Rating: 
Summary: So many mistakes...
Review: It's sad to see a good premise turn into an average book.Like in most Brown's novels one big problems is the incorrectness of so many details. Here I couldn't find much of the aspects related to computers being correct. Most of them are simply flat-out wrong. Just an example: the "tracer" Susan send to know who is North-Dakota just cannot be done: if programs sent via email could execute themselves the e-world would be dead from virus attacks since a long time (the reciving end has to trigger such executables). In "the Da Vinci Code" most of the French translation was absolutely wrong. All those problems make the books fall apart.
Please Dan: get someone with a minimal knowledge of whatever topic you are dealing with to read your drafts! They could be so much better. I would say "Angel and Demons" is the best try so far, then "the Da Vinci code", but the two first are just very badly edited novels.
Rating:
Summary: Should have stayed in Dan's reject pile.
Review: A sad example of an author who has achieved success with a later work (Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons) succumbing to his agent's plea to dig through his rejected stuff for anything remotely marketable on the tail of his or her new found reputation. Yes there are early works that were rejected through bad timing or some arbitrary glitch and whose publication is a positive contribution to an author's body of work; Digital Fortress is not one of those. Those editors that rejected this rough draft in the nineties (note the1998 copyright date) were right that Digital fortress did not deserve to see the light of day: too light, too clichéd, just way too first draft. Dan; you really shouldn't have listened to your greedy agent (apologies for the redundancy). As I suspect was the plot, I bought this title on the strengths of his later published titles, especially Angels and Demons, please do not make the same mistake. If you simply must read everything a favored author publishes buy this one used or as a remainder as it is merely a very good example of the fact people can vastly improve writing over time (or more vigorous editing). For those who do bother I'd suggest treating it like those early studio tracks we get on a CD boxed set: simply appreciate how far the artist has come!
Rating: 
Summary: A book to make dumb people feel smart
Review: This book makes me positive that I can work for the NSA. I am working on my resume right now. If people like Susan Fletcher can be the bright star of the NSA, then I know I can work next to her (and help her along when things don't connect inside her head, which was often). I like a protaganist that tries to figure things out. In this book, things just happen to Susan. She doesn't "do" anything. She doesn't use her noodle for anything other than for the male characters to say "oooh, she's pretty" (which happens frequently in this book). The climax was a disaster. I'm not the brightest street lamp on the avenue, but I can usually figure out what's going to happen in a book a little before it happens. But in this book, for the climax, I broke the "code" about 8 pages before the NSA experts broke the code. I also read this after reading The Da Vinci Code, which was much better. As much as reading The Da Vinci Code made me want to read another Dan Brown book, this one makes me NOT want to read another Dan Brown book. Even the cute little "code" on the last page of the book was embarrassingly easy to figure out. Brown should have made *something* in this book challenging for the reader, but instead it's maddening to scream at the characters in the book to make the most obvious connections. It might be true that "WE ARE WATCHING YOU", but it is also true that "I AM DONE WITH DAN BROWN'S BOOKS".
Rating:
Summary: A Thriller for Homer Simpson
Review: If you haven't guessed the twists, intrigue and punchline in the first 50 pages you need to get out more. Seriously, this is a book you throw in the corner after you finish and look for a way to make up for lost time. 2 stars for the effort to create a Clancy-ish thriller, lots of effort. Unfortunately, you could toss out half the book and loose little of any meaningful story line or entertainment. The subject matter, (NSA, Crypto, Mega Computers), is interesting enough and has a few geeky delights. However, it seems like a short story / eZine article blown into a book by adding pure filler = and as a result it's a yawner. Not worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, overkill on the twists, though.
Review: Might I first say that this book was great. It was well written, too. Obviously, the reviewer l_o_b took things in this book WAY too seriously. Look, if anybody really tried to comprehend all the code and cipher mumbo-jumbo taking place in the NSA, they'd fry their brains out. Hence, our il-tempered, iritated and antagonized critic, no doubt, fried his brains out while STILL coming to an incorrect conclusion. Our reviewer also got this one very important fact wrong: Mr. Brown did NOT make public-key encryption and ogther public programs look like high-technology stuff. Might I remind l_o_b that the author had two ex-cyptographers supply info on the book? I'd like to see l_o_b get into the NSA, if you ask me. In my opinion, l-o-b makes my winner for jerk of the year. PS- Judging by the over criticaly enraged dialog from l_o_b'sr eview, I would concur that he DID NOT solve the code in the back of the book. For people trying to solve the code, try looking up on Google Mary Queen of Scots and how they solved her encoded letters... Now, getting back on track with the real review. He did write the book well, but by the end, the twists do prove a little exaggrated, though they are mostly amusing. I would surely suggest that you do not jump ahead, even if it is a page, because most likely it will always give something away. But, given how complicated the subject was, I think Dan Brown wrote it in an easy way to udnerstand. When finding that the book is somewhat confusing (which I didn't), please consider what that pile of sensless junk and data meant to the author before he put it into words. I will agree, Susan Fletcher going from "Don't mess with me" woman to "I'm so scared", was a bit dissapointing, but I could only find one occasion which this happened: when she thought her fiance (NOT boyfriend) wasn't ever coming back. Other then that, there is no denial of her persistency kepy up. She never gave up! But there is one last critical comment... Considering the entire first few chapters of the author explaining the mental strength and organizational skills of Strathmore, any man with Strathmore's personality wouldn't go anywhere near as to twhat great length's Strathmore did to win Susan's heart. Oh, yes, and Hale? I never, EVER took him seriously. Not even from the start. Four stars, remarkable.
