"If you're not reading and re-reading Dan Brown, your missing out." What a treat it is to return to a longtime favorite of mine - Dan Brown! Chris and Mike break down Deception Point - the (surprising) 3rd book by Dan Brown.
They discuss the action-packed moments, the suspenseful twists, and the nostalgic feelings evoked by Brown's writing style. The hosts also share their scorecard ratings, reflecting on the book's strengths and weaknesses, while emphasizing the engaging dialogue and vivid settings that bring the story to life.
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Technical Difficulties
07:36 Character Analysis and Plot Twists
20:18 Science and Suspense in the Narrative
30:41 Scorecard and Final Thoughts
36:04 The Adventure of Discovery: Science and Plot Integration
48:03 Final Thoughts: Anticipating Future Reads
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Keywords:
Deception Point, Dan Brown, thriller, book review, suspense, action, characters, plot twists, science fiction, literature
#NoLimitsPodcast #ThrillerPodcast #ThrillerPod #SpyThrillers
00:00:16
Hey, guys, I'm Chris. And I'm Mike.
00:00:21
And welcome back to this week's No Limits the Thriller podcast.
00:00:26
How you doing today, Mike? I'm doing great, but we had a
00:00:29
little technical difficulties before recording.
00:00:32
Because of that, I was not able to write a Limerick.
00:00:35
So Chris, you got to bear with me.
00:00:36
Consecutive weeks in a row. We're going with AI ChatGPT
00:00:40
limericks for the night. Don't bullshit the people.
00:00:45
It wasn't because of the All right, let's hear it, let's hear
00:00:47
it, let's hear it. We did have technical
00:00:51
difficulties, you can't deny that.
00:00:54
All right, you are right of that, but the technical
00:00:57
difficulties were not the reason why you use ChatGPT.
00:01:00
But anyways, let's hear it. I want to hear it.
00:01:02
You said it was great. The limericks are too good.
00:01:04
I just can't pass up on it. AI is just kicking our asses.
00:01:07
I couldn't do better than this. Can you imagine Digital
00:01:10
Fortress? That whole universe when that
00:01:13
book was written? What late 90s as his first book
00:01:17
thinking about? Bitcoin, right?
00:01:19
Like. Yeah, like less than 30 years
00:01:21
we're going to have cryptocurrency, you know, almost
00:01:23
replacing the US dollar, some would argue causing financial
00:01:27
collapses, AI and the the financial industry being what it
00:01:31
is. And NSA remember that book took
00:01:33
you into the depth of didn't they go to Fort Meade and NSA
00:01:37
like. Oh, yes, there's like murders.
00:01:40
Yeah. The tech just must be years,
00:01:43
like light years ahead. Crazy.
00:01:45
It's like apples and oranges trying to compare that book to
00:01:48
modern day technology. And it'd be so interesting to
00:01:50
see like what he got right even back then about what the
00:01:53
industry, big data industry and all this tech was going to look
00:01:57
like. Man, maybe we should read that
00:01:58
book next. You're jumping on a book before
00:02:01
you even give us the Limerick, though.
00:02:03
Yeah, yeah. Don't leave the people in
00:02:04
suspense, man. No, so we're covering Deception
00:02:07
Point. We are a spoiler filled podcast.
00:02:09
We are the after show for your favorite thrillers.
00:02:12
So if this is your first episode and you have not read Deception
00:02:15
Point, be prepared. From this moment forward we are
00:02:19
spoiling the book and Chachi BT spoiled it big time with this
00:02:22
one. The meteor find was a fake, a
00:02:27
fraud for the White House to make.
00:02:29
Delta Force lied, but some still survived as Pickering drowned in
00:02:33
the lake. Wow, it goes all the way to
00:02:37
that. Dude, the.
00:02:39
Final ending. Pickering going down with the
00:02:41
ship. You know, you know what's crazy
00:02:45
about that? We were, we were kind of talking
00:02:46
about this before we started recording because you said, wow,
00:02:50
this chat, ChatGPT did a really good job with this.
00:02:54
And it's interesting because most of the time when, when I
00:02:58
was doing this, when I was trying to rival you, we were
00:03:00
doing it on Brad's books, right? And it, it pretty much the, you
00:03:05
could sense that the only thing it's grabbing from is the little
00:03:08
blurb or anything that's out there on the Internet for it.
00:03:11
But there's not a lot with, you know, explaining the entire plot
00:03:16
of these thrillers. But with this one, obviously
00:03:20
there's been people that have talked about the ending and, and
00:03:23
the Pickering twist that doesn't happen until the very end.
00:03:25
And so, you know, I, I think it's cool for us to dive into,
00:03:29
you know, some of these older books.
00:03:30
You know, we, we once said we wanted to do Dan Brown because
00:03:33
he's having his new book come out this year.
00:03:36
And it's funny because you even texted me.
00:03:39
You're like, man, they just don't you don't write them like
00:03:42
they like Dan Brown does anymore.
00:03:43
You know, like, and there's you even said there's something to
00:03:47
be said about not cranking out a book every year and like taking
00:03:52
your time executing. I mean, obviously we don't know
00:03:56
what what is it's secret origin or secret.
00:03:59
The secret of secrets is his new one, the.
00:04:01
Secret yeah, you know, I have no idea what that is.
00:04:04
I I would love to cover origin on it was it was interesting.
00:04:08
Definitely not as good as his like religious thrillers, but
00:04:13
even going back to to this one and like you said, like the
00:04:17
first Dan old Dan Brown book I had read was Digital Fortress.
00:04:21
Love that book. He just, I don't know, he just,
00:04:25
he's something special, man. He's.
00:04:26
Yeah. Reading this, I was trying to
00:04:29
figure out why I was so impressed.
00:04:32
And it was clearly because the the characters, the story, the
00:04:35
plot and this overarching theme of the possibility of
00:04:39
panspermia, you know, and life being seated on our planet and
00:04:42
others. And so it's like really big
00:04:44
questions, really awesome characters.
00:04:46
Everything's flowing. But then I'm also like, getting
00:04:49
nostalgic reading these books. In the early, you know, teens.
00:04:53
I was ripping through Dan Brown. Boy, I was high school, going to
00:04:56
college. That was also the height of my
00:04:58
Vince Flynn days. And in new books were coming out
00:05:01
and Mitch rap. Dan Brown is a Titan, an
00:05:05
absolute Titan of literature. And yet he never became one of
00:05:09
those authors, which was like the every year read, you know,
00:05:13
the, the pump out a book every year there's deadlines from the
00:05:15
publisher. I remember getting one of his
00:05:18
every 3-4 years or so, you know, so I, I just feel like there's
00:05:22
something to be said about the industry becoming this cash cow
00:05:27
of a character and the character so big and sells so many books.
00:05:30
The publisher needs a a a book by a certain deadline and the
00:05:34
author knows the contract is cranking out a book a year.
00:05:37
I wonder if that has its limitations.
00:05:40
And I think Dan Brown just like far exceeds anything that could
00:05:44
be done on that schedule. Putting out masterpiece after
00:05:47
masterpiece. Especially if you talk digital
00:05:49
fortress to deception point. Was Da Vinci Code then third or
00:05:54
angels and demons? I thought it was angels and
00:05:57
demons. Angels and Demons and Da Vinci
00:05:59
Code, like we are just talking about absolute classics being
00:06:03
banged out by the same guy. This book is phenomenal and I
00:06:08
haven't read Dan Brown in quite a number of years.
00:06:12
I was missing out. You're missing out if you're not
00:06:14
reading Dan Brown and rereading Dan Brown because I knew
00:06:17
everything about this book from when I was, you know, 20 years
00:06:19
old, teenager, 16 years, whatever it was when I first
00:06:22
read it, and it still blew me away.
00:06:24
Like there were still twists and turns and maneuvers that I
00:06:27
didn't expect. Edge of my seat stuff.
00:06:29
It's like, I think I remember this meteor being fake.
00:06:31
Like, I don't think there really was alien life, but every little
00:06:36
reveal the scientific details of why the meteor checks out.
00:06:40
How civilian scientists and NASA scientists verified I'm quite
00:06:44
literally on the edge of my seat with those conversations with
00:06:47
Rachel Sexton being pulled in and man 'splained everything or
00:06:50
scienceplained everything. I'm edge of my seat as if this
00:06:54
is like the jaw-dropping actions shoot em up scene and it's just
00:06:59
a conversation on an ice shelf around this meteor.
