This was just ok for me, I think I expected more because I enjoyed his others so much.

A bit dramatic at places but overall, a pretty enjoyable thriller.

تشويق إلى آخر سطر في الرواية، لدان براون نمطه الخاص الذي أعتقد أنني قد بدأت اعتياده، الأحداث في الحصن الرقمي تجري في يوم واحد، مليء بالإثارة، لعبة المطاردة التي تميز أسلوب دان براون، في اللحظة التي تعتقد أنها على وشك الانتهاء تظهر سلسلة أخرى من الأحداث تزيد من تعقيد سير الرواية.
لا أعتقد أنه يوجد العديد من الكتاب كدان براون ممن يتمكنون من دفعي إلى الابتسام تارة لاعتقادي أنني فككت الحبكة، ثم العبوس لاحساسي بأن الكاتب أثناء سرده قد خطط لإحباط القراء ودفعهم إلى إعمال عقلهم أكثر. هذه من الروايات التي جعلتني أضحك بهستيرية عند نهايتها لإدراكي أن أغلب تخميناتي لم تكن حتى قريبة من الحقيقة، وأيضا لارتياحي بسبب ما آلت إليه الأحداث.
رائعة كعادة دان براون

Here’s the problem: Digital Fortress has a good plot, but it’s filled with weak characters. I really liked the plot. A disgruntled NSA employee develops an unbreakable encryption program (the Digital Fortress) and threatens to give both the encryption program and the key (which is buried in the program) away on the Internet. If the bad guys gain access to the key, they will be able to communicate without fear of the NSA decrypting their messages. This throws the NSA into a panic – as it should – so they send David Becker to track down the former employee. However, David learns that the man has died in suspicious circumstances, so … well, you know.

Pretty good so far, but now consider the main characters. Susan Fletcher and David Becker are the perfect pair. She’s beautiful, intelligent, sexy and decent to the core. He’s beautiful, intelligent, sexy and – yes – decent to the core. Although Susan has an IQ of 170, she’s mostly eye candy. The only surprise was that nobody tied her to railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train. Although that might have improved her characterization. David, on the other hand turns out to be the greatest daredevil of all time, outwitting a professional assassin, even though the most exciting thing he has done is to thrash an opponent on a squash court (and then treat him to a fruit shake and bagel). There’s another character known only as Jabba … enough said?

Okay, so what’s the bottom line? This clearly isn’t a top-level thriller, but if your plans fall through some weekend, this wouldn’t be a bad book to pick up.

One could already see the direction Brown would go with his recipe of conspiring the heck out of the literary world with his first work.

Not as good as Angels and Demons and The da Vinci code, but not as bad as The lost symbol, Digital fortress is the career start of a novelist who used good oldfashioned knowledge in a unique, new way on his way to literary immortality.

The art part is small in this one, as it´s more of a technothriller than the more blockbuster mystery high speed pursuit style of the following novels.

One can see that Brown is still tinkering around with his writing style, not always sure where to go and more trying to go futuristic and techy than uchronic and historic. I am heavily biased towards anything Sci-Fi, so I do definitively just give 4 stars because of the setting, without it, it would be closer to a 3.

It´s very funny that the infamous „I don´t care about technical accuracy, have no interest in research, and don´t ask experts to proofread“ mentality is already big in this one, Brown just doesn´t care, the cryptography and tech are hilariously facepalmy. In this case, it´s even more extreme, as it are not just some elements as in the other novels, but the whole plot revolving around topics Brown obviously has no knowledge about, making it unwittingly comedic.

