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I mentioned in my notes on Brown's "Angels and Demons" that his supposedly intelligent and educated and superior people operate at a People Magazine level of understanding. In "Angels and Demons" it was (for instance) a top physicist amazed that matter could be converted into energy (and thinking that if that was possible maybe the Bible was all true!); in "Digital Fortress" it's (for instance) a top cryptographer engaged to a top humanities professor, who has not only never heard the phrase Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, but who doesn't understand it once it's translated for her.
Sheesh.
"Digital Fortress" is junk-food fiction: a page-turner and sort of perverse fun to read, but riddled with clichés, unconvincing characters, and howlingly incorrect technical stuff. Maybe it's just because I actually know something about computer security and cryptography and computer viruses (the main subjects that Brown gets stunningly wrong here), but this book required considerably more suspension of disbelief than either "Angels and Demons" or that "Da Vinci" one. If I knew more about art, or the history of religion, maybe those would have been just as bad.
So anyway, it's fine accidental airport reading or whatever to pass the time, but don't expect anything illuminating or memorable or uplifting, and don't believe anything it says about computers, or codes, or viruses, or what happens when a big computer overheats. Or anything else.
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