Rating: 
Summary: Better on the outside than inside.
Review: It is disappointing to be so consistently disappointed in the glowing promises of "lightning paced thrills" awaiting me beyond the flyleaf. If real lightning were paced in accordance with the action in this book it would never reach earth. Becker's handy trails of coincidences were about as hard to follow as tracking an elephant through snow while grasping it's tail. And Susan was so predictable so as to be compared with the countless "cookie cutter" heroines so prevelant in recent fiction. The rest of the characters followed faithful suit. The only satisfaction I got was returning it to the library and in the fact that I hadn't bought it. My unsolicited advise to the author is, "Don't give up your regular job."
Rating: 
Summary: Fast Read, Good Story, Thin on Technicals
Review: Let me say that I (as some others did) received an e-mail from author Dan Brown about reading this book and doing a review. Well, I finally am getting around to it, and I must say it is an incredibly fast read with acompelling story, but a little short on some of the technical aspects. I'm not a technical person, but even some of the descriptions (especially describing the hacker attack) seemed lacking and forced into a made-for-the movies scene. And thats a shame because the REAL character here is TRANSLTR - the super-decrypting computer! The other characters are rather shadowy - I never felt much for them, and almost found myself wanting David Becker to die as he had dodged far too many tight situations. But.... as I said, I enjoyed the book for what it is and would recommend it for lovers of the genre for the subject matter, if not for the details.
Rating:
Summary: Ironic techno-thriller, full of moral confusion.
Review: Affective discontinuities abound in this otherwise interesting thriller and, quite frankly, spoiled it for me, somewhat. Outside the difference in objectives and the countries served, I saw no difference between the heros in this book and what I know of Nazi defendants at the Nurenburg War Trails. Hopefully, that is what Dan Brown intends. Perhaps reading this book should, after all, feel like taking a knife in the stomach. If so, the irony in this book is needle sharp!On a technical level, my suspension of disbelief was strained at several points, which I will not discuss here. The careful reader is faced with several puzzles to pick apart before reading down the page. I found some pleasure in figuring them out before the characters. However, there were certain aspects of, shall we say, design that caused me a raised brow or two. Oh, well--I don't know everything either. But these instances did not overwhelm me. What really made me mad were the oblivious a! dherents to a kind of cut-throat, self-centered, utilitarianism. No more on that, though. The author did, however, convince me that he knew something about the organizational processes of the "secrets business." His treatment of internal power brokering in a business where people cannot just come and go at will was enlightening.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic!!Maddening when you try to break the Code!
Review: I was fortunate enough to meet Dan Brown at a signing at the Phillips Exeter Bookstore. He is as personable as his book is interesting. It is the kind of book you don't want to put down and you resent interruptions while reading it. It is for the techno-freak to the computer illiterate. It drove me crazy when I got to the code and did not have time to work on breaking the code. Thank you Dan Brown for a wonderful book. I treasure my autographed copy.
Rating:
Summary: Great fun!
Review: I picked up Digital Fortress on a bookstore recommendation and although I often don't finish novels I start, this one definitely held me. The technical stuff was easy to understand and quite cool (I had no idea about the NSA or code-breaking before reading this.)Although the chase scenes seemed a little drawn out, I found I just kept flipping pages. The twist is surprising too. Strongly recommended for anyone who likes fast-moving thrillers.
Rating:
Summary: Just your standard techo-thriller...
Review: While the premise of this first novel is interesting, the pacing and plotting has more than its share of flaws. Once again the reader is in a world of incredibly beautiful, brainy women who love incredibly strong, handsome,adventure-seeking men with lots of (surprisingly obvious) villians trying hard to keep them apart while placing the future of the free world in jeopardy. The novels characters could have been taken out of stock footage from every Patricia Cornwell-Dean Kootz-Jeffery Archer book on the market. Note to future writers: let's get some CHARACTER into these characters. If you're a fan of the kind of novel in which ridiculous coincidence follows ridiculous coincidence, you will probably enjoy Digital Domain. It's tough to root for characters, however, when every clue, lead, witness and opportunity fall conveniently into the heroes' laps. The book becomes totally uninvolving by its second half, and most readers will be able to guess the surprise ending one hundred pages before it's revealed. Best bet is to wait until Keanu Reeves and Elizabeth Shue make the movie!
Rating: 
Summary: Technical, Gripping, A Good Read
Review: A cross between sc-fi & murder mystery, but with the twist that it is not sc-fi. Well, except to those of us who are barely computer literate. I enjoyed this book and found myself staying up way past my bedtime to finish the last one third of the book. Characters: Susan--interesting, warm, trusting/ David--intelligent, quick on his toes, and had the best chapters in the book/ Strathmore--strong, but could have been developed better; didn't care enough about him to be shocked at his antics/ Midge--potentially a memorable character. In many ways this is a real possibility for a movie. It moves fast and will be an action movie that is for the good listener--no car chases or automatic weapons needed. My only real disappointment was that there were no indications about the connection between the Japanese business owner and the programmer. That seems to be a missed opportunity. Glad I read Dan Brown's first work. Looking forward to a second with more defined characters and the details that make you "love" the book. This was a "liked it."
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing, technically flawed, but strangely likable.
Review: I was very excited to start this novel, as it was billed as "smart" and "real." I was hoping to finally read something that portrayed the world of software and computer security as it really is. However, what I got was pretty much the standard Hollywood-style depiction of computers. You know what I mean: user interfaces that consist of big, blinking words and accept commands like "abort destruct sequence"; computer viruses that somehow magically jump from data to code and start executing; network firewalls that have Atari Breakout (or Breakin, I guess) to display hackers on the attack. Please. But I can suspend disbelief. After the first 30 or so glaring technical errors, I decided I *had* to if I wanted to finish the book. The trouble is that Dan Brown apparently had some 14-year-old wannabe hacker as his technical advisor. It seems like every other time Brown tries to make a real technical reference, it's slightly askew. Like his constant reference to X-eleven. Or a patronizing (but incorrect) description of Public-Key crypto systems. Or referring to PGP as a cryptographic algorithm. OK, I said I can suspend my disbelief. I did. What's left is a fine Ken Follett or Patrica Cornwell adventure. Until the climax, when the final answer is painfully obvious, and a room full of crypto-geniuses are standing around, and not figuring it out. This drags on for chapters, until you think Brown must have had some minimum page count to fulfill for the publisher. It certainly can't be intended to increase the suspense. Despite all this, I couldn't help liking the story. Maybe it just appeals to my own vanity as a programmer. But I generally like Brown's style, and I definitely will buy his next book. I just hope he gets some better technical support.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Read
Review: Was hard to put this one down. Nice surprise ending, and a premise that is only too possible considering our current sociopolitical situation.
Rating:
Summary: An enjoyable, yet soemetimes predictable book
Review: I do not read much, but when I do I like to be sure it is something fun. Digital Fortress does this, but lets me down in a way too. The premise of the plot is an excellent one, but the book has way too many flaws. Like most other "cyber-thrillers" I've read, the computer technology is grossly overstated and twisted into James Bond like proportions. I began to really care less about the battle over encryption, and instead enjoyed David Beckers tough luck. Reading about this poor guy run circles around a bumbling assassin made the book alone worth my time to read. The characters seem pretty realistic, I could imagine a few people I knew like the ones portrayed. Overall, worth your time to read if you're looking for an enjoyable action novel. I also reccomend William H. Lovejoys "Back\Slash" if you enjoy this type of genre.
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