But one also has to have the courage to publish a novel and just don´t caring about it, it´s a special kind of badass attitude and effrontery I appreciate (sorry for that, the dark side strong in me is), although it´s very cheeky and transports false knowledge into poor readers��minds. Bonus points for showing the NSA in a shady light in the year 1998 (and not in 2013, when it became soooo mainstream) and letting his protagonists dealing with the topics of privacy, protection, and the rule of the surveillance, pardon Freudian typo, of course constitutional state.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Dan Brown kaip visada savo stilium, slapti kodai, skaičių sekos, detalės, simboliai ir paslaptys

Who will guard the guards?!
إفتح فمك .. نعم أكثر من ذلك .. حسنا هل إنذهلت .. حسنا أغلقه الأن
فى البداية لازم نعترف بشئ إن دان براون هو أفضل روائى انا قرأتله فى العصر الحديث
بعد ما أنهيت رباعية لانجدون
ملائكة و شياطين  و
شيفرة دافنشى  و
الرمز المفقود  و
الجحيم  

كنت متردد من إنى أقرا مجددا لدان و التردد كان أكبر خصوصا ان الحصن الرقمى هى عمله الأول و منشور فى التسعينات
بس بمجرد ما تبدأ القراءة بتُأسر بأسلوبه و هتضطر تكمل

الرواية بتدور حوالين عالم التشفير و الكومبيوتر و الإنترنت و لما تلاقى كاتب بيكتب عن الحاجات دى فى التسعينات يبقى انت اكيد قدام أسطورة

الميزة اللى مش موجودة فى اى حد غير فى دان براون مهما هتتوقع و مهما هتتنبأ بأى حاجة دايما بتلاقى حاجة جديدة خالص و بيصدمك طول الرواية فعلا ده كاتب عظيم عظيم عظيم


" WE ARE WATCHING YOU ! "

The topic is quite interesting & having an author perfectly fit the shoes of one so revered (talking, of course about the late great Michael Crichton) is truly magnificent, in my book. This thriller is fast (hooray!) & riveting. It is relevant to modern times & some reviewers have gone as far as calling it plausible.

But it must be said that its an adventure less compelling than The Da Vinci Code, even more contrived; devoid of interesting characters but plagued with dead ends, ineffective repetitiveness, empty journeys. While many characters deal with differently major or minor catastrophes, the short chapters speed by. The plot, if dissected, would resemble this: a career girl (& therefore, one lacking of a personality, other than being described as being incredibly fond of expensive shoes [as if such an example would underscore her femininity:]) stuck in a compound, perplexed by computer screens and consoles, hurrying to save humanity before the doomsday clock strikes; her boyfriend, a prof. with sure and extreme luck out on a wild goose chase (in--Sevilla, Spain! AWESUM!), a fish out of water with a blind purpose (and again, afflicted with the No Personality Syndrome along with his contemporary drones); and other tech nerds, out trying to physically or technologically (whatever that means... the novel tries to personify what's intangible: cyberspace) um, save the planet. There are codes and puzzles along the way, easy to decipher and sometimes overly-explained by these tech- (and only tech-) minded, overpaid, individuals.

Because it was educational, fun, sometimes (I say this with a grain of salt) unpredictable, it should be read. Expect no Waugh or Hawthorne, but Crichton, or at least a worthy imitation. It is definitely a dumb action adventure but if it captures you, and it will, then just take the ride. It's as harmless as impersonating the protagonist: your eyes will move and your body will mostly be in repose. But something within the human machine will be processed in some way, surely.

Dan Brown never fails his readers!

n  "Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer."n

I can't. I can't even start to explain how mad, sad and confused I am right now. I am actually giving 1 star to a Dan Brown's book. 1 star. All I can think about is (and forgive me) WHAT THE FUCK?!

What in hell is this?! A part of me still refuses to believe that this was written by him. A part of me wants to believe that this is some kind of joke. But it isn't. It isn't because Brown's writing style is unique and easy to identify and it certainly is here. It isn't because the freaking formula he uses all the time is here.

The same formula I said over and over again that I didn't mind because I didn't come to his books looking for extreme originality, but looking for an enjoyable reading to entertain me for a while. The thing is I do mind the formula when I cannot enjoy the story, because it just makes the whole thing even more frustrating because I know what is going to happen next.

And I couldn't enjoy this book. I simply couldn't. The book is just dull. Intolerably dull. I praised Brown so many times for being able to give me an action-packed, gripping plot since page one. This time all the action I got is during a mere ten chapters almost in the end of the book, after being bored to death after more than 400 pages. It is like he is putting here all the dullness he stole from his other books. And that's not okay. Especially when the first thing I read is that damn prologue that made me so sure it would be his typical action-packed plot. I HATE BEING WRONG. Especially in things like this. I feel like I was deceived and I hate the damn feeling.