00:07:02
Like I had so much fun with that and the whole team of people
00:07:05
explaining it. It did this this book is a wild
00:07:10
ride. And obviously we'll we'll get
00:07:13
into the scorecard in a little bit.
00:07:14
And I think, you know, at some points it just kept getting
00:07:20
layered and layered and layered and layered and layered.
00:07:23
And then, you know, even when we get towards the end, we're like,
00:07:27
Oh my God, like twist after twist.
00:07:30
And then they're on the boat and there's a bunch of sharks below
00:07:33
them. And if they have blood and this
00:07:34
then then and they drop in the water and the sharks are going
00:07:37
to get them. But under the sharks there's a a
00:07:40
lot a volcano that the magma thing.
00:07:43
And then I don't know, like at some point, maybe it got a
00:07:48
little bit too much, But I will say never was I like
00:07:51
disappointed, like I just it was very propulsive.
00:07:55
And I the one thing I do think it just dragged on a little too
00:08:01
long. Sure, I had to make it like my
00:08:04
my major criticism with the book is that like some of the stuff
00:08:07
could have been wrapped up, you know, maybe, maybe could have
00:08:09
taken out one too many things. But like, I really enjoyed,
00:08:12
like, the entire end scene on this cool ship.
00:08:17
I'm even, like, trying to Google, like, what the hell does
00:08:18
like a twin, like this potential twin hall research ship look
00:08:22
like? Yeah.
00:08:26
And what's really funny is that, you know, we had said we wanted
00:08:30
to do this book, and we had gotten it from the library a
00:08:33
couple months ago. And come to find out, I started
00:08:36
reading it. I'm like, I'm like, man, it's
00:08:39
only 6 hours long. I'm like, all right, well, I'm
00:08:41
reading the fact, like, maybe it's not that long of a book.
00:08:44
Yeah, something was just off about it.
00:08:47
And then I finally look it up. And because not every abridged
00:08:50
version like makes itself clear that it's a bridge.
00:08:53
Like sometimes they don't say it in the beginning, sometimes it
00:08:56
doesn't say it clear text on the audible cover.
00:09:01
And then I look in the details of of what we were reading and
00:09:04
it sure enough, it was the abridged version.
00:09:07
And man, this this is the time where you do not want to read
00:09:14
the abridged version. No, because I I was like this,
00:09:17
this book sucks. Like I I that's couldn't jive
00:09:21
with the book. That's a shame.
00:09:23
That's a shame. They butchered it.
00:09:25
They cut it up. And you're right, I would agree.
00:09:28
Any other lesser book or lesser author, I'd be criticizing this
00:09:32
thing as a runaway train. Because to me, when we're on the
00:09:36
Mill and ice shelf leading up to the first press conference
00:09:40
announcing the meteor, I was. I wanted more action on the ice
00:09:44
shelf. Yeah, I didn't want that to end.
00:09:47
And then we cut to Wang or Doctor Mang falling into the
00:09:51
thing, the algae. So it's like now we got a whole
00:09:53
nother angle that's intriguing. And boom, all of a sudden we're
00:09:57
out on the ice shelf going off to try to get this camera or
00:10:00
this radar detector to kind of read the tunnel.
00:10:03
And that's when Delta team attacks.
00:10:05
And I was like, don't take me away from this.
00:10:07
Everything that kept the building, I just wanted to stay
00:10:10
in for even longer. Not to mention when they were on
00:10:13
the glacier or the ice shelf and it it like heaved off and they
00:10:17
were floating at Oh yeah, that wrapped.
00:10:19
Up this way to that, Yeah, I would have lived there.
00:10:22
I would have stayed with that. Yeah, I would have stayed on
00:10:26
that floating iceberg with them. Now make this like a survival
00:10:30
tale. And it's crazy because I thought
00:10:31
that was going to be a major part of the action and like that
00:10:35
was going to become the big set action piece.
00:10:37
But no, you're right. We switched to the Goya, the
00:10:39
ship off the coast of New Jersey.
00:10:40
So. Well, first they get rescued by
00:10:43
a sub that just happened to be to be there.
00:10:45
Right, that's true, but she's sending out the SOS signal.
00:10:48
Right, right. And even that was explained well
00:10:52
about the NRO and the National Reconnaissance Office having all
00:10:56
these detection capabilities. And there was a plant earlier
00:10:58
about underwater, you know, sound detection and how every
00:11:01
inch of the ocean is basically covered.
00:11:03
And it was just insane how everything fit together.
00:11:07
Everything kept me interested, and it kept upping the ante.
00:11:11
Now, you're right, that runaway train maybe started getting a
00:11:14
little long at the very end. You know, once we're like, is it
00:11:17
Tench, is it Pickering? I'm also wondering the whole
00:11:19
time, is it the NASA administrator?
00:11:22
And I don't think we get closure on that, to be honest.
00:11:26
And then all of a sudden Tench was missing from her office.
00:11:28
And then Pickering was missing from his office.
00:11:30
I was like, who died in that Hellfire missile at the FDR
00:11:33
memorial? We thought it was Pickering.
00:11:36
He shows up on the chopper. Every little twist and turn from
00:11:39
the start had me intrigued, and even a book this long kept me
00:11:45
going till the very end. Incredible.
00:11:48
Honestly, the the thing that kept dragging me out a little
00:11:52
bit was Rachel's father and the the Gabrielle Ash stuff.
00:11:58
I mean, I I think you could have had like it could have been
00:12:02
that, but you also could have just gotten rid of that and
00:12:06
everything with the president and with Pickering.
00:12:08
And like, you don't even you didn't really even need Sexton
00:12:13
involved with the scandal, right?
00:12:15
Like. You needed an anti NASA voice.
00:12:19
You needed an existential threat to NASA, and that was him with
00:12:23
privatizing space, that whole angle.
00:12:27
Right, take it for what I understand that.
00:12:29
I don't know, I, I feel like maybe you could have just made
00:12:33
that someone within the administration trying to, you
00:12:35
know, dive on the administration from within, which actually kind
00:12:40
of Tensh is an interesting character, dude, she is.
00:12:44
Oh yeah, IIA 100% until it's announced that Pickering is the
00:12:50
one the the controller walking out of the helicopter.
00:12:54
I thought it was her. I was I thought it was her he he
00:12:59
was perfect at, you know, placing those you know, as most
00:13:04
good to their authors are placing those duplicitous
00:13:08
comments, you know, having her say things that once you realize
00:13:13
it, you know, means two different things.
00:13:15
You know, you just. The head.
00:13:16
Fake. Yeah.
00:13:18
You're convinced that she is in leagues with the NASA
00:13:22
administrator. They're the ones doing it.
00:13:25
You know, either either she's the controller.
00:13:27
He's the controller because he's the one who keeps on, you know,
00:13:29
he they keep on saying he has this military background,
00:13:31
background at the Pentagon, like, so it makes sense, right?
00:13:34
Every everything makes sense. And then for it to be Pickering,
00:13:40
I was like. Damn.
00:13:42
Yeah, he also, in the very opening, sets himself up as an
00:13:47
absolute force, like no one in the government at any level
00:13:52
talks down to him. You know, they're all afraid of
00:13:55
him. He knows all the secrets of
00:13:56
Washington. He knows all the insider
00:13:59
hardball. He's he plays it better than
00:14:01
anybody. What's his nickname again?
00:14:03
Oh, man, he had a good one. He even sells you on how much
00:14:08
he's willing to protect Rachel. He's like, don't answer to
00:14:11
anybody but me or the president. He goes, don't let anybody jerk
00:14:14
you around over there. One call to me, I'll take care
00:14:17
of it. He even stands up to the
00:14:18
president over it. He he's like coming out as like
00:14:21
big Papa bear for Rachel. And in the end, when all that's
00:14:25
undone, when he's on the chopper and it's revealed as controller,
00:14:29
that's a big twist. But there's so many other twist.
00:14:31
I mean, I agree that I thought Tench was the bad one, but how
00:14:36
much did you like Tench when she was battling Senator Sexton in
00:14:40
the the TV show, in the interview?
00:14:44
Like I was almost rooting for, I was like, this is crazy.
00:14:48
How did I describe her? I wrote down something a chain
00:14:51
smoking because I was kind of brought into her when she took
00:14:56
down Sexton on TV. She set him up.
00:14:59
She got the NASA line out of him that he was willing to cut
00:15:01
funding for NASA. She played that her cards
00:15:05
perfectly in that. So I was like, OK, she's this
00:15:07
political operative and I was kind of liking her knee, the
00:15:09
president at the time. So it's kind of on her, her
00:15:12
side, even though she was crazy. Oh, I wrote.
