Hope it is okay to resurrect this thread. I wasn't reading the Da Vinci code because it was only available in hard cover in the States for the longest time. Then I drove across country and obtained an audio version. I really really didn't like it so if you're going to be offended by criticism stop reading now.

Number one, Digital Fortress was available in paperback, so I did read that and I found it unimaginative, containing the appearance of depth and cleverness but not itself those virtues. The puzzles weren't that good, you only thought they were because he told you so. Towards the end he even changed the laws of physics in order to fit in with one of the clues he'd provided earlier. And the writing was frankly juvenile.

Now, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage comparing Digital with Da Vinci when i only heard Da Vinci, but I think it's pretty clear the author's writing improved a great deal from one book to the other. Otherwise, listening to it, I noticed how little action there really was. The main characters all have unique backgrounds which enable them to educate the others (and us readers) in long bouts of conversation which are actually monologues. The characters are not particularly unique. You've got your average American hero, a well educated product of the middle class with stellar IQ and linebacker reflexes, lovely daughter of a dead character who sparks the action, evil (or misunderstood) entity from a huge institution, plodding copper, eccentric English boffin, and a cast of supporting characters that have cropped up in potboilers and summer flicks for generations. Because of my experience with 'Digital fortress' I very much doubt there is any thorough research in the screed.

So much of its cleverness was of the self-manufactured and congratulatory kind. The plot was more or less a simple chase with herrings thrown all over the place, and the conclusion was quite unsatisfying. It took away the entire premise, in fact.

There are worse books and writers who have gone on to popularity. The unreadable Stephen Donaldson is my bete noir. but I came to the conclusion this was a really pedestrian work. I can understand it as entertainment. but if I had been doing anything other than driving for days, I would have left it unfinished, and that is unusual for me. I can only conclude that its great popularity came from the supposedly daring religious concepts that were used as filler material. I don't see how anyone at the Vatican could lose a minute's sleep over it, but Da Vinci may have rotated a couple times.