The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown)
by Dan Brown
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Book Reviews of The Lost Symbol (Dan Brown)
Book Review: Excruciating.
Summary: 1 Stars
Have you ever had that burning sensation in your chest? No, not heart-burn. More deadly (if possible) than that. I mean the feeling when you are reading a novel, watching a movie, or playing a video game and you get SO impatient for it to move along. You start clenching your jaw. You crack your knuckles again, even though you just cracked them two minutes earlier. The feeling that is the perfect mix of annoyance and impatience burns in you. That's what reading THE LOST SYMBOL is like. It is excruciating. Yes. Excruciating...that is the word of choice to explain Dan Brown's latest "novel." (Dear Dan Brown: Thank you for kindly putting the words, "A Novel" on the front cover of your book. Without them, I would have mistaken this book for a slush-pile reject.)
What a terrible, terrible book.
Six years ago, Dan Brown caused all sorts of controversy with his novel THE DA VINCI CODE. It sold a bajillion copies, and forced the whole "Religious Conspiracy" sub-genre into focus. It was also a really poorly written novel. I have read all of Dan Brown's work. From DIGITAL FORTRESS to the newly printed THE LOST SYMBOL, Dan Brown manages to do one thing with remarkable consistency:
Become a worse writer with each novel.
Don't worry, this novel is totally different from the prior two Langdon novels. See, Langdon goes to a famous national building, and receives a cryptic phone call about how he needs to solve a mystery that only LANGDON can solve! He then discovers a bloody clue in the middle of the building. Following a train of interweaving clues about the Freemasons, Langdon is joined by his lovely female companion, Kathleen, as they chase--or are they chased by?--the eeeeeevil Mal'akh. What they discover will change EVERYTHING! Nothing is as it seems...
Oh wait. Everything is exactly as it seems, because this is the same plot at ANGELS & DEMONS and THE DA VINCI CODE. America: what is wrong with you?
Robert Langdon. He marveled us with his professorial skills in, what I consider the only enjoyable Langdon book, ANGELS & DEMONS. A lot has changed since that novel. In THE LOST SYMBOL, Langdon--in his third "adventure"--has managed to become dense and narrow-minded. He seems incapable of putting his famed intellect to use during the novel, and is relegated to responding to ANY question or situation with a bewildered, "What?!" Now before you ask, yes, the "?!" is actually used in the novel at least two or three times per chapter (there are 133 chapters...you do the math). If you have to use more than one punctuation type at the end of a sentence, the only thing you are showing the reader is that you have no real writing ability. Young writers take note.
Amidst the endless repetitive descriptions, we as readers are made to suffer an endless stream of "telling" instead of "showing." The few times Brown manages to "show" us what is going on, he immediately precedes or follows it by telling us the exactly same thing. It became so infuriating, that by Chapter 9 I wanted to gouge my eyes out. To illustrate another example of formulaic writing that Brown has become famous for, here is his Dialogue Formula:
Person 1: "Have you heard of [insert topic here]?"
Person 2: "No, what is it?"
Person 1: "[insert poorly veiled information dump here]"
Person 2: "I don't understand."
Person 1: "[insert the exact same explanation for a second time]"
Person 2: "So what you are saying is [insert 3rd identical explanation]"
Person 1: "No, you aren't listening. What I said was [insert 4th explanation-100% identical to the previous 3 explanations]"
Person 2: "Ah, I see."
Person 1: "Good. Now have you heard of [insert topic here]?"
Repeat all steps for as many filler pages as needed. Seriously.
How about pacing? Brown is known for his pacing isn't he? Two things here. First, his pacing is false. In order to create this false sense of "break-neck speed," he ends each chapter on a cliff-hanger. I felt like there should have been a voice-over saying "dun-dun-DUUUN" playing as you turned the last page of every chapter. When Brown finally DOES manage to build up some sort of pace, he ruins it with a flashback.
In a particularly boring flashback early on (in the first few chapters), Langdon is RUSHING to give a speech (he only has THREE MINUTES TO GET THERE!), and he lapses into a flashback. In addition to bringing the pace to a screeching halt, we see, in an academic setting, that Langdon is supposed to be INSANELY smart. SO MUCH BETTER THAN EVERYONE! His students believe and hang on every word, no matter how ridiculous. So, if he is so smart, why is he such an idiot later, and so slow on the uptake? Why does he have to be told everything like he is a mentally deficient high-school student? The answer? Dan Brown's writing is so poor that this is the only way he knows how to express himself, and these sections serve as a vehicle for information dumps. It is also humorous that a security guard, early on in the story, makes the exact same observation of Langdon. Pro Tip: If the characters you are writing think your main PoV is stupid, so will the readers. This will undermine your work.
