A few days ago, one of my ESL students persuaded me to read "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown. After just 18 pages I was losing the will to live. There was this massive mish mash of technologies: the Internet, Mach 15 planes, lack of mobile phones, fax, CERN, ..................... Now my student just saw the book as an adventure he could enjoy. I found the inconsistancies stopped my enjoyment. One minute it seemed set in the late 70s, another the 80s, 90s, etc. I should say that I lived through all these technologies, while at 22, my student hasn't. That said, Dan Brown certainly did. Do others find such environmental inconsistencies a pain, or does Dan Brown's genre not merit such close scrutiny? ps. Apologies for missing question mark in title but I don't seem able to edit it.
I’ve read that book and I guess there was a lot of sophisticated technology and impressive hi-tech involved in Langdon’s background story. However, I don’t think that there was a specific decade mentioned that they story was written in, and I would imagine that Dan Brown intended the era to be based about the decade that he was writing it. I think Langdon’s interaction with certain technology may be a part of it, but that’s what makes a character like RL cool, isn’t it? Impressive gadgets and that sort of thing. I guess it could jar on the story if you’re annoyed by that sort of thing but it’s not too different from what other fictional characters such as James Bond has access to. In Dan Brown’s story, RL is supposed to be a smart, highly intuitive guy who can see through the world and the way it’s presented on the surface. I actually enjoyed Angel’s and Demons more than I enjoyed a The Da Vinci Code, having read the entire series in numerical order. The final book, Origin, focuses on technology in particular and our interaction with it and how that can be dangerous, which the other books do not argue. In Origin, the robot is a person, you see, and it might not be logical to start to consider robots in human ways. Or is it? I think considering how much technology is becoming a major part of every person’s everyday focus, it’s an important one to consider.
dbesim interesting stuff. The robot question I have conjured many times. If consciousness comes 'into being' then all is possible. I should say I have no problem with future or secret hi-tech gadgets. It is the down-to-earth gadgets that are set out of time that concern me. I'm even willing to ignore that RL is surprised by a mach 15 aircraft, despite it flying in and out of a commercial airport in broad daylight not far from where he lives. But fax, mobile phones and the internet have a well-known, well documented evolution. If you cannot be bothered to research that, in my mind, perhaps unfairly, you won't have researched anything else. I take on board your comparison to James Bond, and to be fair, I'd be less critical if I'd thought of Dan Brown in that genre. Maybe that's where I'll deposit him. But I'll have to read on if I'm not to disapoint my student. . Cheers
Mach 15!? Wow that's pretty fast, at a mile a second. Though I guess the g-forces wouldn't be too bad so long as they aren't accelerated too quickly, since the average person can withstand up to about 10 g's before passing out, without the aid of fancy compression gear to keep the old blood circulating. I think that's a bit far fetched for a human piloted craft under most circumstances, considering the g-forces on the body when they did anything over minor adjustments would be tremendous at those speeds. Though apparently on reentry, astronauts can get up to mach 25, but I don't think that is sustained since drag is a thing, otherwise they would hit the ground and turn into a fine mist if there wasn't any atmosphere to slow them down.
In the story they do Boston, USA to Gineva, Switzerland in 64 minutes. 3684 miles !!!! As you say a mile a second more or less.
Those are often the kinds of things that Dan Brown's audience wants. You are clearly not part of that audience. It's why he gets a lot of criticism but still sells a lot of books, because he knows his audience and they're happy to shell out money to read the latest adventures of Robert Langdon or whoever. They don't care if the details are actually true, they just want them to sound convincing in the midst of an exciting story.
Glad to say I didn't have to pay, but I will read it for the benefit of my student, and I'm also interested in how he developes the plot. I must admit I'm still baffled what thrill DB gets out of these minor errors. Maybe I'm just jealous as I and my Beta reader, spend a lot of time avoiding them. Perhaps I shouldn't care. I know Jules Verne got his knickers in a twist over dates and then tried to explain them away. Maybe this is similar.
That's actually "only" Mach 4.5 - which the SR-71 could do. No passenger planes of that speed though. Correction - the SR-71 could do Mach 3.5, not 4.5.
DB gives the spec at Mach 15 although as you say the journey he documents is slower. That of course may be due to other limitations that would add nothing to the story. However the justification for this flight is ................ No I must stop. LOL
He doesn't care because that's not what his books are about. Whether the information was accurate or not, he'd sell the same, therefore he doesn't bother to fix things that don't make a difference to his bottom line.
It might even work better for him to fudge some details or not be too clear about them, since he works with conspiracy theories and the like.
