Rating: 
Summary: Unitelligent and Uninspired - no thrills in this Fortress
Review: "Digital Fortress" hints at being a thinking man's technothriller - using codes and human intuition instead of fighter jets and nu-cue-ler subs. Instead, it's full of implausible characters and uninspired plot twists, always seeming sure that it's much smarter than it really is.THE PLOT: a now dead computer programmer has created a seemingly unbreakable code, the eponymous "Digital Fortress", setting off a fierce hunt for its code key. While the key to DF is distributed on the internet, it's buried within the code itself. Whoever unlocks the code will have access to the ultimate protection against decryption. Hostile governments, organized criminals or terrorists will be able to communicate freely over the internet completely immune to detection. Fearing this, the NSA - the US agency responsible for gathering signals information and cracking codes - sends free-lance genius Dave Becker to Seville, where the programmer died. Trevor Strathmore, the NSA's head code breaker hopes that DF's creator left some clue to the code key behind. Unfortunately, Becker isn't alone on his hunt... Meanwhile, back at the NSA's high-tech HQ, Susan Fletcher, our hero's brilliant and sexy NSA genius of a girlfriend - tries picking up the mystery from her end of the Atlantic, where Strathmore's newest supercomputer is busy melting itself down trying to crack DF. Unfortunately, it looks like somebody is on Susan's trail as well - from the inside - and we get the hint that she shouldn't feel as safe as she does when Strathmore is around. Back in Seville, Becker quickly learns that DF's creator had worn a ring when he died - but it's missing. Quickly guessing that inscriptions on the ring say more than "one ring to rule them all", our hero tracks it across Spain, learning how quickly it moves from owner to owner. Unfortunately, whoever owns the ring (even briefly) is marked for death by a mysterious assassin - a deaf killer who never misses, and catalogs his kills on a Palm Pilot. HOWEVER: I can't believe that this novel is as popular as reviewers make it sound. It's not only strikingly unintelligent, but strikingly arch. Brown learned more about cryptography and the NSA than most people cared to hear about, and thus crafted a novel based on his "insider" info about cryptography. (Brown's story heavily relies on a perceived ignorance of what the NSA stands for - an agency, he writes, that only a small percentage of Americans understand. Rather than showing that Brown is a writer who has learnt what most us can't, "Digital Fortress" proves that Brown focuses on remote subjects not likely to have a large number of experts who can effectively challenge his pretensions of realism. Actually, I learned more about cryptography while writing a paper about the Walker Family Spy Ring in high school, and most will probably learn more about the NSA watching "Sneakers" or "Good Will Hunting". How do you like them apples?) Instead of intelligent clues, Brown's story builds on arcane trivia (the etymology of the word "sincere", certain technical details distinguishing the different a-bombs used against Japan). I was able to piece together some of Brown's clues, not because I'm smarter than most, but simply because I watch a lot of the History channel. Getting past the "thrill" and "techno" aspects of the story, what's left is thin - Brown's ring-plot provides an excuse to send our hero across Seville, hunting the ring, making this less of a novel of any genre than a college-writing version of "Where I Went Last Summer" (complete with Spanish dialog repeated in English). Brown's thin story is plumped, not with some redeeming characters of depth and intelligent plot turns, but with unbelievably stupid characters and unbelievable plot twists. Our hero is no action hero (he stays in shape playing racquetball), yet he manages to elude the hitman who has carved a path of precision-guided death across Seville. Susan is beautiful and brilliant - though Brown never leaves us doubting as to which half matters more (Susan is probably the least independent, most vulnerable, unintelligent and otherwise dated female character I've seen in any technothriller; even her smarts are just a convenient device to explain why she's working with the NSA.) Strathmore is supposed to be a cryptographer par excellence, yet he defies belief - he's so obsessed with DF that he rams it into his super-codebreaking computer, bypassing security checks meant to protect it from viruses. He does this despite knowing that DF is obviously more than it appears (its code for heaven's sake!!). There's another NSA co-worker, a guy who's supposed to set off our alarm bells, but it's obvious that Brown only means him to distract us from Strathmore since Brown couldn't be bothered to come up with more characters. Like Strathmore, the rest of the denizens of NSA headquarters are so dim, it's inconceivable that they'd be trusted to run a third rate ISP, let alone the most sophisticated code-breaking computer in the world. (Typical for low-grade technothrillers, Brown is so obsessed credentialing his characters as geniuses, he devotes little time to writing them even slightly smart.) By the climax, I couldn't care whether the NSA would be destroyed by the killer code, mostly because the author had by then changed from telling a story to giving a pitch for some splashy action movie, making the novel's Hollywood aspirations annoyingly clear. In short, storm some other fortress.