Logic flaws aside (if I stopped to mention all of them, I would be transcribing the full novel), and forgetting the PoV switching problems, one of the main problems is the plethora of clichés. We have the super-secret division of the CIA, and she is a four-foot tall Asian woman with a superiority complex. And she is deformed. How about the damsel in distress that is the target of a hideously disfigured super-villain? Yep, THE LOST SYMBOL has that too. Even James Bond movies have finally moved beyond these clichés.
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the villain of the novel. Never-mind that his big reveal at the end of the novel is telegraphed from the moment certain characters are introduced. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about this:
How to Build a Cliché Villain the Dan Brown Way
1) Fall for every trick that the dumb hero/heroine throws at you.
2) After being outwitted somehow, point menacingly at the hero/heroine.
3) If you can manage, be a religious fanatic of some sort.
4) Tell the hero/heroine all your secret plans and/or your secret past in a dramatic moment.
5) Think--at least 3 times early in the novel--that destiny is guiding you. Feel free to think this up until the moment you are killed due to your stupidity (see point #8 below)
6) Make the hero/heroine think that they killed you years ago. It makes your entrance much more dramatic...especially when combined with point #4 above.
7) When given the opportunity, study yourself naked in a body-length mirror.
8) Don't actually kill the hero/heroine when you have the chance. Leave them to be discovered so they can come kill you later. Be sure to act surprised later when they show up.
9) Have a super-secret lair within your home--preferably hidden by a secret door. However, the key element here is to leave obvious evidence for people to find so they can enter the lair and discover all your plans in case they didn't catch them in point #4 above.
No, seriously, this all happens in THE LOST SYMBOL.
Don't worry citizens, Robert Langdon is here to save the day. Will he stun us with his intellect? Of course not. He WILL however use his experiences from prior novels to solve everything with the trusty anagram. And when that fails, blind luck will do, as will an epiphany--nothing will trigger the epiphany other than Brown deciding it is time to move the story along to the next idiotic conversation (see above formula).
Are you getting the drift here? Dan Brown's THE LOST SYMBOL should never have been printed. The writing skill is sub-6th Grade level, and his story is contrived and cliché. An interesting observation: When you talk to most people who have read Brown's Robert Langdon novels, they almost always like the first one they read most. Why? Because it is the same plot over and over again. It is like the mystery version of a Harlequin Romance Novel. So, it shouldn't be any surprise that this third novel is even worse. IT'S THE SAME NOVEL...AGAIN! Of course, when you stop to think about what the "Big Problem" was that everyone in the novel was trying to prevent, you realize just how terrible the "novel" is. So. Absurd.
Don't read this book. Ever. Wait for the inevitable movie. It has NO CHOICE but to be better than the novel. If you really want to know about all the Freemason stuff, go get a non-fiction book or two about them. They will be better paced, and more entertaining than THE LOST SYMBOL.
Book Review: Suspenseful, violent, evil villian, and historical
Summary: 5 Stars
1. Robert Langdon is taken under the influence of Peter Solomon. Peter Solomon is a historian, rich, and philanthropist. Solomon is a billionaire
2. Langdon receives and invitation from Solomon to meeting him in Washington DC. However, Malakh mastermind the meeting. Malakh needs Langdon to help him unlock the lost symbol.
3. Malakh kidnaps Peter Solomon and using him to gain Langdon cooperation.
4. Peter has built his sister Kathern a lab in the Smithsonian, Pod 5
5. Malakh cuts Peters right hand off and points it towards the Capital Rotunda, the hand of mysteries. Peter had has an tatoo, SBB13, a secret mortality room.
6. Director Sato, Anderson, and Langdon discover SBB13, Peter's reflection room and his map pyramid. Malakh has invited Langdon to unlock the mystery of the map pyramid. The 33 degree mason fraternity protects the secret stair case leading to a hidden treasure. The treasure was never revealed. The greatest treasure for all Masons on earth is the Ark and Covenant, the sign and seal of God.