00:15:15
I imagine Tensch as a chain smoking Cruella de Ville, like
00:15:18
the polar opposite of Susie Wiles.
00:15:20
Just this tall, lanky, squirmy, black and white hair, chain
00:15:27
smoking lady in the president's ear.
00:15:29
You know, that's how I picture Tensch.
00:15:32
Yeah, his nickname is the the Quaker.
00:15:35
That's because he wore plain back suits.
00:15:37
But to me that almost had like a double meaning like, oh, sure,
00:15:41
he is a force like he is, he's an earthquake.
00:15:43
He he can also. Send that, he makes people quake
00:15:45
in their boots. Right, exactly that was.
00:15:47
Part of the name, yeah. Double entendre, Yeah.
00:15:51
Between tension, Pickering and the whole, like, playing them
00:15:54
against each other in the reader's mind was brilliantly
00:15:57
executed. Even though you may not think
00:15:59
so. I do think the Sexton Gabrielle
00:16:01
Ashe storyline, yeah, maybe played out too much.
00:16:04
I bought into how it aligned with the main plot and how her
00:16:08
and Rachel had to team up in the end.
00:16:09
And by the way, the press conference at the end when she
00:16:12
switches the folders even twist going down to like the last
00:16:16
final pages that are that I'm buying into.
00:16:19
I just thought all the different storylines are hitting, not to
00:16:21
mention the science of it all. I really want to talk to you
00:16:23
about how you were feeling during that opening scene when
00:16:26
she's being brought in, flown on this fighter jet, debriefed by
00:16:30
the president, and then boom, she's inside this bubble on the
00:16:33
ice shelf talking to the scientists.
00:16:35
When we meet Taland and Corky, that is an absolute trip.
00:16:39
And that is a riot of a team. I, I love those guys as well.
00:16:42
Everything is just singing. Yeah, I know.
00:16:45
Even down to the scientists, we lose like, pretty early on, you
00:16:49
know, this, this the main character, you know, falls in
00:16:53
the woman. What is it her name?
00:16:54
Nora. Yeah, she was a whip.
00:16:56
I like how, you know, he he puts these different personalities
00:17:03
and you quickly like I was bought in with Corky, like at
00:17:06
the very end, I was like, no, he can't die like everyone else.
00:17:11
I kind of was like, all right, you know, like that's fine, But
00:17:13
I I really did not want Corky to die.
00:17:15
He's like, you know, the comet relief.
00:17:18
I was waiting for him to come back with the speedboat.
00:17:20
I was waiting. I knew he was going to do
00:17:22
something. I thought for sure he was going
00:17:25
to, like, save the day, you know?
00:17:26
I mean, he did like, you know, calling for the rescue.
00:17:28
By calling in the radio on the Coast Guard, I thought he was
00:17:31
just going to like ram the boat to like knock the Delta guys off
00:17:33
or something like that. Right.
00:17:35
That's how they would do it in the movie, yeah.
00:17:37
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Or he would come in when she's
00:17:39
sinking in the in the Triton submarine and he would like ram
00:17:43
it or something to like prop it up from underneath or whatever.
00:17:46
But that wouldn't be in Corky's nature.
00:17:48
That would be in Tolin's nature as he's written, right?
00:17:52
Right. And Tolland does do it, you
00:17:53
know, He fights off the Delta dude.
00:17:54
Oh, he's the spear with the shotgun shell.
00:17:56
He takes off the guy's foot. Dude, that was sick.
00:18:00
That was sick dropping into the, the sub, the submarine to like
00:18:06
grab D2 like, yeah. And then at the very end fig
00:18:12
like, like you said, Macgyvering it to figure out, oh, like, you
00:18:14
know, put pressure like it's designed to go out where like
00:18:18
you're not designed to go out where it's like the it's the
00:18:20
same force. I don't know.
00:18:22
Everything about that final sequence was riveting.
00:18:27
There are multiple, you know, pretty set action because I, I
00:18:31
think like the the beginning one on the ice shelf, pretty
00:18:36
amazing. And then once we get back to I,
00:18:40
I guess it's only two. It's it's very long apart
00:18:44
because there's a lot in between, but there's like 2 main
00:18:47
confrontations right? 2 main confrontations like you,
00:18:50
you said these big set action pieces and they both work, but I
00:18:54
did like fulfiller in between to explain who's doing what and how
00:18:57
the pieces are getting put together.
00:18:59
And I think there's a lot of suspense built into the little
00:19:02
things of who knows what information, who's talking to
00:19:04
who, you know Gabrielle Ash eavesdropping on the senator's
00:19:08
conversation, the guard outside his office or his home letting
00:19:12
letting her in. There's a lot of these little
00:19:14
suspense scenes, but yet nothing compares to the Ice shelf and
00:19:18
the Goya. Those two scenes and after the
00:19:21
ice shelf thing when they were attacked by Delta, hiding behind
00:19:25
the sled, and then all of a sudden Tolland again.
00:19:28
Macgyver's like that parachute, right?
00:19:30
Almost like a parachute to blow. The Mylar balloon, yeah.
00:19:33
The Mylar balloon for scientific testing that he uses to blow
00:19:37
them across the ice shelf. And then it it, I was like, how
00:19:41
do you top that? This is so early in the book.
00:19:43
I can't believe there's this much time left.
00:19:46
No idea how you're going to even come close to that of an awesome
00:19:49
action sequence. And then the Goya ship did just
00:19:52
enough, maybe too much. There was a almost too many
00:19:54
moving pieces on that ship. The shark water, you know, the
00:19:58
rescue sub. Oh, and then the claw, right?
00:20:00
The claw that he grabs the delta operator with.
00:20:02
And then the Pickering reveal and and Pickering picks up one
00:20:06
of the machine guns and he's shooting at him.
00:20:07
And then he has to go swimming in the shark infested waters.
00:20:10
And then Rachel's going to die. Almost a little too too much
00:20:14
packed into that one scene, but it it at least did enough to
00:20:17
hold up to the earlier action which I thought was better and
00:20:20
enjoyed more. So I was ready to be
00:20:22
disappointed with whatever then the next or second-half action
00:20:25
scene is and I really wasn't disappointed.
00:20:27
So I think it held its own. Yeah.
00:20:30
And I think like everything that's in between or like the
00:20:34
quiet parts, they're all, they're all the times where
00:20:38
they're, you know, trying to figure out like, how does this
00:20:42
meteor make sense? Or in the beginning, like, what
00:20:46
are we actually looking at? Right?
00:20:47
Like, so it's, it's the slow reveal using scientific
00:20:51
techniques, scientific language coming out through scientists or
00:20:57
through a, you know, what is she?
00:21:00
She's a, you know, an intelligence analyst.
00:21:06
That part is needed because I felt like if if it was just the
00:21:08
full throttle action that those two main pieces have like the
00:21:13
book would just be freaking chaotic man.
00:21:15
Sure. Yeah, you talk about you.
00:21:17
Needed all that. Essentially we had sharks with
00:21:18
lasers on their on their heads, like circling a volcano.
00:21:24
Sharks with freaking lasers on their head.
00:21:29
No, all the other stuff checked out and was just as intriguing.
00:21:33
And you're right, if it wasn't, I don't know if action would be
00:21:36
enough to carry the entire book. It's really good and it doesn't
00:21:41
enough. But I think the book shines with
00:21:43
just the suspense of it all because even like you said,
00:21:45
those slower moments are those conversations between other
00:21:48
characters not related to the action pieces.
00:21:52
I'm still edge of my seat wondering is, is this the guy
00:21:55
like the NASA administrator? Is he the one who did it?
00:21:59
And then even having to find this Harper character with the
00:22:01
pods, the satellite detection system.
00:22:04
So like everything that's not even the main action is still
00:22:07
really well done. There's so much you could forget
00:22:09
in this book. It's so jam packed.
00:22:11
And what's impressive is it all checks out, like that Harper guy
00:22:15
claiming he was sick during his press conference, but really he
00:22:18
was forced by the administrator to lie that he fixed the
00:22:22
software in the detection system.
00:22:23
Oh, and, and the way it circles back to the opening scene,
00:22:28
because that's a great way to bring you into this Arctic kind
00:22:31
of setting, is when they pick up the guy with his sled dogs and
00:22:36
then they push him out into the crevasse.
