Dan Brown Sucks

[Ramirez]

I read the Da Vinci Code back when it was phenomenon....it was the most banal and obvious novel I think I have ever read, on par with the Hardy Boys, except Langdon takes the better part of a chapter to figure out mirror writing and they only took a paragraph.

Here are some of examples of how he mangles the language.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/...ode-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html

f Dan Brown’s new novel The Lost Symbol is anything like his previous works, it will not go down well with the critics. Famously, comedian Stewart Lee mocked him for using the sentence “The famous man looked at the red cup” in his bestselling The Da Vinci Code. • Dan Brown's conspiracy theories: six of the best

The rest of the article can be found here.

 

[chrispillertkd]

Dan Brown falls into the same categoty as Stephanie Meyer, another author who has experienced phenomenal popularity in the last several years: "Bad Writer."

Pax,

Chris

 

[Jade Tigress]

i tried reading the da vinci code. couldn't even get past the first chapter. i put it down. it's the only book i've picked up without finiishing.

 

[MBuzzy]

Wow....I had no idea people didn't like him so much! I've enjoyed all of his books - does that mean I'm dumb or low class? hehe

I also enjoy brainless action movies though.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Wow....I had no idea people didn't like him so much! I've enjoyed all of his books - does that mean I'm dumb or low class? hehe

I also enjoy brainless action movies though.

i just found his writing style difficult to read. my friend who loaned me the book loved it.

 

[Ramirez]

Dan Brown falls into the same categoty as Stephanie Meyer, another author who has experienced phenomenal popularity in the last several years: "Bad Writer."

Pax,

Chris

To be honestl I am not too keen on Rowling either, I read the first Potter book and about 1/2 the second, her characterization is lacking, Potter a nominal good guy, Voldemoort a nominal bad guy and absolutely no explanation on what motivates him....dull.

I don't recall an explanation on how magic works in the Potter universe or how they co-exist with Muggles, that might have been interesting to explore.

The plotting is a bit odd too, I remember in the first one, Harry and his compatriots use an invisibility cloak for some surreptitious adventure and then get caught because they forgot the invisibility cloak on top of roof of the school.....kind of an important thing to forget.

 

[girlbug2]

Lots of popular authors don't float my boat. Latest un-favorite: James Patterson.

 

[Ramirez]

Lots of popular authors don't float my boat. Latest un-favorite: James Patterson.

Yeah, good call. Clive Cussler is a hack too, but at least he knows he is a hack.

Brown runs around giving interviews dressing up his novels with supposed historical research (Holy Blood Holy Grail is a sham btw) and scholarly pretensions.

 

[Jenna]

I am no fan of Dan Brown nor ever was yet either by skill or ineptitude, he [with the plagiarism thing and whatnot] managed to capture an audience and you know that is a trick that every novellist should have and yet pathetically few do. You know I think the biggest tragedy is that competent, readable novellists that have important issues to make and the werewithal to make them through their fiction, they have no clue how to manipulate a market of potential readers and thus all their 100K words fall like autumn leaves on the ground wasted.

That is the true tragedy and why so many great authors were not read until after their deaths. And so yes I am being devil's advocate and but do not be blaming Dan Brown or the quite loathsome JK Rowling or whomever you might. I think they have, by some method, brought people to reading that may otherwise have vapourised in front of their plasma screened America's Got Talent or X Factor or whatever and that is a good thing to me. At the same time, clever authors that are actually saying something relevant should take note of how to get their words read before they bother to put their little fingers on their home keys.. Jenna xo

 

[Jade Tigress]

i'm not a dean koontz fan either...he's a stephen king wannabe to me. most of stephen king's stuff is great, but i could always tell which books he seemed to write just because of a contract, if you know what i mean. cell, for instance, sucked. and i was never a fan of the dark tower series. the shining and the stand however, are 2 of my favorite sk reads.

 

[Omar B]

Oh I can't stand him! I remember when Da Vinci Code came out years ago and people would be like "Oh Omar, you're a literature guy, you would love this." But then I hear that just about every bestseller. Bestsellers are like music top tens, mostly drivel that enough people can agree on they like. My boss' wife even got me a copy because I just "Have to read it." But at the time my girlfriend worked at a Brentano's bookstore so I've already read enough of it to form my opinion that it and Dan are garbage.

Brown I put in the same category I put Koontz, King, Patterson, etc. Big dumb reads that dumb people can get together and talk about and feel smart because they read a book. Many of them having never read the truly great works.