7. Malakh is using the Architect, William Bellamy to misled Langdon to escape away from CIA Director Sato. Belmany attacks Sato, incapacitating her, and leads Langdon away and directs him to escape to Washington National Cathedral and brother Collin Galloway. Malakh kills Katherine assistant Trish and nearly captures her. Katherine escapes and joins Langdon at the Cathedral. Langdon discovers the pyramid unfolds in to Rose cross. Langdon explains the cross symbolizes the union of man and celestial realm. Hence Washington becoming Zeus or God. The engravings on the pyramid reference Isaac Newton's signature "Jeova Sanctus Unus", "the One and True God".
8. Solomon had a son name Zachery. Zachery was sent to prison because of drugs. In jail Zachary faked his death and sought revenge against his father by attempting to steal the map pyramid. The attempted theft resulted in his grandmothers death and himself being shot by Peter. The theft was assumed to have died after falling into icy water, but the assumption was false.
9. Malakh tricks Katherine and Langdon to his home, kills the CIA agent (violently), and drowns Langdon (liquid air). Katherine is being bled to death. Malakh hatred towards Katherine has murderous intent.
10. The story has a prodigal son element almost. Malakh reveals himself to Peter, as Zackary. Zack wants his father to sacrifice him. Peter tells Zach that he is loved where every he goes. A fathers forgiveness of a wayward son. You sense the pain, in Peter, and his love for his fallen son. A son, who wants to die and become part of an evil kingdom. CIA helicopters accidentally break glass on the ceiling and probably kill Zack.
11. Langdon realizes that man is a temple. Man can become God. God is understandable and close. The invisible God is dispelled and the anthropomorphic God is disclosed. The mythical story follows the Pharaoh like journey to the afterlife and journey to the stars.
Questions (send me the answers):
1. What caused Zack to become evil? The implication was Zackery chose Wealth over Wisdom and caused many deaths and much suffering.
2. Why did Zack want the pyramid? Zack thought he could become a God of evil
* The pyramid provided a map to a hidden treasure. The hidden treasure was never disclosed. However, the greatest treasure would have been the Ark (stone in the holy grail)
* The hidden treasure could be a key.
3. Did the story have a "What factor"?
* Yes. When Langdon drowned I had to look at the last chapters to see if he lived. That was an amazing twist.
4. Is Dan Brown a great story teller? Yes
5. What obelisk locations are exactly 555 feet tall? The Obelisk in Washington DC.
6. What is the significance of the capstone on a pyramid?
* The capstone is the transformation to a God. George Washington to Zeus with thirteen virgins implying a perfect sphere of power.
* It references BenBen in the temple of the Phoenix.
7. Who built the Obelisk near the Vatican?
* Egyptian Pharaoh Mencares in 1835 B.C. in honor of the Sun (Solar Sun - Saturn).
* 10 B.C. the Roman Emperor, Augustus, conquered Egypt and moved the Obelisk to the Julian Forum on the Egyptian city port of Alexandria.
* In 37 AD the Obelisk was moved to Rome
* The light beacons create a triangle: Washington DC, Rome, and Giza and the Pharaoh launched to Orion.
8. Who was Robert Boyle?
* Robert Hooke, built the Boylean Machine or Pneumatic Vacuum Pump in 1659
* Boyles laws of pressure and temperature
9. What are the symbols of Rosslyn Chapel?
* Mason symbols
* The spread of light and truth.
10. What does the Obelisk symbolize?
* Aspiration to perfection and completeness
* Upward view to heaven
* The mythical and false religion version of creation.
11. What is the meaning of the Rose Cross?
* humanity joined with celestial realm
* A knights templar order
12. Who signed his name "Jeova Sanctus Unus"?
* Isaac Newton
13. Who are the Shiners?
* The oldest fraternity of Masons
14. How Isaac Newton determine water boils at 33 units?
* He immersed a liquid filled bulb in boiling water and marked the height to which the liquid rose, a value of 33.
15. How was George Washington Memorial Designed?
* Like A masonic temple: Altar, a eternal flame, Mose with the ten commandments, entry from the east, and a rose in the paintings.
16. What is the rarest or most interesting exhibit in the Smithsonian?
* A giant squid
17. What does the latin words on the Dollar mean?
* God has favored our undertaking
* A new order of ages
* The Great Seal of the Treasury of North America
* One from Many
18. How does Cathedral College compare with Oxfords philosophy of education?
* Both had mason founders
19. What image is painted on the Rotunda of the Capital?
* George Washington circled with thirteen virgins
* The Egyptians were astronomers and the symbolism could be referencing some astronomical event or structure.