00:22:38
You kind of lose sight of that as a, as a really gripping
00:22:41
little scene. But when it comes back around
00:22:45
that because the pod system wasn't up and running to detect
00:22:47
the meteorite, they needed a fall guy, right?
00:22:50
And they, they pick this random, random guy living up there in
00:22:53
the Arctic, said there was a communication from him that he
00:22:57
found a meteor, use that as the pretense to direct pods to go
00:23:00
find it. It all checked out, even little
00:23:03
things, little plants like that that I had forgotten that I
00:23:05
liked in the moment. Later on had a pay off.
00:23:09
And then the small details like the ticking grandfather clock in
00:23:12
the office giving it away on the phone.
00:23:14
And that's interesting, with Ash and Sexton holding back from
00:23:18
each other. True.
00:23:20
You know, you know, each of those characters has more cards
00:23:22
than they're playing and they're they're trying to be sly.
00:23:26
I thought they're a little back and forth was was equally as
00:23:28
fun. So the science is working for
00:23:31
me. The action is working for me,
00:23:32
the plots working for me. Dan Brown is just and this is
00:23:38
second book. I think like that is just.
00:23:40
Yeah, You know, I think we messed up.
00:23:42
We said we wanted to cover his his first novel, but his first
00:23:45
novel was digital for. So the way it goes, it goes
00:23:48
digital fortress, deception point and then angels and
00:23:53
demons. Angels and demons.
00:23:55
So he writes Digital Fortress in 1998, this in 2001, and then
00:24:01
Angels and Demons is in 2000. Oh, so no, that's in between.
00:24:08
No angels and demons came out before this one.
00:24:11
Yes, so it goes Digital Fortress, angels and demons and
00:24:14
then Deception point, and then two years later Da Vinci Code,
00:24:19
and then six years later Lost Symbol, another six years
00:24:23
Inferno, another six years origin, and now it's been 8
00:24:28
years between origin and secretive secrets.
00:24:32
Wow. Yeah, so I mean, he's like any
00:24:35
other author in the beginning where they're they're forced to.
00:24:39
I mean, look, look at Harry Potter, right.
00:24:42
In the beginning, she was cranking out one book every
00:24:45
year. And then finally she she broke
00:24:47
the mold, right. She pushed back and told him
00:24:49
like, hey, I need time. I mean, and then the same thing
00:24:53
happened with George RR Martin and he's still writing his his
00:24:57
last two books. So you don't want to be on like
00:25:00
that side of it. But I do think there is
00:25:02
something to, you know, take in a little bit of time and and
00:25:05
really trying to craft like that excellent book.
00:25:10
I, I I don't know. Dude, I'm shocked.
00:25:12
That this is technically his third.
00:25:14
This is his third book. Wow, I had that all wrong in my
00:25:16
mind. You know why?
00:25:18
I think if I recall, when The Da Vinci Code blew up, you know it
00:25:24
was the talk of the town, right? It was in the headlines, it was
00:25:26
controversial, it was everything.
00:25:29
I think I then went back and read Angels and Demons.
00:25:33
Yeah, I. Feel like I read it later.
00:25:36
And it was the second movie. And it was the second movie.
00:25:39
That's another thing that that screws people up.
00:25:40
I think Da Vinci Code got so big that people then came to Angels
00:25:44
and Demons after reading Da Vinci Code because it was in the
00:25:47
zeitgeist at the time. But I remember reading Digital
00:25:51
Fortress, Digital Fortress and Deception Point before I read
00:25:55
either of those two. That's shocking to think Angels
00:25:59
and Demons is a second book because that one, like this one,
00:26:01
is also really long and very complex.
00:26:05
Yeah, that that's crazy that those three books were written
00:26:08
in. 3-4 years. A three-year span, like that's,
00:26:12
that's crazy, dude. That's wild.
00:26:15
That's next level. Because this book's not short.
00:26:18
Angels and Demons is not short and the same thing did it a
00:26:21
fortress. Yeah, Da Vinci Code is
00:26:24
interesting because I remember it being narrower and thinner,
00:26:26
thinking of like the hardbacks that I was carrying around in my
00:26:29
younger years. And I remember it was like
00:26:31
almost a slimmed down version of these other bigger stories that
00:26:34
he had written. It's like the pithier version of
00:26:36
that. And that's the one that went
00:26:37
viral, you know? Right.
00:26:41
Also because the very hot button issue of Oh yeah, Jesus's
00:26:45
family. But yeah.
00:26:48
I'll get so I'm on Wikipedia. I'm looking at the 1st edition
00:26:54
cover of Deception Point, which you do not have a little little
00:27:00
pre spoiler of a pod you do not have on our.
00:27:03
I mean it's really hard dude. You mentioned that there's over
00:27:06
200 covers of this book. Yeah, but guess who has the
00:27:13
front page? The cover page blurb for
00:27:16
Deception Point. Who is it?
00:27:18
Vince motherfucking plan No. Are you serious?
00:27:23
Oh, I see, he says. Dan Brown writes a rocket fast
00:27:27
thriller with enough twists and surprises to keep even the MO.
00:27:33
I can't. And then it gets hard to read
00:27:36
because I'm I'm blurring it up. But yeah.
00:27:38
Vince Flynn, author of Separation of Powers.
00:27:42
Oh man, they went with separation of power.
00:27:47
Wow. And that's, I guess, that that
00:27:48
must have been his most recent book.
00:27:51
Yeah, at the time, right. So he was already, he had a few
00:27:54
books under his belt already. Wow, that is a good cover too.
00:27:58
Oh man, I went with the Goodreads ones and whatever
00:28:00
Goodreads had on their first page because yeah, Goodreads is
00:28:03
like 256 editions of deception. I'm like oh jeez, I should have
00:28:08
went with Google because I'm already seeing 3 covers here
00:28:10
that I like on Google. The original man that takes you
00:28:14
right to the ice shelf right in that Dome.
00:28:16
That that is exactly what I was picturing.
00:28:18
Almost looks like a moon base. It does and you get this Is that
00:28:23
Is that a a sub above it or just like some wind?
00:28:28
It's kind of like maybe both like in the in the sky is the
00:28:32
dark space. I see.
00:28:33
I see a little bit outline of like what looks like maybe a
00:28:36
submarine, but I think it's just supposed to be the wind.
00:28:38
They they mentioned that like crazy wind.
00:28:42
Right the catabatic winds. The catabatic winds all right,
00:28:45
in honour of the Mill and Ice Shelf.
00:28:48
I'm drinking Canadian beer tonight so.
00:28:50
Oh, there we go. I'm in Rochester, NY this week,
00:28:55
so we drank a lot of Molson and a lot of the bad blue because
00:29:00
I'm, I'm, I'm pretty close to the to the border.
00:29:02
So I got I got Tim Horton's this morning for breakfast too.
00:29:08
Nice. You want to get into the
00:29:11
scorecard on this one. I I think we're going to be
00:29:14
gearing up for some high numbers.
00:29:16
Let's do it, man. Let's do it, I think.
00:29:18
This might feel good. Well, is there anything we.
00:29:20
Have changed. Anything you wanted to talk
00:29:23
about? I I really kind of wanted to
00:29:25
pick your brain on the science of it all.
00:29:26
Did did you enjoy those early conversations about is this
00:29:30
evidence of panspermia? That blew my mind when we were
00:29:33
talking about that. I mean, I was bought in to the
00:29:37
idea that this asteroid could have been, you know, real like,
00:29:44
because yeah, everything that I'm, I'm a biologist.
00:29:49
I'm, I'm not a yeah, I'm, I'm a biologist in terms of like
00:29:52
bacteria. If anything, life on another
00:29:56
planet will look more like the stuff that I study then you know
00:30:01
what people are mentioned. But yeah, I, I definitely
00:30:05
everything that I've read or, or seen through my various, you
00:30:09
know, personal experiences diving into this kind of stuff
00:30:13
mainly, you know, Carl sang in or Neil deGrasse Tyson, that
00:30:16
kind of stuff. Oh also, I immediately thought
00:30:21
of Neil deGrasse Tyson when they mentioned.
00:30:25
Talent, Michael. Talent, talent like 100%, not in
00:30:29
terms of appearance or, you know, like, but just this, this
00:30:32
idea of this physicist who has risen to this celebrity.
00:30:37
Yeah, of course. Yeah, his status.
00:30:39
Or or Carl Sagan. I guess you could do Carl Sagan.
00:30:41
I was thinking Bill Nye. I was also thinking Bill Nye.
00:30:43
Oh, true. Yeah, because Bill Nye has that
00:30:45
like suave too. Yeah, he has the TV personality.