Rating: 
Summary: A good first crack at a formula he perfects later
Review: Like so many of the reviewers here, I got hooked on Dan Brown with DaVinci Code. A great, fun read. He makes you feel like you've taken the worlds most exciting university class. He is a thinking person's Clive Cussler.
DaVinci Code inspired me to read Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress. They have gotten progressively weaker in my mind (which means his work has gotten progressively better since I'm reading in reverse chronological order).
Digital Fortress absolutely kept my attention and interest. However, I have two main gripes.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW
Each of the three books I mention have exactly the same plot and twist structure: An academic is pulled unwillingly into a James Bond movie; he hooks up with a beautiful, brilliant woman; the bad guy ALWAYS turns out to be the mentor figure; and there is a mysterious, somehow deformed assasin who we come to learn is in the employ of the mentor. After you've read one book, the suspense is gone.
Also, as brilliant as these characters are supposed to be, I consistently guess the clues before they do and I'm no university professor. Digitial Fortress is the worst offender of the last type.
Nevertheless, Brown is in a special class and I do look forward to his follow up to DaVinci Code.
Rating: 
Summary: A Well Paced Thriller
Review: Not the same quality as Angels and Demons or the Da VInci Code but all in all a fine book.
Rating:
Summary: If you're looking for a fast read, keep looking...
Review: Prior to picking up Digital Fortress I had read all of Dan Brown's other works, and had been hugely impressed with his complex plotting, research, and attention to detail. None of those traits were apparent in this book, which made for a wide gap between my expectations going in and the experience I ended up having. If you read a lot of mysteries/thrillers, you're going to have the next plot twist figured out pages ahead of it actually being revealed. Character development is clumsy and tedious. We learn about bit players like the DCI's assistant and a secretary in excrutiating detail, when they aren't key to the main story. I also found myself saying "Yeah, right" more than once due the the unbelievability of certain characters. For instance, Jabba (the head of IT) continuously berates and insults his boss, the DCI (this is the most powerful spymaster in the known world) in front of other low-level government employees. Like that's gonna ever happen in real life! In any good novel (or movie for that matter) there's a certain concept called suspension of disbelief, which is critical to the success of larger-than-life tales, of which this is one. It never kicked in on this book, and I found myself constantly thinking about the writing instead of enjoying the story. Even if you're a diehard Dan Brown fan like me, take a pass on this book - you'll be glad you did.
Rating:
Summary: and of course she is beautiful
Review: I could repeat what many have already said about how interesting and thrilling this novel is, but that would be repetative. I will simply say that I gave it less than a perfect review because Brown did the same thing so many authors do..made the female beautiful like that is a prerequisite for being brilliant. Just Once I wish an author would trust his/her audience to judge a character on their depth and not have to make then "Eye turning" beautiful. It is such a cliche and hurts every book that contains this stock female character. How many booms ahve you read where the female co-star walks into a restaurant and all eyes turn to gawk at her beauty. Enough already!
Rating:
Summary: Less than Da Vinci Code
Review: I read this book after reading Da Vinci Code (which is one of the most entertaining book I have read in recent years), and I must say that Digital Fortress doesn't come close. Not by a mile. Understandably, this is one of Brown's earlier works. But the bottom line is this book lacks the complexities and element of surprise (and history) found in Da Vinci Code.
Rating:
Summary: Before Da Vinci...
Review: I think Dan Brown's writing has greatly improved with time and experience- either that or he's just written about more interesting and compelling subjects in his newer books. His greatest strength as a writer is in pulling out obscure, well-researched facts and throwing them into a fast paced chase to catch the bad guy and stop something from blowing up. While this book has an impressive array of facts and figures, good action, good characters, and intriguing plot twists, I think it lacks the focus that I felt was in Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code. In Digital Fortress, I was bounced around from David Becker's linguistic skills to Susan Fletcher's cryptography skills to the villains' own obsessions and quirks. His later books seems more tightly controlled, and thus, hooked me into the story more. All in all, another fun, informative, and fast read- I finished it just over 2 hours in the bookstore- but not one I'd really care to buy. There is a code that is at the end of the book that presumably, if you paid attention to the book, you'd be able to solve, but I just don't care enough about this one to bother.
Rating: 
Summary: A STUNNING debut by a FABULOUS writer!!