It could have got better, though. It only needed one of those breathtaking plot twists Dan Brown writes so well. But not even that I got this time! I don't get fooled by the same twist twice, Brown, I am sorry! You are free to use formula over and over again, as many times as you want. BUT DO NOT USE THE SAME PLOT TWIST TWICE! And damn it, if you want to use it don't make it so awfully obvious. I knew who the bad guy was even before I reach the 50% mark. In fact, forget the 50% mark. I knew it before I reach the 30% mark! That's not what I mean when I say I want to find the bad guy before the characters do! I don't want to read the whole story knowing who s/he is! It takes away any interest the book could have!

But even if I knew who the bad guy was I still didn't know his/her motivations. So yes, the plot twist could have partially worked. His/her motivations were surprising, I expected him/her just to be bad, want money, want power, whatever. Which now that I am thinking is stupid, considering the character's description. But anyways, my point is they were surprising. Or could have been if only I was invested in the story. I wasn't. The characters could have all died for all I care. In fact, they should have died. There was a chance the story would have been shorter that way and my torture would have ended sooner.

Which only shows you how much I was able to connect with the characters. Zero. Which I don't think that is their fault, to be honest. Objectively talking, I guess I could say they were actually well-built. Unfortunatelly for them, that means nothing when I need to spend all my time reading trying to do not fall asleep.

Bad things do not end here, though. One thing I admire about Dan Brown is his capacity to offer us information and "fun facts" about the theme he chooses for his books without making it overwhelming. That results in you actually learning something new while reading the books. That's not the case here. All the information is thrown at you at once, making it completly overwhelming and resulting in you learning nothing. So not even this can be considered a saving grace for this book.

So what is the saving grace of this book? Honestly, I do not know. I couldn't acutally like anything about the book. Not the plot, not the twist, not the characters. Nothing!

Overall, I am completly, utterly disappointed. I have never thought I would ever give one start to a Dan Brown's book. But then, I had never thought he would ever write a book this bad. I definitely do not recommed it and feel sorry for anyone who had met Dan Brown reading this book. Because I would think a hundred times before picking up any other of his books, which is a shame because some of them are actually pretty good.

n  "Force a hand and it will fight you. But convince a mind to think as you want it to think and you have an allie."n

SCORE: 1.00 out of 5.00 stars

You can also find this review on my blog

اللقاء الأول بدان براون ... مع مولوده البكر وأولى رواياته ... الحصن الرقمي
~~~
غموض وتشويق من الطراز الرفيع تجدوه في هذه الرواية التي تتحدث عن الخصوصية في عالم الانترنت،
ومآلات سيطرة الحكومات على الكم الكبير من المعلومات لمواطنيها، العجيب أن الرواية نشرت في عام 1998
أي في بدايات الانترنت، ولم يكن الانترنت وقتها مسيطراً على حياة الناس كما بالوقت الحالي، ولم تظهر بعد
فضائح الحكومات في التجسس على مواطنيها بشكل صريح مثل هذه الأيام. عبقري هو دان براون.
~~~
بالإضافة لعبقرية موضوع الرواية، فتصوير الشخصيات وأسلوب الكاتب-خصوصاً في الفصول
الأخيرة- جعلاني أشعر كما لو أني أشاهد فيلماً هوليوودياً على شاشة جهاز الكيندل لا كتاباً مقروءا.
~~~
أتفهم الآن سبب شهرة دان براون، وأتفهم كذلك غضب النقاد من هذا النوع من الروايات.
في الختام، الرواية مسلية بالدرجة الأولى وتُقرأ على هذا الأساس أي للتسلية وتمضية الوقت فقط.

Dan Brown is not just Da Vinci Code! This is a pretty good cyber-thriller. It resonates well in a world where data security and hacking are a part of the daily news. Check it out if you are a fan of fast paced thrillers with lots of suspense. (It has short chapters, too, which I like a lot)