00:30:48
I was kind of like the brain and the communication method of a
00:30:51
Neil deGrasse Tyson with the Bill Nye TV personality of it
00:30:56
all that that's kind of where I was settling.
00:30:59
Or like a mic, a micro, but really.
00:31:03
Right, right. The micro of science and yeah,
00:31:07
space. Yeah, you know, anyways, that's
00:31:10
exactly. What I was to the back to the
00:31:13
science. Yeah.
00:31:15
No, I I I think the biggest thing that he pointed was that
00:31:20
most people think that life on other planets are going to be
00:31:25
not like what we see here. But I think most people are in
00:31:30
the actual communities are convinced that it would be more
00:31:33
like us than it would be not like us.
00:31:35
You know, there's only an infinite amount of you know,
00:31:40
obviously we've we've been driven towards these thousands
00:31:43
of years. I mean, sure, there could be
00:31:46
differences, but main one being like different planets have
00:31:50
different gravities. So that's going to allow for it
00:31:52
makes sense for why you could have these insects that could
00:31:56
grow to be huge and and that kind of stuff without.
00:32:00
Some skeletons. Yeah, it it, I was bought into
00:32:03
that like nothing, you know, and again, I'm not I'm not an expert
00:32:07
in this stuff. I'm sure if someone's to come at
00:32:09
me, but that's that's just something I've never been read.
00:32:14
I've never read a Dan Brown book where I've, you know, questioned
00:32:18
that that kind of stuff. Like I just I take it if at face
00:32:22
value and since, all right, this is a thriller, he doesn't get
00:32:25
anything blatantly, egregiously wrong.
00:32:29
You know, like, it's like The Martian, you know, like one of
00:32:33
the things I loved about that, that book was how much research
00:32:38
was put into that and how believable it is, you know,
00:32:42
exactly. It's the same thing here.
00:32:43
Like, and then and then to not only build all that up to make
00:32:49
you buy in to the fact that holy shit, panspermia, Israel, this
00:32:53
is proof extra terrestrial life. And then to have to then tear it
00:32:59
all down, but you tear it all down systematically using
00:33:04
science again. Yeah, that was correctly.
00:33:07
That was smart because that initial conversation they lay it
00:33:11
out with like, here is the three proofs of why this is an actual
00:33:14
asteroid. You buy it.
00:33:15
Does the evidence check out? Yes.
00:33:17
The analyst checks out, the reader checks out.
00:33:20
So we all agree there's a space rock, right?
00:33:22
There's a meteorite probably this time period, probably been
00:33:24
here this many years or whatever.
00:33:27
It's like Corky established all that, you know, and he's going
00:33:30
back with Tolland. So there was that Comic Relief
00:33:32
during that conversation as well, especially with that Lady
00:33:35
boss running the show up there. Like they're having incredible
00:33:38
interactions and the science is checking out on top of it and
00:33:41
it's building up the science. Then boom, they drop the
00:33:46
fossils. And I had the same reaction as
00:33:48
you. It was like I was a little
00:33:51
concerned that the fossils looked granted they're bigger in
00:33:55
scale than creatures that we have.
00:33:57
But when they're explaining like it's similar to these bugs and
00:33:59
these insects, and here's why space life might be similar to
00:34:03
these bugs, something rubbed rubbed me the wrong way.
00:34:06
And I'm real curious if that was purposeful by Dan Brown, because
00:34:11
I'm thinking like you're thinking far in life, You know,
00:34:14
if we find it on another planet might be like bacteria, viruses,
00:34:18
cells, amoeba, whatever, like these very simplified organisms,
00:34:21
if you will. I wasn't sure it would look
00:34:23
exactly like our bugs and insects.
00:34:25
I was like, I was not buying that for good reason because it
00:34:28
wasn't true, right? And then I was also thinking
00:34:30
oceans. I was like, I know oceans have
00:34:32
like bizarre stuff and they're unexplored.
00:34:34
And we're finding these like crazy creatures down there that
00:34:37
we would have never thought are of this planet.
00:34:40
Like you could Google like crazy ocean creatures and it looks
00:34:43
like aliens. So it's like I there was
00:34:45
something not sitting right with me.
00:34:47
All the other signs checked out, but that one piece of it wasn't
00:34:50
sitting right with me. And so as it's also, it was
00:34:52
built up and then as it's being broken down, like you said, with
00:34:55
the scientific evidence, and that scientific evidence to
00:34:58
break it down is part of the adventure.
00:35:01
All the adventures that Sexton and Tolland and Corky are on are
00:35:04
in search of that next little nugget, you know?
00:35:07
So I really love the signs being built up, being built, tore
00:35:10
down. I thought that was so much fun.
00:35:12
And to integrate that seamlessly with a plot that's super
00:35:15
complex. And I don't think you can find
00:35:17
any plot holes. And if you can, they're very few
00:35:20
and they're very minor. There's no glaring plot holes.
00:35:24
And that's a task to combine that with such good science and
00:35:27
feel like you're reading something like The Martian that
00:35:29
that came to mind for me as well.
00:35:32
Impressive, really impressive. So I think in the scorecard, the
00:35:35
science of it all in many, many books could be a Ding.
00:35:38
In this one, I think it's. A plus.
00:35:43
You know, it's also interesting that he decides to make Tolland
00:35:47
a sea expert. You know, I, I, he's an ocean
00:35:52
oceanographer, you know, documentarian, you know, someone
00:35:55
who's knows all the stuff and, and to place, you know, he could
00:35:59
have been any other kind of documentary scientist, but to
00:36:02
have him be, you know, and then to place her fear around water,
00:36:07
in fact, that they have to go, you know, onto water.
00:36:11
Like it, it kind of all makes sense.
00:36:13
And you know, it's like, oh, that's, that's an interesting
00:36:15
like little wrinkle because that, oh, that's actually where
00:36:19
this rock came from. It's you know, we and then we
00:36:23
have both the juxtaposition of ice and then magma and, you
00:36:28
know, we're just, we're going a full circle here.
00:36:30
It's it's intense and it's pretty cool just to to see how
00:36:35
it comes together in the end. And that's why if if we talk
00:36:39
action and suspense, the two set action pieces were so good, but
00:36:42
on their own, to carry a novel of this length, I'd have to be
00:36:45
like an 8 or so. The thing is, the suspense of
00:36:51
all those other storylines we just talked about make up those
00:36:54
two points. So like you could, I could see
00:36:56
somebody going 10 here, even though there's not a ton of
00:37:00
action sequences, but every little sequence has suspense.
00:37:05
So I could see somebody going 10, but I'm just going to go 9.5
00:37:08
because we only had two big action pieces.
00:37:10
They were amazing, but suspense really carried the day.
00:37:13
I think you the suspense wins out over the action for me.
00:37:16
So 9.5. Yeah, it's like a, it's like a 5
00:37:20
for suspense and like a four point. 5 for action Yeah, yeah,
00:37:24
exactly, exactly. Now, like for for plot, I don't
00:37:34
know, do I dig in here or do I dig in the buy in with the the
00:37:37
fact that it was just a little long in the tooth.
00:37:40
And even though I love that action sequence at the very end,
00:37:46
you know, I did feel like the sharks had lasers on their
00:37:49
heads. And you know, it was, it was
00:37:51
kind of getting a little egregious, you know, and then to
00:37:56
have damn, a freaking Hellfire missile being shot at in in the
00:38:00
middle of FDR. Like, true that that's true and
00:38:05
releasing the magma being shot under the water.
00:38:08
Oh, yeah. And then not only that do we
00:38:10
have the sharks, but then we not have to worry about TAGMA.
00:38:12
And then we had to we get rescued with this helicopter
00:38:15
from this vortex in this, you know, like you have skill.
00:38:18
I'm, I'm imagining like silent cribbed is mixed with sharks
00:38:22
with lasers mixed with Delta force operators.
00:38:26
You know it's a. Lot.
00:38:27
It's a lot. Throw in Thor and you know,
00:38:31
Galantis Galactus and you got like, you know, I don't know.
00:38:34
And then? Quite literally do.
00:38:36
I didn't plot or buy in for that.
00:38:38
Yeah. And quite literally, with an
00:38:40
Osprey, you pick up all that action and just simply move it
00:38:44
into DC in the middle of a press conference with a presidential
00:38:47
candidate. With the monument, it's like,
00:38:48
how did we go from one to the other?
