never says his represntations of these organizations are true, but by adding the author's note at the beginning, he probably convinced far too many people that the NRO is the nation's highest guarded secret and whatnot. I'm willing to forgive him INVENTING an agency that has more power than the CIA, but to attribute it to a real life one really takes you out of the story. Also, while in most instances of reading I could care less whether the technology is real or not, all that is real about many of the gadgets described in the book is that someone, someday hopes to build them. It's unlike a Michael Chrichton novel, where he writes with such authority and never pretends that what he's writing about EXISTS RIGHT NOW. So much of the book is predicated on half-truths purporting to be facts. Which wouldn't be a problem if he hadn't gone out of his way to give the impression he was giving a true account of technology and real agencies. The book was follows the exact same blueprint for his other novels. I assume Brown will keep writing like this, finding a new conspiracy to drop into his magic, bestseller formula. And while it appears as if his novels can only continue to improve, it's a shame that he relies on putting up theories as facts and misrepresenting agencies and organizations in ways that are detrimental to the real people who work there. Only die-hard Brown fans should pick this one up.
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