20. Where did the Greeks obtain the myth of Zeus?
* Zeus is an astronomical figure. Zeus represents the sun. The one God that rules/oversees over many Gods. Ying and Yang, the Tao.
21. Is an Obelisk a cultural symbol or a religious symbol?
* Religious symbolism to explain secular astronomy.
* Kings used obelisk as markers
22. Is thought a form of matter?
* Thought affects patterns of matter
23. What were the Greek mythical figures painting in art around the Capital?
* War, with Armed Freedom and the eagle defeating Tyranny and Kingly Power
* Science, with Minerva teaching Benjamin Franklin, Robert Fulton, and Samuel F.B. Morse
* Marine, with Neptune holding his trident and Venus holding the transatlantic cable, which was being laid at the time the fresco was painted
* Commerce, with Mercury handing a bag of money to Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution
* Mechanics, with Vulcan at the anvil and forge, producing a cannon and a steam engine;
* Agriculture, with Ceres seated on the McCormick Reaper, accompanied by America in a red liberty cap and Flora picking flowers.
24. Compare King Tut journey to the after life with George Washington.
* Both believed the journey to the underworld required symbolic artifacts.
Book Review: This Book Makes Zero Sense!
Summary: 2 Stars
First, let me tell you what's positive about DB's latest: The nuggets of symbology, D.C. architecture, and history are great. For me, it was by far the best aspect of The Lost Symbol and I completely enjoyed learning about them.
Now, here is my list of things (in order of how much they irritated me) that ruined this book for me (SPOILERS!!!):
1. The ending is the anticlimactic ending to end them all. The entire plot revolves around the Ancient Mysteries. We are led to believe that it's the single most powerful thing on the planet. The fate of every character in the book is seemingly tied to it. The forefathers and old Masons concocted a prodigiously cryptic, complex, arcane system of codes to keep it secret and to make sure that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. People in the story DIE because of it. And, drum roll please! The Ancient Mysteries turn out to be...the Bible. What?! All of this hoopla to protect something that millions of people have sitting on their shelves in the first place? This "secret" could have been published on the front page of every newspaper in the world with explicit instructions on how to obtain enlightenment and it still wouldn't have had that great of an impact overall; people would just continue to go on with their lives. What a disappointment.
2. We eventually find out why the CIA is involed (which, as other people have pointed out, would not be the agency involved to begin with). We know that it has something to do with a video or image on Sato's laptop which severely shakes up people like Warren Bellamy, so it must be VERY serious and damaging. However, it turns out that it's only a video of Masonic initiation rites that show the faces of very important and powerful U.S. citizens. Uh, in reality, if this indeed got out to the public it would be news for a day, maybe two, then people would promptly forget about it. After all, how can a bunch of men playing dress-up and putting on plays be so damaging? I don't know, but the CIA sure thinks it can be.
3. What exactly was Mal'akh's goal? I thought I had this understood: he wanted to find the Ancient Mysteries and become all-powerful. Ok, sounds reasonable. Yet, at the end, without even finding the Mysteries, he gives himself his final tattoo and then decides to sacrifice himself. Wait a second, he never found what he was looking for the entire time! How did he accomplish his goal?! THIS MAKES NO SENSE!! And furthermore, why was everyone trying to prevent him from finding the Ancient Mysteries anyway? All it was was a Bible which couldn't even be dug up in the end. He literally could have done no damage with this information, yet people like Peter Solomon, Warren Bellamy, and Robert Langdon went through pains to prevent him from finding this out. Am I missing something?
4. You would think that after Langdon's adventures in Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code he would be pretty open to "fantastical" claims made by other, intelligent, credible people. However, here we are, with Mr. Langdon still being the biggest skeptic out there. I can't even estimate how many times he said something such as, "Surely you don't believe that, it's only a legend!" only to have himself be proven wrong moments later. Just believe Robert, you'll save everyone alot of time!
5. I understand the connection that Noetic Science has with the power of the mind and the "Ancient Mysteries", but it really served no purpose here. I thought something big concerning it would occur but nothing does. What was the point of Brown even mentioning it at all in the book other than he wanting to throw in another "esoteric" facet for the heck of it? In a related gripe, how did Mal'akh even know about Katherine Solomon's lab and research, and why was he determined to destroy it? Why would her research have mattered to him if he alone had access to the Ancient Mysteries and became all-powerful? Did the research seriously threaten his plans (which would have been monumentally coincidental since his own aunt was carrying it out), or did he just want revenge on his aunt even though she never slighted him in any way? Either way, it makes no sense. The lack of explanation with this thread was unbelievable.
