Rating: 
Summary: Disappointment
Review: This book was recommended to me by an employee of a local bookseller. I was told the book, would "draw you in" and "keep you in suspense". I was sorely disappointed.
Putting all of my technical gripes aside, I found that the book was surprisingly opaque. I had the story figured out before I had a quarter of the book read. I hoped that I was mistaken and would be surprised with the ending. Unfortunately I was not mistaken.
This is not a bad book, it just was not what I was expecting or looking for.
If you are technical or insightful, beware... you may be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Factual, Fast, and Fun
Review: I was introduced to the books of author Dan Brown only three weeks ago, but have quickly absorbed all four of his published works. It is easy to see why some are comparing the work of Dan Brown and James BeauSeigneur (THE CHRIST CLONE TRILOGY). Both Brown and BeauSeigneur deal masterfully with the more mysterious features of religion, politics, and science. Both bring to light amazing bits of information, which they weave into the intricate patterns of their stories. Both are highly imaginative and write with a ring of authenticity that makes for a compelling read. While Brown compresses labyrinthine plots into brief time periods to provide page-turning suspense, BeauSeigneur trilogy is of epic proportion, covering several decades. While Brown applies the mysteries of history to the drama of "today," BeauSeigneur uses both history and prophecy (from perhaps a dozen major world religions) to transport the reader from the world of today, to the very dawning of a new age in a story reminiscent of the scope of Asimov's classic, FOUNDATION. One other difference is that BeauSeigneur has taken the novel (pun intended and forgiveness is asked) approach of including footnotes in his books of fiction. By doing so, he all but eliminates the necessity of suspending disbelief. Few authors employ such strong factual grounding as to make footnotes useful, but I believe Brown's work (and his readers) would benefit from BeauSeigneur's innovation.
Rating:
Summary: Loved it...and I refuse to be picky.
Review: C'mon people, this was a great read! Yeah, I figured out the
ending a few pages before the characters (each chapter is only a page or two, sometimes less), but so what? Anyway, that plot point is just one of may twists and turns. Obviously this author worked out his plot backwards and it's seamless. Let's stop being so picky about an author who doesn't dumb down his plots just to appeal to mass-market morons. Read it and learn something. All the "experts" below claiming he didn't do his research: I write computer software and while he took some shortcuts, he basically got it right. Sheesh! Finally some fast-paced intelligence and he gets shot down by everyone! For the record, I find Tom Clancey extremely boring and his books are way too long. Except for "Red October" I've never found a single book of his even remotely suspenseful. (I don't even care that I don't know how to spell his name.)
Rating:
Summary: Great! Loved it!!
Review: Susan Fletcher, a cryptographer and her school teacher boyfriend David's relationship is on rocky ground. David's new promotion and old-fashioned attitude towards being the bread-winner has put a strain on their relationship which Susan doesn't know how to mend, (she's the one with the bigger salary). Their relationship is strained further, when Susan's boss asks David to run an errand for him - in Spain. Meanwhile, Susan has her own troubles. She's tracking a miraculous new encryption program called "Digital Fortress" which is expected to revolutionize Encryption as we know it. I really enjoyed this thriller, and I particularly liked the character of Susan Fletcher. (It's nice to see more women in lead rolls in thrillers), I was a bit bored with the parts about David, because I found his transformation from simple high school teacher to 'super agent' to be unrealistic. I also disliked the fact that he had difficulty dealing with Susan's salary, I mean the guy's a teacher for goodness sake. I would expect he'd be used to lower wages! I also enjoyed the characterization of the other IT experts such as Jabba. While the ending held few surprises, I still thought this audiobook was great!
Rating: 
Summary: What a waste of dead trees
Review: This could rank as one of the worst books I've even seem. The author attempts to make some grand statement but it comes out as a palsied whine. The plot is boring, the characters cardboard. He thinks by throwing in some buzzwords he can form a techno-thriller, but it is painfully obvious that he forgot to look up what the words mean. I now understand why it was so hard to find, I wish it had been harder. This is definitely a 'B' grade effort from a 'C' grade author.
Rating:
Summary: Not The Agency I Worked For
Review: Suffice it to say that this work of fiction does not provide an accurate portrayal of the National Security Agency.
Rating:
Summary: Are NSA people really this dumb?
Review: I listened to the unabridged Audible.com version of this book, and finally turned it off in exasperation sometime just before the end. I knew the "answer" probably three chapters before the characters. (What is the "prime" difference between the Uranium isotopes U-235 and U-238? Anyone who's ever been exposed to the Periodic table, which should include NSA crytanalysts and computer programmers, could figure it out in a heartbeat.) Even after they figured out the answer, with the clock ticking down to seconds before the entire NSA databank would be open to the public, they stood around discussing it before taking action. Dialog was something like "3? Do you think it could be 3? Hmmmm. It's a prime number. Yes, 3 dammit, 3! Is anyone listening? It's 3! Could it be 3?" and so on for, seemingly, pages. I agree with the reviewer who suggested the author must have been given a page count he had to fulfill. I will not be buyng another book by this author, unless I hear that it's very much better than this one.
Rating:
Summary: NOT a techno-thriller
Review: Don't bother with this book if you know anything about encryption or computer security (or the NSA). The author apparently did no background research in the subject. Aside from the lack of technical realism, the story line is simplistic and the alleged thrills overblown, unless exclamation points count for excitement.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fun Read
Review: I found this book to be a fun book to read, with the usual far fetched action, and some unusual twists. If you like computers and spy stories, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Very Disappointed
Review: Wow. I read Angels and Demons and immediately went out and bought this book and was extremely disappointed. I am glad that I read Angels and Demons first or I would never have bought another book by this author.
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