00:38:51
Right, all right. I think you can Ding it a little
00:38:54
in plot, but you also Ding it in buy in if as you're reading the
00:38:58
book, those things were holding you up.
00:38:59
That's what I would do. I Ding it in plot and I double
00:39:02
Ding it a little bit and buy an if when you read the book that
00:39:05
was causing you frustration because for me it wasn't.
00:39:07
It was flowing. All right, yeah, I'm going to
00:39:13
go, I don't know, 8.5 on plot and I'm going to go like a four
00:39:18
on buy in. OK, OK, yeah, I see what you're
00:39:21
saying. So for you would make sense, but
00:39:23
for me that's pretty low because I I got to go 9 on plot.
00:39:27
The one point is, is the length that one too many twists and
00:39:31
turns like the roller coaster ride stop being fun because we
00:39:34
just didn't need that many loop de loops.
00:39:36
They're like, OK, it's over yet. I'm ready to go off now, yeah.
00:39:40
Yeah, yeah. But when I'm on that roller
00:39:43
coaster, I was I was in like the first few loop de loops had me
00:39:47
so so in. I didn't start feeling that
00:39:50
fatigue until very late in the game.
00:39:53
So I I think I can go up a little more 4.5 on buy in
00:39:57
because while reading the book I was loving it bad.
00:40:04
Guys. Bad guys.
00:40:04
I mean, can I feel like Pickering?
00:40:08
I counted as a good guy for 95% of the book.
00:40:13
And then have him be the the bad guy.
00:40:16
Yeah, Sexton. Yeah, so.
00:40:18
I'm going to Ding, I'm going to Ding the Delta Force guys a
00:40:22
little bit. I, I didn't love them.
00:40:27
I thought that having them be anonymous was kind of weird.
00:40:29
I don't know. They're taking like these, first
00:40:32
of all, they're just blindly executing US civilians.
00:40:36
Like, yeah, they're hench men. I would rather than just been,
00:40:42
yeah, I would rather them be like private contractors than to
00:40:45
be Delta Force operators. I agree with that.
00:40:48
I would have, I would have believed them more if they were
00:40:51
doing it for money than if they were doing it for country.
00:40:55
I think I agree. Maybe that's why I'm digging by
00:40:59
in a little bit too. So I I, I don't know, Sexton was
00:41:06
just like, he's supposed to be the big bad, right?
00:41:10
I guess for most of the novel, you know.
00:41:13
Tench, maybe for the middle part of it.
00:41:17
Yeah, I don't have a Pickering. Like to be his mastermind and to
00:41:22
have you bought in to him being a good guy.
00:41:24
Like damn big twist. That worked, That worked.
00:41:30
You're on his side mostly. You're kind of questioning Tensh
00:41:33
most of the book, so. Right, right.
00:41:39
I'm going to go 3.5. Yeah, that's a fair score.
00:41:44
And I think a big part of that has to be the Delta guys being
00:41:47
so flat. Now, if the book wasn't already
00:41:50
jam packed, I think it would work.
00:41:53
If you kind of make it like they're Pickerings, you know,
00:41:56
his boys, like they've been in the trenches.
00:41:58
They'll they'll go to the ends of the earth for this guy.
00:42:01
You know, he's the Quaker, right?
00:42:02
Like this, This is his team. But that wasn't built up.
00:42:06
There was a, there was an intentional choice to keep them
00:42:09
flat and anonymous and just have them be The Dirty hench men,
00:42:12
like have them be Doctor Evil's people.
00:42:14
So because that choice was made, it hurts the book.
00:42:18
But again, if you went too deep, if they had backstories, if they
00:42:21
had a connection with Pickering, if we found out why they'd, you
00:42:25
know, go fight to their death for him, maybe then that would
00:42:30
have been an extra thing that would have made everything
00:42:32
complicated and convoluted. So 3 1/2, yeah, 3 1/2 is where I
00:42:38
got to sit too. But let me make up for that with
00:42:42
a perfect five on good guys. And I'm doing that because of
00:42:46
the scientists. I'm doing it because of Talon
00:42:48
and Corky and the way they played off each other, played
00:42:51
off each other with Rachel, played off each other with their
00:42:53
their boss on the ice shelf. Even up until the last scene
00:42:58
when Rachel is trying to get into the damn Lincoln bedroom
00:43:00
and the Secret Service agent has to distract Corky.
00:43:04
You know what? That Secret Service agent, she
00:43:07
saved the day she got Talon laid.
00:43:10
So I'm going 5 out of five just for her.
00:43:15
No, I think you're you're 100% right, like just the the the
00:43:19
cast of characters that Brown establishes and, you know, just
00:43:25
to give, you know, even I thought that Gabriel Ash was
00:43:29
interesting, you know, just to have her there as this, you
00:43:32
know, foil at times for Sexton in the end proved to be his
00:43:37
downfall. You know, the president was very
00:43:40
interesting, you know, and even like in retrospect, I, I guess
00:43:49
what's her name? Oh, wow.
00:43:49
I can't the raspy Chickle I thought was the tench Tench.
00:43:54
I I, you know, she turns out to be, she was actually on on the
00:43:57
side of, I mean, yeah, she did play a role a little bit and and
00:44:02
she knew that NASA was lying a little bit.
00:44:05
But yeah, it was all for I guess she's doing her job.
00:44:09
She's. Protecting the president,
00:44:10
Protecting the office? Yeah, winning elections.
00:44:13
Right, yeah, no, the, the, the, but the, the scientists just
00:44:17
just scream. Rachel Sexton, Very good lead
00:44:20
character, getting scientists, getting mansplained like the end
00:44:25
the entire time and just, you know, taking it and then shoving
00:44:29
it back like. She puts it to the next level.
00:44:31
Exactly. She shoves it back in their
00:44:32
face. She she like, she raises
00:44:35
everything they're giving her, you know, exponentially and then
00:44:37
throws it right at them. Yeah, dude.
00:44:44
Setting. I think I have to go perfect 5 I
00:44:49
think. I was.
00:44:49
I was going to say that too. About the ice shelf, the sea,
00:44:54
even some of the DC White House stuff or even in like the press
00:44:58
rooms when we're doing those interviews and things or even
00:45:01
how it's described at all the press conferences when they're
00:45:03
describing each press conference, because there's like
00:45:05
3 or 4. I'm there.
00:45:08
I'm, I'm inside DC, I'm, I'm, you know, inside the Beltway.
00:45:11
It's happening. We're game on.
00:45:14
Same thing with the ice shelf. And the ice shelf to me is
00:45:17
screams that cover you found that first edition original
00:45:19
printing plus all the other covers.
00:45:21
I just think, wow, Dan Brown establishes himself as a boss of
00:45:28
painting a panorama of these amazing locations.
00:45:35
And I think the other reason why I, I love reading Dan Brown
00:45:38
novels, especially like via audiobook, is I think he has a
00:45:42
way with words, even for the most simplest thing, like the
00:45:47
hallway entrance to Sexton's apartment.
00:45:52
Like it's so vivid that while I'm listening to the narrator,
00:45:56
you know, or if I was reading it, I completely imagine it in
00:46:00
my head. Agreed, you know.
00:46:02
I imagine Gabriel. Yeah, I remember.
00:46:05
I imagine Gabriel's ash, you know, her suspenseful meandering
00:46:09
through the NASA headquarters to try to get up to to talk to the
00:46:14
the leader of pods or yeah, like you said, when she's in the
00:46:17
office and she sneaks in and the grandfather clock and, you know,
00:46:22
typing in the password like all of that is, it's so descriptive,
00:46:27
not heavy-handed, but you know, very lively.
00:46:32
Like it's just it. It's very well executed.
00:46:36
I can't agree more. It's and it's a different way of
00:46:39
describing all these places. It and there was a chapter that
00:46:42
opened up. It was maybe that end sequence
00:46:45
after everything happens at the press conference, you know,
00:46:48
Gabrielle and and Rachel together save the day by
00:46:51
bringing down the senator. A really nice bait and switch
00:46:55
there with the envelopes. Even after that.
00:46:56
And it's dragging on too long with all these chapters.
00:46:59
He opens a chapter with just like it was a cool, crisp day as
00:47:03
the leaves were falling off the trees, like one of these very
00:47:06
like Blase way of writing an opening to a chapter that seems
00:47:09
kind of flat or dull, but he just nails it like he just does
00:47:14
it right. So like even like basic language
00:47:18
describing like a setting of a tree or in a park or where they
00:47:21
are, it's still done at at like a very good level.
00:47:25
I think I said to you in a text, Let's see if I can find that.