6. In every one of Brown's novels, there is always a pair that team up, and together they have all the answers without fail. This time around it's Robert and Katherine trying to decipher the pyramid. Robert doesn't know what to do next? Don't fear, Katherine will undoubtedly know the obscure answer! Katherine is stumped the next chapter? Don't fret, Robert will know the answer only three people in the world know. Good thing those exact two people teamed up or else the plot would have come to a standstill.
7. The dialogue is purely painful at times. The worst are the classroom flashback scenes in which Robert/Peter interact with students. You can't help but put your head in your hands when reading some of those exchanges...Also, there were numerous times when, during an urgent moment, Robert, Katherine, or someone else had to stop and give the other character a dissertation on something. "My brother Peter will most likely die tonight, the CIA is hot on our heels, we're running out of precious time, but let me pause for a moment so I can explain to you, Robert, an enigmatic piece of history that will help us advance the plot." This happens CONSTANTLY.
8. Having a mini cliffhanger at the end of every short chapter is wearily played out. Stop doing it! When you do it over and over and over again, it loses its effectiveness.
9. Peter: "Hey Robert, my hand was cut off just hours ago and I found out that the son I thought had died years ago was really the lunatic that tried to kill my family and I witnessed his gruesome death before my eyes, you were drowned in some sort of breathable liquid and were knocked out cold after having your head smashed against the floor and undoubtedly have a concussion, and Katherine had most of the blood drained out of her - but let's forget about all that for the moment and go sightseeing at the top of the Washington Monument. Then, afterwards, you and Katherine can take this key and watch a romantic sunrise from atop the Capitol Building. I'd join you, but I suppose I really should get to the hospital considering a madman cut my right hand off. Hmmm, I wonder why no medical personnel forced all of us to go before in the first place? Oh well, enjoy your time here in Washington!"...A ridiculous ending to a ridiculous story.
10. Why didn't Katherine, Trish and Peter just use a damn flashlight when walking through Pod 5 on the way to the lab? Just buy one for 5 bucks at Walmart instead of walking for hundreds of feet through the pitch dark. They're supposed to be brilliant scientists?
That's about all I can think of. Although TLS started promising, it just dissolved into a hodgepodge of nonsensical drivel. It's a shame because there's a good book buried here somewhere. But I think I may be through with Dan Brown, there are too many other good books out there.
Book Review: Unoriginal and contrived
Summary: 3 Stars
I wasn't too surprised to find that Brown wrote yet another book in the same style as before. This book had the typical Langdon quest to track something down while solving a puzzle after a stream of brilliant deductions that he was able to come up with quickly and while under pressure. It had the usual good guys and bad guys and people who might have been one or the other but one couldn't really be sure. And in the end, something or somebody isn't what it had appeared to be.
Despite that, Brown managed to make things work in the past by having good story lines and far fetched circumstances that one could have accepted as possible given the situation. This time, things were such a stretch that I still cannot imagine the most insane person ending up in the role of this novel's villain.
A real person can be brilliant, yet sometimes miss things. When it's not a real person, an author must figure out what the main character could conceivably overlook that would be accepted by the readership. In Angels and Demons, I thought it was a stretch that Langdon did not find it obvious that a symbol he was looking at was a mirror image. In this book, we are expected to believe that Langdon's unmatched talents for decoding symbols could leave him drawing a blank because he could not tell that something was upside down.
In this novel, the CIA has a top person looking into things for some unknown reason. This person is supposed to be such a super spy that she knows everything that anybody anywhere is doing. It's never made clear in the book why it would be a legitimate CIA affair, unless you accept that they can run amok for their own benefit. But more importantly, we find out that much of the knowledge that this character has comes from a pre-existing wiretap of somebody's cell phone. Yet after a day of monitoring things, a text message gets sent from that phone that would have presented the opportunity for the CIA to end the entire problem almost instantly while averting another disaster.
If there had been some explanation why they had missed it, perhaps I would have understood. But it never came up. Even if that character could have overlooked something so obvious, could her entire staff of top level CIA operatives have monitored phone calls and voice mail for the phone but missed a text message? I don't think so. This same person was aware of a different text message that nobody could have possibly known about. Go figure.
