Digital Fortress.
Finished reading Dan Brown‘s Digital Fortress last night. Good book! At first I was somewhat skeptical, and I’ve never read his later, more famous novels (Da Vinci Code, etc.) nor seen those movies. But this tale of spies, the NSA and cryptography moves right along up to the end, and has several good twists in it. I’m not going to delve into the plot, save that if you’ve read any Tom Clancy novels, this reads a lot like one, and that’s not a bad thing, if you like these types of books and don’t take them seriously.
Written in 1998, naturally it has a bit more ‘NSA are good guys’ tone to it – as opposed to THESE days. Not terribly unlike the Cliff Stoll book I read last December in that respect, really – but sadly quaint to think they used to act responsibly like that.
At any rate, Mr. Brown sets up multiple discussions about ‘who is watching the watchers’ at key points in the novel, but wisely doesn’t editorialize at length – this is a thriller, after all, not The Thin Blue Line. I’m actually surprised they haven’t tried to make this a movie like his later books, although given its central focus on the NSA, i’m sure they wouldn’t like that, especially now.
At any rate, it’s a fast, entertaining read and I recommend it!
candybowl
Tags: 90's, books, malevolence, spy, thriller