00:47:28
So he's a Craftsman. He's an artisan of words.
00:47:31
A Dan Brown is doing something so different than these
00:47:35
run-of-the-mill pump out a book. Let me type.
00:47:37
How many words do I have to get to?
00:47:38
What's the word count? We got to make the publisher
00:47:40
happy. No, he's an actual.
00:47:42
Like, I, I just think of the way he writes as a way like an Amish
00:47:46
person builds a table. You know, it's just like.
00:47:49
Sure. It's natural.
00:47:51
It's and he was writing, you know, pre AI in earlier days of
00:47:55
the Internet, cell phones, iPhone wasn't invented.
00:47:57
Like fax machines play a big role in the book.
00:48:00
And I think there's some really nice charm about that.
00:48:05
And and he mastered it at the time period.
00:48:09
I don't know why. I just think of him as his like
00:48:13
bucolic, almost like him writing almost screams like Gerard
00:48:17
Tolkien smoking a pipe and thinking about hobbits in the
00:48:20
ground. Like, is the way he's writing,
00:48:21
you know, really incredible historical, scientific action
00:48:25
dramas? Yeah, I I just remember, I
00:48:31
forget which book it might, it might have been origin, the most
00:48:33
recent one. But the way he describes this
00:48:37
building in Barcelona with its undulating sides, it and then I,
00:48:44
I immediately looked it up and I'd never seen this building
00:48:47
before. I know it's a famous building,
00:48:48
but I just, I had never seen it before.
00:48:51
And that was exactly what I envisioned what what he had,
00:48:53
what he had written out. And I was able to picture my
00:48:56
head was exactly the same building that he's describing.
00:48:59
Like that is, you know, hard to do, you know, like, I mean,
00:49:06
other than like saying it's a red, it's a red building with a,
00:49:09
you know, like no, like to execute it like that on paper
00:49:15
and to have your reader do it. I think it's just, you know, not
00:49:17
to mention the, the high stakes stuff with the mill and ice
00:49:22
shelf or with the boat and on the water.
00:49:26
It's, it's, it's from the most intense to, like you said, the
00:49:30
most mundane piece of it. It's it's, it's well thought
00:49:33
out, well crafted. Yes, and the dialogue enhances
00:49:37
it. I'm even just thinking her
00:49:38
banter with the fighter jet pilot who takes her out to the
00:49:41
ice shelf from DC when she's picked up from the White House
00:49:45
to go out there. I'm like, they even have some
00:49:47
little banter back and forth. And then when they're flying, I,
00:49:51
I feel like I'm in the that cockpit.
00:49:53
I, I'm flying with them in a fighter jet, like I'm going at
00:49:57
supersonic speeds or whatever, you know, to the middle of
00:49:59
nowhere. And she figures out we're going
00:50:01
north by looking at the waters and the landlines.
00:50:04
All those things are crafted so well.
00:50:06
So hats off to Dan. I think these scores are going
00:50:09
to be high. We have to wrap up with cover,
00:50:11
though, and it does not disappoint.
00:50:15
None of these disappoint. Well, maybe maybe some of the
00:50:18
foreign ones like the German one, but we're not going to talk
00:50:20
about that. Dude, And like, you know, the
00:50:25
little gravity you're going to put out that we normally put out
00:50:28
like it, it has some some very good ones.
00:50:31
There's there's some honorable mentions that, you know, we,
00:50:34
we've kind of brought up the if you go look up the original 1,
00:50:39
some of the other covers get get the essence of of that one, you
00:50:43
know, like. Just yeah, the paperback
00:50:44
actually is close to that original printing, Yes, not as
00:50:47
good. But that's interesting having
00:50:49
like a, a sunrise because they mentioned that they're they're
00:50:53
in the land of, of total. They're, you know, obviously the
00:50:55
it's time of the year, it's the total dark, the reddest ones.
00:51:01
It almost seems Martian. Yeah, I guess maybe that's what
00:51:05
it's your, you know, deception trying to trick you.
00:51:07
Yeah. I don't know, I I'd rather it be
00:51:12
more like moonscape kind of feel.
00:51:16
I feel like that kind of captures what it's like being on
00:51:18
the ice shelves better than this red rising sun.
00:51:22
I I don't know about that. Plus, the original is really
00:51:26
cool, how we have that Arctic mountain glacier with that
00:51:31
shining light reflecting off of it.
00:51:33
I feel like that really captures what this book feels like when
00:51:38
you're out on the ice shelf. Yeah, that one's very similar to
00:51:42
the audible cover that we had, except for I think the same.
00:51:47
It. It's the same thing, except that
00:51:48
below it is a sub or like a you, you see a sub right below.
00:51:54
It's like, yeah, just to have like those little things.
00:51:59
I don't know. I'm, I'm, I'm digging all of
00:52:00
these to capture the ice. Probably the only one I don't
00:52:04
love is the one with the wolf, because sure that is.
00:52:08
It's like they read the opening chapter with the the sled dogs
00:52:11
or whatever and they're like, oh right, it looks like a vampire
00:52:16
book. It looks like if they were
00:52:17
writing vampire love teen dramas in like the late 90s that would
00:52:22
be that cover. Leave it to the Germans to pull
00:52:24
that shit off. What's up with the the one next
00:52:29
with G? And that reminds me more of
00:52:32
Davinci code or yeah I saw covering.
00:52:36
It has to be the wrong book. That one doesn't work.
00:52:41
I don't know who the guy's supposed to be.
00:52:42
That's got to be some international Lost in
00:52:44
Translation stuff. But H actually is funny because
00:52:47
it might be better than the original.
00:52:50
AH, honestly, if I got to say H might be my winner for covers, I
00:52:54
almost wish it's it's almost as good and it's very similar to
00:52:57
the original hardback cover A, but it might be just a tad
00:53:02
cooler even with that streak of light coming down from the top.
00:53:05
Echoing of like the tunnel like that could be under the iceberg
00:53:08
actually the tunnel that goes up.
00:53:10
So I think H is a big winner for me.
00:53:13
You know, I don't even mind E Yeah, with the Capitol building
00:53:18
and some ice, you know, knowing that the meteor.
00:53:22
Yeah. Yeah, it's OK.
00:53:24
I don't think I like how close the capital is to the ice, like
00:53:27
sitting on top of it, just a little too much overlap.
00:53:30
But. I don't know dude, I like all
00:53:32
these covers. I think I can go 4.5.
00:53:38
Yeah, I'm with you. I'm a four and a half, easily
00:53:40
all. Right, Mike, what is your free
00:53:45
space? That, man, there's so much you
00:53:51
can go with. I, I think I have to go with the
00:53:57
science of it all. When Rachel Sexton is just
00:54:00
brought into this world, this thing is dropped in her lap and
00:54:04
she is just like on a whirlwind tour to get pulled in to talk
00:54:07
to, you know, the president, then the NASA director and then
00:54:10
the scientist. And it's almost like Robert
00:54:13
Langdon, right? This is a trope, Dan Brown, of
00:54:16
pulling them out of the normal world, shocking their reality
00:54:19
with some massive truth bomb that they have to, you know,
00:54:22
confront and contemplate. Doing that with Rachel Sexton
00:54:25
was a blast. So I think from the moment she's
00:54:29
reassured by the president all the way up to when she's
00:54:32
flabbergasted seeing the meteor and the moment she realizes, OK,
00:54:37
it's a meteor, big deal, we have a ton of them.
00:54:39
When she sees the fossil and she realizes, right?
00:54:42
Oh shit, this is alien life. I felt I was just as captivated
00:54:48
as she was holding that that meteorite piece.
00:54:50
So I got to go with that whirlwind of a beginning, and
00:54:55
when we're first introduced to the scientist, I was having a
00:54:58
blast. Nice.
00:55:01
Yeah, I'm just going to give another five points to the the
00:55:05
Gorky. Oh, OK, OK, I.
00:55:07
Thought you were going to go with the author as you do, you
00:55:09
know, 9 times out of 10. No, I just, I thought, you know,
00:55:16
throwing in the Comic Relief, this this book needed it
00:55:19
because, you know, with it's, it's very heavy at times, you
00:55:22
know, heavy with science. I, I, I just think having yeah,
00:55:26
I, I feel like Dan Brown typically has one of these
00:55:29
characters that's going to and I just connected with him.
00:55:32
I I thought it was funny, like at the very end, have him be on
00:55:34
himself, that that's what saves him from the sharks.
00:55:36
It just was just icing on the cake.