If Langdon initially got fooled into something by never confirming the legitimacy of a phone message, is it credible that other highly intelligent leading characters would also act based on an unconfirmed phone call, or accept a text message at face value or fail to look at one from a phone that is being monitored? How many times can people make the same mistake?
Several times in the story, Brown wanted to mislead readers into thinking something else. So he did it by saying that something else happened. Then later he says that that wasn't what really happened.
SPOILER ALERT.
We are supposed to believe that a son who is not willing to follow in his father's footsteps but is willing to take untold millions of dollars in inheritance is not smart enough to get out of a jam on his own. His father could have taken the dishonest path by bribing somebody, but the son is too stupid to figure out on his own that he could have bribed someone. Just when you think the son should be able to figure that out, You are told that something else happens. It would have required the son to be stupid and to have shot off his mouth to an impossible extent for what followed. It would have made no sense for a jail guard never to have asked for a bribe or for him to go along with a tenuous plan involving a third party that would have been simple had the son been involved instead.
We are then expected to believe that a father's honesty which would have left his son in jail for another day or so for something the son did wrong would be considered such an outrage that the son would be willing to dedicate the rest of his life to revenge, killing off his whole family, trying to destroy the entire nation, even though doing so would involve learning everything he eschewed in the first place, but to a much further level, and would be accompanied by so much other learning, preparation, and untold endeavors. He would have to study arcane aspects of religion, culture, and philosophy to get away with it. He would also have to miss the entire message of everything he learned along the way and never have the thought that any pain his father might have caused was insignificant compared to the literal pain he brought upon himself afterward. By literal, I mean literal.
The biggest reason for any outrage over the father's actions was supposedly that it lead to the death of his son. But his son could not have gotten outraged for that reason since he never died and was never in danger of dying. And had he died, he would not have been outraged since he would have been dead. Had the reader believed he had died, then the reader would have needed to believe that the person outraged by the death was the person who did the killing. Such a person would have been more likely to have been grateful for the opportunity, given the wealth he obtained by doing so.
In the end Brown wants you to think the thing you ruled out in the beginning, accepting that a family was never asked to identify a body and that law enforcement was fine with that, and that Brown's explicit statements were supposed to have been interpreted as "it seemed as if..." are all a mistake on your part. I'm sure I'm not the only person who read through those paragraphs a second time before continuing with the book just to be sure things weren't happening in the obvious way. But in the end, we find out that at least that part really did happen in the obvious way.
As to the big mystery of life that the quest was supposed to reveal, Brown would have been better off ending the book earlier with the message that the secrets were once again safe where they belonged. That would have been fine with Langdon who never cared about such secrets in the first place. Instead, Langdon persists until his once again super sharp cryptographic skills allow him to unlock a secret that was not really a secret to the people who were keeping it a secret, and nothing more than something that is already a common viewpoint among many.
A final point is that if you kill of Langdon too early in the book, readers will know it didn't make any sense. Just because you said he was dead didn't mean he was dead. It meant you wanted us to think so, and later you want us to say "I guess I was wrong. I never saw it coming that he might be alive somehow." Things like that took all the suspense out of it. And since Langdon was left alive, we are all left waiting for that next sequel.
Book Review: I'm pretty sure it went down like this:
Summary: 1 Stars
Three years ago, Dan Brown and top executives in Hollywood and the publishing world assembled Thomas Harris, Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Paulo Coelho, Jimmy Wales, Abir Taha, and Rhonda Byrne in one room and said:
"Hello and welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Tonight you are being tasked with creating a novel of epic proportions - one that will keep multitudes of airline travelers mildly entertained for a few hours while simultaneously insulting the intelligence of anyone who possesses anything higher than a Bachelor's Degree in Communications. Gripping intrigue; explosive revelations; multi-dimensional, original and sympathetic characters; realistic, cutting-edge technology; finely crafted and astonishing plot twists; meticulously researched detail - this book will have none of these! Instead, randomly tear some pages out of your own manuscripts, staple them together and have the product on my desk by Tuesday night; we need at least a week to whittle down your blathering drivel into a 120 minute screenplay."
"I'll be on the phone with Hanks' agent negotiating a deal where we send him a blank check, and he reciprocates his end of the contract by laconically intoning his dialogue while stumbling about in a tweed jacket, so just slide whatever you come up with under my door. Remember, it's got to be at least 450 pages - if it doesn't snap the strap of a Timbuk2 messenger bag, it's not literature!"
