Video: “Dan Brown Reveals the Secrets of ‘Inferno’” from WSJDigitalNetwork
I picked up a copy of Dan Brown‘s Inferno at the library yesterday and started reading it last night.
I’m already disappointed because Langdon has apparently split up with the woman he was involved with in the last novel. This character has real relationship problems.
In Bloodline (New York: William Morrow-HarperCollins, 2012), James Rollins allows the members of Sigma Force to solve the mystery of the Guild, their nemesis in previous novels. If it weren’t for a couple of hints in Bloodline, I’d think that it might be the last novel in the series.
I hope Rollins will use the new characters, Tucker and Kane, in future novels.
I’ve read all of Steve Berry‘s printed books (not the ebooks). Until I started reading it, I had expected The Columbus Affair (New York: Ballantine Books, 2012) to be the latest in the Cotton Malone series. It’s not.
The concept and plot are interesting, but I didn’t care for the characters. None of them is really very likeable or heroic.
In the past I’ve been impressed with the amount of research James Rollins had apparently done for his novels. However, while reading The Devil Colony (New York: William Morrow, 2011), I discovered that isn’t the case since he incorporated LDS (Mormon) beliefs and culture, which I know about, into the novel. Rollins clearly didn’t do enough research in that area.
He didn’t even get the name of the church right. The “Mormon Church” is actually The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not the “Church of Latter-Day Saints” (58).
A major character, Hank Kanosh, is LDS and a professor at BYU. If Hank really had been chewing on a cigar (24) and had engaged in an affair (27), he would have broken BYU’s Honor Code, which he would have agreed to observe by accepting an appointment to the faculty. The honor code specifically states
As a matter of personal commitment, students, faculty, and staff of Brigham Young University. . . are expected to demonstrate in daily living on and off campus those moral virtues encompassed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and will:
Hank would also have been ineligible to go to any LDS temple, as he does at the end of the book (468-69).
In addition, no Latter-day Saints that I know “believe a more allegorical version of [any] part of [the Book of Mormon]” (199), though there are parables in sermons. LDS scripture includes the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Latter-day Saints “believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly” and “the Book of Mormon to be the word of God” (“The Articles of Faith“).
The Maze of Bones is Book One of The 39 Clues series. (Though this book is by Rick Riordan, I understand that the books are by different authors.) My niece mentioned that she was reading the most recent volume in the series, so I thought I’d check it out. I can see why kids from about ten to thirteen would enjoy the books, but I wouldn’t recommend them to adults. From The Maze of Bones, young readers can learn a lot about Benjamin Franklin. Based on the ending, I’d guess that in the next book they’ll learn about Mozart.
In The Hunt for Atlantis, Andy McDermott follows in the footsteps of James Rollins and Matt Reilly, combining archeology and science into a riveting suspense novel, though with more action and bad language than I remember in Rollins’ books. Early in the novel, Eddie Chase, the male protagonist, makes a reference to Alistair McClean’s Where Eagles Dare. Chase is a lot like some of McClean’s heros in the number of injuries he endures and the daring of his rescues.
McDermott has six more novels with the protagonists, Nina Wilde and Eddie Chase, he introduced in The Hunt for Atlantis:
Matt Reilly‘s combination of science with history and archeology in Temple reminds me of a lot of James Rollins‘s books. I’m looking forward to reading more of Reilly’s novels.
Steve Berry has a new Cotton Malone novel, The Emperor’s Tomb, which will be available November 23. Unfortunately, I have no idea who the emperor is in the title.
I just finished rereading Patriot Games by Tom Clancy and decided to (re)read Clancy’s Jack Ryan novels in the order in which they occur chronologically as I’m reading the Dragonriders of Pern novels (more on that later). I found an article titled “How to Make Sense of Clancy’s Convoluted Chronology in Jack Ryan Series,” in which Alex Diaz-Granados explains the reading order I’ll follow:
I own all of the books except Red Rabbit, so I’m going to have to wait until I can get it from the library to continue this project.
The plot of Steve Berry‘s most recent novel, The Paris Vendetta (New York: Ballantine Books-Random House, 2009), didn’t seem as complex as those of his previous novels. He didn’t tie together so many different elements, and the characters weren’t spending as much time jetting from one part of the globe to another. The majority of the action took place in Denmark, England, and France–mostly in France, which made sense since the historical focus was on Napoleon, with some references to the Merovingian kings and the Nazis.
