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Dan Brown’s 1998 effort, “Digital Fortress” was a fun read. The publishers make a big deal of his new-found fame via “The Da Vinci Code”, with the following emblazoned prominently on the cover: #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Da Vinci Code . That’s okay, but clearly his skills have improved since the “Digital Fortress” days.

Some of the themes in the book that I found interesting and/or disturbing…

• The vulnerability of sensitive data and how protection of databases will continue to be a growth industry
• The stupidity of keeping all vital data in one place
• The motivation of many in high places (and not so high) is that they must look good, rather than be good
• That even in 1998, Brown felt the need to explain to his readers such concepts as email, using a search engine and Netscape (what?)
• The low respect that academics receive in Western societies (quotes like “I’m only a teacher”, “I’m not rich, I’m just a teacher”, “She can do better than a teacher”). This may be because Brown’s father was a mathematics teacher - and they commonly suffer from esteem problems…
• At least he has a brilliant female mathematician as the heroine - this is a rarity in fiction
• It is obvious that Brown writes hoping his book(s) will be made into a movie one day
• The depiction of Asians as the ‘baddies’. (To be fair, there were baddies at all levels in the story)
• It is nice having your intelligence challenged by the author (he throws codes at you every now and then - something he did a lot more of in Da Vinci Code) but then insulting that intelligence in other places with corny plot twists
• A credibility gap in some of the plot (sending the professor to Europe on a dangerous mission, the visual representation of hackers getting into the system, and the last minute climax of the book)

There is an interesting discussion on the mathematical inaccuracies of the book at MathFiction.

Despite the shortcomings, I recommend the book, especially if you are into technobabble.

Related post: My rave about Da Vinci Code.