00:55:40
I agree a lot, a lot of good shoes him, but I just I wanted
00:55:44
to shout out that one more time so.
00:55:46
I agree. And you know, an honourable
00:55:49
mention that really should be up there is the first action
00:55:52
sequence when they go out and get blasted by the Delta team
00:55:55
and then escape. Oh damn, that's got those.
00:55:59
Weapons like they're able to craft like yeah, put ice of snow
00:56:05
in a, in a, in a rifle and shoot ice bullets.
00:56:09
That was insane. That was sick.
00:56:12
That was that was really sick. There's so many cool improvised
00:56:15
weapons. Another thing that Dan Brown is
00:56:19
just like hitting on just hitting good stuff.
00:56:24
Fun book I we've recently got into Steve Berry.
00:56:27
Now we're hooked on him. I'm absolutely hooked on Dan
00:56:30
Brown. And with only like less than 10
00:56:31
books, I mean, we could cover them all theoretically over the
00:56:35
next few months. But yeah, we might want to keep
00:56:38
going because this book is so good.
00:56:41
Everything this guy writes is gold.
00:56:44
I might have already started rereading Digital Fortress,
00:56:47
especially because the at the end of the audio book it LED
00:56:49
into it and I already own a copy of Digital Fortress so.
00:56:52
Oh, nice. Hey, I'd be down.
00:56:57
So that leaves you with the 46 and Mia 45.
00:57:01
Barry. Great book, very good scores.
00:57:04
Very good. Very good scores.
00:57:08
All right, what do we know what we're doing next time?
00:57:12
I don't know exactly. We got a lot coming up though
00:57:14
with Dark Wolf, the Terminalist TV show coming out real soon, so
00:57:17
that's going to keep us busy. In terms of books though, what
00:57:21
else did we have on the table on the docket?
00:57:23
We also have to start reading Denied Access.
00:57:25
We got our copy of the new Mitch Rap book so.
00:57:28
Dude started. I've read the first chapter and
00:57:34
all right, boy, oh boy, you got like you guys are in or a treat.
00:57:38
Oh, we said we were going to read origin.
00:57:40
We're going to go deception point to origin.
00:57:41
We. Didn't want to do origin that
00:57:42
way. Get us ready for Secret of
00:57:45
Secrets. I mean we could sub out origin
00:57:47
and go right to for. Something else.
00:57:49
Because we did. Early Dan Brown.
00:57:50
Something else? Yeah, I think our idea was do
00:57:53
early Dan Brown and then do a modern Dan Brown to get ready
00:57:55
for Secret of Secrets. I don't know.
00:57:58
I'm kind of itching to do his earlier work.
00:57:59
Still, though. Like angels and demons.
00:58:01
I know digital. Fortress angels and demons.
00:58:04
Yeah, I do have to. Say The Lost Symbol and Inferno
00:58:08
for me were not my favourites. They were good, but I don't
00:58:14
think there's anything like these first four books that he
00:58:16
wrote. You know, this was crazy.
00:58:20
I think the lost symbol is my favorite.
00:58:23
What? No.
00:58:25
Yes, I love it. I know.
00:58:28
Far my least favorite. I know a lot of people did not
00:58:32
like it. I love that book.
00:58:33
I was really upset when Ron, Ron Howard was going to, they were
00:58:38
going to make a movie out of it and then he decided to scrap it
00:58:40
and then that's when they decided to move to Inferno.
00:58:43
Deeply disappointed with that movie.
00:58:45
That was awful. Oh, they actually made that new
00:58:48
movie. I didn't even see it with Tom.
00:58:50
Hanks done. Yeah with Tom Hanks.
00:58:52
It was not worth a watch because they completely changed the
00:58:55
story they like. Although I don't blame them
00:58:59
because when I was reading Inferno, I got to be honest, I
00:59:02
was kind of done with this whole spoilers, you know, kill half
00:59:07
the earth, or at least I know it's reproduction.
00:59:10
Make make people infertile so the population goes down.
00:59:12
This whole idea of Malthus, the Malthusian principle, I was so
00:59:16
done with that. Especially considering what's
00:59:19
his name, Gauntlet Infinity Gauntlet guy.
00:59:23
Kill all the people. Let the earth restore itself.
00:59:26
Let nature have balance. People are bad, lower the
00:59:28
population. I have debunked that line of
00:59:30
arguing so much that when another story gives me oh I'm a
00:59:35
villain who just wants to have less people on earth so nature
00:59:37
is healthier give me a break. I'm so over the population
00:59:42
thing. I don't want to see it in books,
00:59:43
movies, stories. I don't want dumb idiots on the
00:59:46
Internet and Twitter trolls arguing about Oh well people are
00:59:49
bad for the earth we need to have less people.
00:59:50
I'm sick of that argument. So as soon as that's what
00:59:53
inferno became I was like I'm done with this shit.
00:59:55
So anyway that's my rant. Rant over.
01:00:00
Hello. There's this one video where
01:00:01
it's like Dennis, he's talking to his, you know, hench men, but
01:00:07
they're kind of like talking back to him.
01:00:08
It's like, hey, boss, so with the Infinity Gauntlet, you can
01:00:13
just snap anything into existence.
01:00:17
What if we just doubled all resources instead of killing
01:00:21
people? If we just.
01:00:22
Made another Earth I. There's just so many recalls in
01:00:26
the whole thing. I don't even want to go down
01:00:27
that path. It makes me sick.
01:00:29
And you build the story around that crap.
01:00:34
Anyways, we are gearing up for Terminalist this TV show.
01:00:42
In the meantime, if you're digging this, you're loving what
01:00:47
you're hearing, go check us out Instagram, Twitter, YouTube,
01:00:52
thrillerpod.com At Thriller Podcast.
01:00:57
We wouldn't be here without patrons.
01:01:00
Yes, don't forget our patrons because in the next month or so
01:01:03
we are working on a date for our next book club.
01:01:06
We have a couple of finalists for which book we'll pick for
01:01:09
our book club. But we are going to do a patron
01:01:12
hang out. We are going to discuss a book
01:01:14
on Zoom. Always a good time, always a
01:01:17
ride. And the group chat is constantly
01:01:19
blown up. I took one from Daryl today.
01:01:22
I took a stray Daryl. Daryl hit me with 1 today.
01:01:24
But always appreciate his humor. So if you want to join the the
01:01:28
group chat with us and our quarterly book club Hangouts,
01:01:32
become a patronthrillerpod.com, click on the Patreon button and
01:01:36
join us over there. We'd love to have you.
01:01:38
The conversation never stops. Oh, Mike, we didn't even get a
01:01:42
chance to talk about Ward Larson and Scott Hart.
01:01:47
Oh no, Brad Thor. Did we do that the Brad Thor
01:01:51
podcast? I'm going like over 2 1/2 or how
01:01:55
many times per episode we mix up Scott and Brad's names?
01:01:58
It's no doubt minimum three times per episode, usually more.
01:02:02
I did that one there on purpose, but yeah, it it is, it's it's
01:02:07
it's pretty easy. But dude, I'm February, we're
01:02:10
getting, we're getting another Brad Thor book in February.
01:02:12
I'm I'm ready. That's exciting.
01:02:15
And the Brad Thor combined with Ward Larson, friend of the
01:02:18
podcast, we love covering his work.
01:02:21
He's such a good writer. And the way he can bring in the
01:02:25
aerospace of it all with planes and jets and all sorts of crazy
01:02:29
aircraft technology, no one does it better.
01:02:32
So to put that together with Brad Thor, no one does
01:02:35
historical faction better. That is going to be an absolute
01:02:39
treat. And it seems very similar to the
01:02:43
plot of Dark Vector, which was Ward Larson's most recent book.
01:02:48
Spies, espionage, stealing technology, a defector.
01:02:53
Like, wow, does that seem like an absolute amazing book.
01:02:56
Cold 0, Is that the name of it? Yeah, I'm excited.
01:03:01
Dude, big announcement. A lot of a lot of a.
01:03:04
Lot of fun things to come. Yes.
01:03:07
All right, Well, before we get out of here, let me thank our
01:03:09
patrons by name, our deputy director, Sherry F, Bran, Brad
01:03:13
E, our special agents, Adam, Mike, Ben, Daryl, George, Matt,
01:03:17
Dawn and Chris. You know, and as always, just
01:03:25
who should I do it this time? I think it's got to be just
01:03:28
that. Rachel be Rachel.
01:03:31
Yeah, unfortunately you can't do Corky, but I want to.