Neither have I; I don't have to in order to know how bad the history is. All you have to know is the admitted forgery on which it is based.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Wait... people believe what's in Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code? Okay, so I get annoyed with the liberal use of the phrase "Based on a true story" or "Based on true events" (etc.), but still...if you read the book, it's obviously pure fantasy.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

The Da Vinci Code is ostensibly a work of fiction since it describes the activities of people who don't exist. Many works of fiction take place in historical settings and thus combine elements of fact and fiction. In some cases factual contexts are adjusted or amended according to the needs of the fiction, and so retain a connection to their real identity but simultaneously exhibit fictional traits for the purpose of the novel.

Indeed much of the criticism against Dan Brown, the author, seems to miss the point that the novel is taken by most to be fiction. The allegations that Brown rewrote some elements of Christian history are undeniably true -- and completely irrelevant if The Da Vinci Code is a novel.

The problem comes when Brown makes statements aside from the novel, in which he advocates that the ideas in the book, whether expressed in narration or put into the mouths of his characters, might have historical merit. There he crosses the line between the license given to a novelist to make the context fit his plot and the responsibility to divide fact from fiction. He is not very consistent about whether he stands by the historical elements as allegations of fact or as simple contrivances for the fiction. This feeds the controversy and criticism.

My principal criticism against Dan Brown is not his interpretation of history, but that after reading one of his books the rest become so woefully predictable.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Google is looking into it.

Although seven miles isn't exactly the middle of the ocean.

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I may have many faults, but being wrong ain't one of them. -- Jimmy Hoffa

I've only read TdVC, but one day while visiting my parents I noticed my mom had taken out Angels and Demons from the library. I asked if it was any good and she replied with an, "Eh, it's okay. It's exactly the same thing as Da Vinci Code though."

I didn't enjoy the Da Vinci Code enough to care to read another similar book from the same author. Not that I hated the book; I thought it was above average. But just barely.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

I read Digital Fortress thinking that I was going to enjoy a mystery that involved high-performance computation as a theme. The mystery was predictable and the supercomputer theme wasn't as credible as I'd hoped. Not a total waste, but something of a disappointment in my opinion.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

These claims aren't "aside from the novel", they are in it. Brown makes such claims in the preface to it, a list of things labelled FACT but really based on Plantard's hoax.

I did not read the rest of the novel.

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"The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head" Terry Pratchett

Digital Fortress completely turned me off Dan Brown.

Too many technical details were either so bad they were hilarious or
so bad they were rage inspiring. I havent often shouted at a book but that
was one of them.

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Very funny Scotty, now beam down my clothes.

Makes me think of Dianetics. It was originally introduced in Astounding Science Fiction magazine and was marketed as pure futuristic scifi. It was only later when Hubbard decided to found a religion that it began being marketed as nonfiction.

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Quote:

Google

Those data barges look sweet.

Google could install giant WiFi antennas on them too to provide Wireless Internet to areas in the ocean, so that ships could navigate into the WiFi area and use the Internet for a premium fee.

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This should fill in all the details. July 12, 2009, mark your calenders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_(film)

I am sure this movie will be a block-buster and will cause more hysteria, but on the plus side, it will probably have a happy ending.

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We'll have to outwit the fiend with our superior intelligence.
Yukon Cornelius

Happy endings tick me off.

Writers are such sellouts.

You spend an hour and 30 minutes pontificating on the end of the world, and decide to save it in the last 5 minutes? What a gyp.

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Unwarranted happy endings tick me off. Are you really saying you don't like any happy endings? Do all writers really tick you off, just because some write dreck?

Speaking of dreck, my psychiatrist wants me to read a Dan Brown book. It makes me worry about his judgement.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Psychiatrist FAIL

Try to explain him in kind but clear words why that is an approach that will not work for you for so many reasons.

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Is that a professional opinion?

He knows I won't read The Da Vinci Code; I spent several minutes explaining why. But he wants me to read one of the others, because he thinks the writing's good. Sigh. At least we're on the same page about my meds these days.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I like happy endings...

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

It is just annoying that someone can write a good book or screenplay, and then ruin it by having the patented, ordinary, boring happy ending that you saw coming 100 pages before.

Sad endings are more realistic. Things do not end happily, especially when so many bad things have been happening in the rest of the plot.

IMO the new Outer Limits was watchable, right up to the point in the last few seasons where they started doing happy endings every episode. Ruined it for me.

Life is not roses and sunshine - bad stuff happens and it's often the final outcome.

And what about neutral endings, where the final outcome is ambiguous? Where it's neither happiness nor sadness, just the story coming to an end?

Or complete enigmas, where it is left to the reader to fill in the rest with their imagination?

Those are the kinds of endings I want to see, along with the truly depressing ones like humanity getting wiped out.

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They started having happy endings? Wow. That's news to me. I remember perhaps one episode with a happy ending, and they made it a lie a few episodes later with a sequel to the "happy" episode. Actually, that's why I stopped watching the show: I can accept an occasional episode with the theme that everything is horrible, humans are evil, we're all going to die in terrible ways, etc. but I don't care for a regular supply of that sort of stuff. That was one of the most overwhelmingly negative series I've seen.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I should probably read the first 30 posts of this thread to find out what it
is about... but I'll just go with the last post, on the subject of the new
Outer Limits.

Back before it was new, one of the producers (Michael Cassutt) was in
an online chat, and as soon as he said that there was going to be a new
version of Outer Limits, I immediately asked if I could get a writer's guide.
He immediately suggested I wait and watch some of the first episodes.
I immediately took that as the kiss of death. As it has turned out, I've
never even seen it, except maybe one episode that I turned on just after
the main title, so I'm not sure it was Outer Limits.

It was a story with a relatively happy ending, and it impressed me as
being different from most SF on TV and as the kind of story I'd want to
write, or the kind of program I'd want to write for. The story was about
a supercomputer being inhabited by a simulation of a human being, who
is born and grows up over the course of a few days (after one reboot),
and eventually turns out to be the spirit of a woman who lived and died
early in the 20th Century.

Was that from the New Outer Limits?

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

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http://www.FreeMars.org/jeff/

"I find astronomy very interesting, but I wouldn't if I thought we
were just going to sit here and look." -- "Van Rijn"

"The other planets? Well, they just happen to be there, but the
point of rockets is to explore them!" -- Kai Yeves

I don't think so.

I don't remember that episode (and I saw them all, even the crappy last few seasons) and the series tended to avoid metaphysical plot devices such as a spirit being reincarnated into a computer.

There were a bunch of computer intelligence episodes though and even cases where human minds were converted into machine minds.

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January 1, 2013.

January 2, 2013 they will start up on some new nonsense.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.