Posts from March 2006

  • Review: The Da Vinci Code

    Review of The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon #2.0) by Dan Brown (1400079179)★★★
    (https://b-ark.ca/Gs8eMm)
    Cover for The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

    Brown's latest thriller (after Angels and Demons)is an exhaustively researched page-turner about secret religious societies, ancient coverups and savage vengeance. The action kicks off in modern-day Paris with the murder of the Louvre's chief curator, whose body is found laid out in symbolic repose at the foot of the Mona Lisa. Seizing control of the case are Sophie Neveu, a lovely French police cryptologist, and Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon, reprising his role from Brown's last book. The two find several puzzling codes at the murder scene, all of which form a treasure map to the fabled Holy Grail. As their search moves from France to England, Neveu and Langdon are confounded by two mysterious groups-the legendary Priory of Sion, a nearly 1,000-year-old secret society whose members have included Botticelli and Isaac Newton, and the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei. Both have their own reasons for wanting to ensure that the Grail isn't found. Brown sometimes ladles out too much religious history at the expense of pacing, and Langdon is a hero in desperate need of more chutzpah. Still, Brown has assembled a whopper of a plot that will please both conspiracy buffs and thriller addicts. 

    Hmm… what can I say. Well, first off, it was better than Decipher. ‘course, that’s not really saying much, now is it?

    It’s not actually that bad of a book, as far as pulply action stuff goes. At least, unlike Decipher, it was actually written like a book, as opposed to feeling like a screenplay that got rejected and then converted. The pacing is pretty decent, the language middling, the plot not terrible, although I have to admit that I always expect stories like this to involve some amount of globe trotting, something this book certainly lacks… there are probably 6 major locations (as in, places the characters tarried for some period) in the entire novel, three in France, three in the UK.

    The plot itself is decent enough… like I say, it’s not the most ambitious work of it’s type, but it keeps the reader entertained, and there is a reasonable twist at the end when you discover who The Teacher is. OTOH, I’m not the type to try and guess at plot twists while I’m reading, so I’m easily impressed when I get the answer. ;)

    Continue reading...
  • Snow Day!

    Finally finally, winter has arrived. Sure, we’ve had cold weather, but without snow, it just ain’t the same. Then, in the last 24 hours, we get something like 10 to 14 centimeters!

    Of course, that much snow certainly screws up the city infrastructure for a while, and so, given that the buses were running around 30 minutes late, Lenore and I decided to declare and Snow Day and “work” from home. :) ‘course, we did this with the expectation that many of our other co-workers would forgo the commute and do the same.

    Well, we were wrong. Apparently we work with people who are far more dedicated to their jobs than I realized. Or they love sitting in traffic for hours just to say they did. Regardless, Team TK ended up being the only ones absent from work. Thanks a lot, guys!