Review: Like many, my first introduction to Dan Brown was through his absolutely SPECTACULAR thriller, 'The Da Vinci Code'. After devouring that in half the time it normally takes to read a novel, I have found and read ALL of his books. I must say, in a VERY short amount of time, he has become one of my absolute MUST HAVE authors. ALL of his books are superior thrillers, and 'Digital Fortress' is his first great book. What we as average, everyday citizens of the United States do NOT realize, is how much information we do NOT see--which is fine with me. I trust my government NOT to tell me everything. But when the NSA's Ultimate Super Computer comes across an encryption it cannot crack, suddenly the future of this ultra-secret organization is in serious jeopardy. I think we would be shocked at what information they have access to. However, I firmly believe that in order to keep us safe from dangers that we rarely (if ever) find out about, people who run these facilities NEED to exist. Who KNOWS how many disasters organizations like the NSA has thwarted--and kept quiet about over the years. However, for each and every person who believes the NSA SHOULD exist, there are just as many who believe that electronic eaves-dropping ought to be illegal, whether or not it ultimately makes American citizens more safe. This is the major dilemma facing the Deputy Director of the NSA. He has always been one of the biggest Patriots our government has ever seen, and is looking to make amends on a particular public fiasco which, although has ended, can never be forgotten. TRANSLATR is THE Super Computer of Super Computers. Able to decipher virtually ANY and ALL encrypted electronic messages. But when one of the NSA's brightest is called in to assist the Deputy Director on a program that TRANSLATR seems incapable of cracking, the rubber hits the pavement, so-to-speak. At first this seems absolutely IMPOSSIBLE. But as it turns from impossible to probable and then finally to possible, the weight of what is happening suddenly becomes the biggest nightmare anyone in American Cryptology has ever experienced. A code which is soon to be GIVEN away on the Internet--a code which is 100% UNBREAKABLE. The conspiracy has been set, and the NSA's very life is at stake--among other things. Immediately an unlikely College Professor is dispatched to Europe to attempt to acquire the Pass Code which will keep 'Digital Fortress' from becoming available to the free world. While at the same time unsuspecting NSA employee's find themselves caught up inside a world-class conspiracy that the NSA Director apparently knows about, and is willing to let happen--all in the name of secrecy. Dan Brown has built a truly fantastic tale of intrigue that rivals the techno-thrillers by Clancy, Cussler or anyone else for that matter. What WOULD happen if a code such as 'Digital Fortress' becomes available to everyone connected to the Internet? How could our top code-breakers help continue to ensure our safety if such an event actually happened? TRUST me, this IS a frightening scenario. Also, the phrase, 'DON'T trust ANYONE' applies to this story. What you THINK is happening isn't necessarily what IS happening. Just read it and you'll understand. If there are any technical problems with what Dan Brown has written and actual computer software, well NOT being a computer expert myself, it all seemed pretty real to me. I guess if I WERE an expert I might catch something somewhere, but for me, it all seemed very real in the way it was portrayed. HIGHLY recommended, as is ALL of Dan Brown's fabulous novels.
Rating:
Summary: An awesome book!
Review: I have read Digital Fortress twice already, and I've read many similarly entertaining books to Digital Fortress such as: Tom Clancy's "Net Force," Britt Gillette's "Conquest of Paradise," and George Orwell's "1984". None of which are as exciting or thrilling as "Digital Fortress". Dan Brown should write many more books of this genre and I look forward to reading "Angels and Demons" after being blown away by "The Da Vinci Code".
Rating:
Summary: Early evidence of great talent!
Review: Dan Brown writes for an intelligent reader, someone who can appreciate the subtle mysteries encoded in the more intricate plot and who enjoys gleaning factual information pertinent to the subject at hand, in this case computers, cyberspace and the politics they engender, while enjoying a facsinating read. Brown's considerable skill in imparting remarkable tid bits of information in interesting ways is clearly evident in this early work. Yes, he has improved but this first effort is well worth your time. Brown's skills are not limited to teaching his audience about technology and encryption puzzles. In addition to a cleverly crafted plot he creates characters whom his readers are eager to embrace. Susan Fletcher a brilliant and patriotic mathematician works for a secret government agency, NSA, that uses the latest computer technology to find and uncode terrorist messages. She and her lover, David Becker, a highly regarded university professor fluent in many languages, are faced with a crisis that tests their abilities and puts their lives at risk when a brilliant but confused ex agent develops a deadly encryption code. The clever twists and turns make pausing unthinkable until the situation is resolved. The beauty of reading a novel by Dan Brown is in taking the time to enjoy his prose and all the information contained therein. Unfortunately the suspenseful story forced me to finish much too quickly. I'll just have to read it again!
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