 

[Big Don]

I read for entertainment only, Brown's books have entertained me. That is all I ask from fiction.

 

[Ramirez]

That is the true tragedy and why so many great authors were not read until after their deaths. And so yes I am being devil's advocate and but do not be blaming Dan Brown or the quite loathsome JK Rowling or whomever you might. I think they have, by some method, brought people to reading that may otherwise have vapourised in front of their plasma screened America's Got Talent or X Factor or whatever and that is a good thing to me. At the same time, clever authors that are actually saying something relevant should take note of how to get their words read before they bother to put their little fingers on their home keys.. Jenna xo

Oh I wasn't blaming them, just saying they suck.

 

[Darksoul]

-I read it, enjoyed it for the story it was, and moved on. Right now I'm reading some Jim Butcher. I like Dean Koontz, but for that kind of horror, I'm into Bentley Little and Graham Masterton. I'll read Dan Brown's new book but I'll also admit that I've stopped reading some books because they sucked.


Andrew

 

[punisher73]

Yeah, good call. Clive Cussler is a hack too, but at least he knows he is a hack.

Brown runs around giving interviews dressing up his novels with supposed historical research (Holy Blood Holy Grail is a sham btw) and scholarly pretensions.

I think this is the key. Authors like Cussler KNOW that they are writing a book with pretty much a "fill in the blanks" approach. You know there will be a bad guy, a girl and lots of action. It is for entertainment value.

 

[MBuzzy]

I think this is the key. Authors like Cussler KNOW that they are writing a book with pretty much a "fill in the blanks" approach. You know there will be a bad guy, a girl and lots of action. It is for entertainment value.

That's how I view all of these works. When I read Dan Brown or Stuart Woods or Stephen King, I'm not going into it expecting a literary masterpiece. It is for entertainment. Do people blow it a bit out of proportion? Of course - but is that the writer's fault? Not at all. I doubt that any of those authors have any delusions that they are Shakespeare or Walt Whitman, but they are getting a pretty good sized paycheck and they are obviously doing something right, because while there are plenty of people who say "Dan Brown Sucks" they are exponentially MORE people who buy it, read it, and will buy the next book as well.

I'll be honest, if I was a writer, I wouldn't give two hoots in hell whether people thought I sucked or not as long as that MASSIVE paycheck was still coming in from my books....oh yeah....and my movie adaptations....and my discovery channel specials....well, you get my point.

Sucks or not, the guy is famous enough to warrant a thread here and has gained international fame for his work.

 

[Steve]

To be honestl I am not too keen on Rowling either, I read the first Potter book and about 1/2 the second, her characterization is lacking, Potter a nominal good guy, Voldemoort a nominal bad guy and absolutely no explanation on what motivates him....dull.

I don't recall an explanation on how magic works in the Potter universe or how they co-exist with Muggles, that might have been interesting to explore.

The plotting is a bit odd too, I remember in the first one, Harry and his compatriots use an invisibility cloak for some surreptitious adventure and then get caught because they forgot the invisibility cloak on top of roof of the school.....kind of an important thing to forget.

I have said the exact same things about both Brown and Rowling. While I enjoyed the Harry Potter stories as fluffy, mindless entertainment, I just don't agree that they're all that good. Same with Dan Brown. I'm glad I'm not the only one who found his writing style very difficult to tolerate.

Other authors that I can't read: Anne Rice. I've always been intrigued by the ideas for her stories, but hate her writing so much I can't make it through her books.

Umberto Eco: The guy has the most egregious case of research rapture I've ever witnessed. I forced myself to finish Name of the Rose when I was in high school, swearing when I was done that I would never read another of his books again. Then, several years later, I saw that he had another bestseller out, Foucault's Pendulum. It was the same: half boring history book and half mystery. Gah.

Stephen King is on my list, but only for anything he wrote after and including It. Just about everything he wrote prior to that was terrific... but after, it's like he forgot how to end a story.

 

[Jade Tigress]

Stephen King is on my list, but only for anything he wrote after and including It. Just about everything he wrote prior to that was terrific... but after, it's like he forgot how to end a story.

i have to agree with you on this. the ending for it was totally disappointing and stupid.

 

[Steve]

i have to agree with you on this. the ending for it was totally disappointing and stupid.

What's funny is that I tried again, as I did with Eco. I was an AVID King reader and at one point couldn't wait for his new books. "It" spoiled me for years. The next book I tried was Needful Things... oh man. That ending was even worse, the very definition of Deus Ex Machina.

 

[Big Don]

Quoted for truth and amplification:

It is for entertainment value.