"Someone needs to throw in at least three dozen references to "things people do on the internet" too, please. You know, just try to work in the words 'iPhone,' 'Twitter,' BlackBerry,' and 'Google' every ten pages, that way readers will know it's a taut techno-thriller. And set it in Washington DC. Yeah, like National Treasure 2. People liked that, didn't they? Jimmy, have your boys just print out everything they have on the Freemasons, George Washington and Isaac Newton. Yeah, I know we used him before; we honestly don't know any other scientists. What do you mean your editors don't actually fact-check their information? So it's all just a hodgepodge of hearsay and conjecture? Actually, that's perfect."
"So, yeah, we have to have a love interest, too. And by love interest I mean "woman with whom the protagonist has no chemistry whatsoever." I don't know, a beautiful, wealthy, impossibly intelligent woman who not only is involved in ground-breaking research in a scientific field that doesn't technically exist (but is going to change Everything Forever!) but also somehow gains the ability to make incredible leaps in logic minutes before our protagonist, thereby completely undermining the purpose of his entire character. Which reminds me - we're going to need a villain, too. Has there ever been a 6' tall, rich, muscular, bald, psychotic antagonist with giant tattoos who kidnaps his victims for the purposes of his own "transformation"? What's that, Tom, you don't think so? Good - run with that. Throw in a plot twist about him too. Something that's never been done before. And how about some minor characters as well - an impeccably dressed black man who has keys that open every single door in Washington, an old blind priest who speaks solely in riddles, and oh, what the hell, a deformed, female chain-smoking Japanese midget with a gravelly voice. Yup, all in the same book."
"Um, ok folks, I think we're done here - Oh, right, thanks Rhonda, I almost forgot - the ending! People have been waiting years for Dan's newest, colossal secret! One that will be sure to rock the very foundations of every society on our planet, destroy centuries-old beliefs and shatter ideologies into powdered glass! Here it is - get ready - The Bible. Reading the Bible will teach you things. Things that every single human being alive already knows, but they don't know they know. But once these things are pointed out, people are going to feel incredibly stupid that they didn't see them before. But they're also going feel uplifted because they now know that they're one with God. Or they're the same as God. Or they made up God. Or they're made of God. It doesn't matter. Just mention "God" and "hope" and people will get all choked up. Abir, you have some experience here - just make it sound spiritual, inspiring, and wishy-washy all at the same time."
"Can you also make sure to bury this Bible in some well-known, but highly implausible location that certainly won't be figured out in the first 20 pages by anyone more observant than a small, retarded child? I don't know, Dean, somewhere in Washington - but it's gotta have a pyramid on top. Yeah, a pyramid, like at the Louvre. Dan likes pyramids, ok? Are there any places like that in Washington? Anything vaguely pyramid-shaped? Just Google it, you'll find something. And make sure a shadowy government agency first tries to stop our protagonist, then ends up helping him using sophisticated technology that couldn't possibly do the things the book says it can do. Just make something up - like time traveling thermal cameras or something. Or how about that liquid breathing fluid stuff from The Abyss? That's got blockbuster written all over it. No, Michael, we're not actually going to mention The Abyss in the book - that would be utterly ridiculous.
"Koontz? You had another question? Yes, of course - I was just getting to that. Every single chapter should end in a mini-cliffhanger that doesn't actually advance the plot, but instead leaves the readers completely unsatisfied, forcing them to stay awake for another two hours in order to reveal some insignificant and unlikely plot point. Typically, each chapter should end with one character literally pointing out something to another character, but never telling the audience what it is they are pointing at until the reader has consumed at least 30 more pages. Needless to say, the thing they are pointing at should leave both characters either "shocked," "incredulous," or "amazed."
"Everyone knows what to do? Great. All right guys, let's get cracking. Paulo, if you could stay behind for a minute; we found 87 more languages to translate your repetitive, mindless pedantry into. The rest of you, thanks for coming, please pick up your cartons of money on the way out..."
Done. Congratulations; you've just read The Lost Symbol. I just saved you $17.00 and six hours. No need to thank me. And if you're still interested in ciphers, riddles and secret messages, I've embedded my own within this review - a diabolical code that I spent as much time crafting as Brown did on this steaming pile of pulp.