Rating:
Summary: Plan 9 of Technothrillers
Review: I admit I read the entire book - the gaffes and moronic twists were so hysterical I just couldn't keep myself from being curious to find how far the author manages to go on the path from illiterate to silly to totally ludicrous. It is painfully obvious that author's IQ is not 170. It's not even above 70 - and his book, on the face of it, is insulting to intelligence of readers. Any literate person (and I don't mean computer geeks!) would find his description of the basic backround (i.e. cryptography and computer security) totally off the mark (like, confusing public-key crypto with public domain software (such as PGP), missing the fact that absolutely unbreakable cyphers are well-known (one-time pads), confusing worms with trojan horses, ad infinitum). I nearly laughed my lungs off reading his pathetic description of a firewall (X-eleven filters are corroding!!!!! FTP is falling!!! Hackers are circling like EFF sharks!!! Worm is eating the access filters!!!) His characters are so flat that even comic strips would be ashamed to use them. Dan Brown seems to be a one-plot writer: the scheme is exactly the same as in Da Vinci Code ("perfect" female and academic male go through chained trivial puzzles while a hero which seems to be an incarnation of all the Right Stuff turns out to be the villain employing a bodily deficient killer). The NSA employees are behaving like moronic adolescents (_all_ of them, including the Director, who seems only to be capable of pretending to be the alpha gorilla). I'm wondering if his supposed anonymous NSA consultants credited in the preface were just teenage pranksters. In any case, Mr. Brown has no more clue about how government bodies work than about cryptography, or just about anything (including chemistry ("poisonous silicon smoke!"), history, geography, languages, or, well, computers). Especially jarring are his incessant slurs about Electronic Frontier Foundation. Just becaue of those, Mr. Brown got my nomination for the title of jerk of the month. The whole book reads like a storyboard for a bad Hollywood movie; so I'm confident he is going to bag a movie deal - this book is a perfect match for their disdain of the intelligence of their audience. Add one to the pile of cinematic crap. My advice - save the time and money. This book is pure undiluted junk by an inept Eco or Stephenson wannabe. Well, unless you are looking for the printed equivalent of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Rating: 
Summary: Not nearly as good as DaVinci Code
Review: After reading (and being delighted with) The DaVinci Code, I picked this one up. I was slightly disappointed with it. The characters were not that well-developed, the plot was slightly unbelivable, and the ending was completely ridiculous. If you're looking for an entertaining read that isn't very deep I'd recommend this. It's written okay but with very little research. However, if you are looking for the mental stimulation and excitement of the DaVinci code skip this one.
Rating:
Summary: Inconsistant, unbelievable characters
Review: The story would be better if the characters were consistant and believable. I didn't like the development of characters Susan or her boss, Strathmore (two of the main characters). Susan, supposedly a strong and intelligent woman as well as highly respected in the NSA, becomes a weak idiot when faced with a crisis? She and Strathmore are inconsistant in their words and behavior and that ruins the book. Strathmore, also highly respected in the NSA (Susan's boss) supposedly is extremely intelligent, at the top of the NSA hierachy, and has a secret crush on Susan and thus is allowing his marriage of thirty years to dissolve? Susan has NO IDEA about this until she becomes involved in this current crisis. Strathmore sends David, Susan's love, on a mission hoping he is killed so they can be together? His secret password is "Susan"? Pleeeaaase! Also Susan, a professional, intelligent, strong, respected, secure woman becomes a sniveling air-head when her boyfriend has to leave on an important mission and disrupts their romantic weekend plans. UGH! Stupid ideas and inconsistant character traits. If the characters were more realistic and believable the story could have been excellent. But as it is, the story is only good. I read this after "DaVinci code" and was disappointed. At least Dan Brown has gotten better -- I though DaVinci Code was excellent.
Rating:
Summary: Too Many Little Things
Review: First, let me say that I have read Dan Brown before and enjoyed it greatly. The first book I read of his was The Da Vinci Code, which was an excellent book. I appreciated Angels and Demons as well. However, this book was a major let down when I read it. The other books of his focused much less on technology although there was certainly some. However, it seems that he never really had a grasp on it. Technology is the source of most of the flaws in the book. A few of the flaws include the fact that it is impossible to send a program through text mail, which ARA forwarding undoubtedly entails in the book, bits are not the same as bytes, although Brown misses this fact on occasion, and I found no mention of rotating cleartext, a major facet of the book, when I searched the Internet, and I believe it is probably made up completely. I would have let all that go though and given it 4 stars, except that there are non-technical errors as well. For example, on one equation he refers to bacterial viruses, although that is a contradiction. At another point he says gold is durable, when it is actually a very soft metal. There are other issues, and they really add up and start to get on your nerves. Some of the plot in the book really isn't reasonable either. Why are the members of the NSA soooo stupid at times. Don't they have a 170 I.Q.? Why is there a deaf assasin? For these reasons, and others, I heartily recommend an alternate Dan Brown read.
Rating:
Summary: Good story, poor attention to detail......
Review: A better than average plot, well paced and plotted, but let down by many niggling details. The author likes to include technical and engineering detail but lacks the knowledge to make them credible. We hear about welded ceramic casings, a bus driver "downshifting" from 1st gear, to 2nd gear, a computer with 3 million hand soldered processor chips, designed, built and tested in half a million man hours (that is some fast soldering!) Password protected screensavers are introduced as if they are a new invention only used in government circles. Also, there are way too many plot status reminders. Every other page you are reminded why an event is significant (as if you have the attention span of a goldfish). My one plot complaint was that the Spanish goose chase for a key just seems to go an and on and on (and on and on) until I really didn't care what happened next as long as it finished soon.
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