[taeric]

Its funny, as I get the impression that this also describes the Reacher series. And really any "pulp" fiction. So many successful stories are basically the same story over and over. Curious why this particular one would be so derided?

[simplicio]

Some of it is just normal "popular thing sucks" backlash. But it had a weird cultural moment in the early 2000s where the press went kinda nuts with some of the psuedo religious themes, and there was a brief cottage industry for talking heads talking up apocryphal biblical books, Knight Templar conspiracy theories, etc which I think rubbed a lot people the wrong way.

[psd1]

Personally, I think his storytelling is poor, but it's not the worst. 5th percentile for plotting, say. But he plumbs new depths with his prose.

I am not above reading trash, and you often have to accept crappy writing in genre fiction. My wife reads the trashiest pulp romance there is. But even considering the low-grade prose in our diet, Dan Brown's writing is worse by an order of magnitude.

I'd rather gargle diarrhoea than read his shit again.

I'd rather attend a school play.

I have ADHD, but I once spent a day looking at a wall rather than allow his tepid faeces into my person.

He passes the turing test: machines cannot write that badly. His word choice smells like burning tyres, his sentence structure is like a drunk driver in a car park. He's a phenomenon.

[AlbertCory]

so wait -- you're saying there's a chance you might read it?

Choose:

a) Dan Brown

b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLOPygVcaVE (you must watch it all)

[majormajor]

Just my opinion/reaction, but Da Vinci Code stood out to me compared to other "easy reading" as particularly blatant/lazy in its chasing and extension of cliffhangers.

[taeric]

I mean, it is no worse than many comics I have read. Or a lot of other, so called "young adult" novels.

Is it better than a lot? I mean, almost certainly is in the mix there. It did enjoy a lot of time in the spotlight in ways that somewhat surprise me looking back. I couldn't say how it caught the attention that it did.

[themadturk]

Probably because he's soooo bad, but also soooo successful.