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Product Details
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Dan Brown’s new novel, the eagerly awaited follow-up to his #1 international phenomenon, The Da Vinci Code, which was the bestselling hardcover adult novel of all time, will be published on September 15, 2009.
The Lost Symbol will once again feature Dan Brown’s unforgettable protagonist, Robert Langdon.
“The Lost Symbol is a brilliant and compelling thriller. Dan Brown’s prodigious talent for storytelling, infused with history, codes and intrigue, is on full display in this new book. This is one of the most anticipated publications in recent history, and it was well worth the wait,” said Sonny Mehta, Chairman and Editor in Chief of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
Brown’s longtime editor, Jason Kaufman, Vice President and Executive Editor at Doubleday said, “Nothing ever is as it first appears in a Dan Brown novel. This book’s narrative takes place in a twelve-hour period, and from the first page, Dan’s readers will feel the thrill of discovery as they follow Robert Langdon through a masterful and unexpected new landscape. The Lost Symbol is full of surprises.”
"This novel has been a strange and wonderful journey," said Brown. "Weaving five years of research into the story's twelve-hour timeframe was an exhilarating challenge. Robert Langdon’s life clearly moves a lot faster than mine."
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Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
The Lost Dan Brown,
By
This review is from: The Lost Symbol (Hardcover)
After having enjoyed all four of Dan Brown's previous novels, I was looking forward to reading The Lost Symbol. What new secret would be unveiled? What controversy would be ignited? Unfortunately, I was thoroughly disappointed with his latest story.Had I read of all his books without knowing when they were released, I would've guessed The Lost Symbol was his first novel. The structure showed some potential but the pace was slow, the action unexciting, the plot highly predictable and the denouement unsatisfying. This felt like the first novel of a promising yet unpolished writer. However, this is his fifth book and I expected much more. At times, I felt I was reading an old Emile Zola novel where the author extended scene descriptions because he got paid by the word. In this case, I had the feeling Dan Brown embarked on a journey that even he was uncertain of and confused by. It seemed that he extended scenes and explanations simply to fill 500 pages. Without spoiling anything, one of the main intrigues of this book is so obvious that you're almost angry at the author for thinking so little of the reader. The main character also gets duped more than once by a similar ploy. The only part of the book I enjoyed was the first 50 or so pages when it seems the pace will suddenly pick up and you'll be swept up by the story...unfortunately that never happens. In the end, this felt like the work of a weak writer trying to copy the style of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons but falling far short.
26 of 33 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
SOS,
By
This review is from: The Lost Symbol (Hardcover)
Despite their far fetched plots I enjoyed Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code. The pace of the books grabbed you and they were hard to put down. This book just feels like exploitation - a writer past his peak, in need of another bottle, having one last attempt to make a buck.The book is slow paced and a tedious read. It is enormously contrived and the supposed twist at the end is very weak. Spend your money on the new James Ellroy.
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
bloated and boring,
By
This review is from: The Lost Symbol (Hardcover)
[Cross-posted to LibraryThing and LivingSocial]Oh Dan Brown. What happened? You had such momentum from The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, neither of which were fantastically written but that had interesting stories and fast-paced plots. You had a good premise, expanding on the Masons that you'd touched on in Angels & Demons. You even had lots of time - The Lost Symbol didn't exactly get rushed to the printers. So what happened? Did you have a fight with your editor? Was your 'delete' key not working? Something must have happened because I can't think how else The Lost Symbol became so bloated and boring. The focus in this instalment of Robert Langdon's adventures is on the Freemasons and there is a lot of information about their rituals, their symbols, and their legends. Most of it is interesting and relevant to the plot. But Brown also insists on adding extra information throughout the novel that serves no purpose other than to show how good Brown is at research. Instead of a tight storyline, where the information comes in as needed to develop characters or drive the plot forward, we get little bits of action broken up by long passages of information, much of which gets really repetitive after a while. By the last hundred pages or so, I couldn't care less what happened to Langdon or anyone else. I just wanted to be done with it and move on. A common complaint in other reviews is that the novel reads more like a screenplay. I didn't really feel that way, although it did seem like Langdon's character was written as Tom Hanks much more than in the previous two books. Everyone else just felt like the same person, they all blended together with no distinct personalities. Another reason why I didn't care what happened at the end. Overall: a disappointment, even for Dan Brown.
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