Post by Vorchia on Jun 4, 2006 3:29:15 GMT -5
The newest Dan Brown novel, according to the backflap it was written before the Da Vinci code, it doesn't say why the Da Vinci was published earlier though.
The book, a thriller is well written and extremely captivating. As usual with mr Brown's writing the plot seems a tad bit far fetched. Its a very AMERICAN novel too, being about the NASA and the American government.
I was surprised to read Franklin Theodore Roosevelt had FOUR terms as president of the United States?? Didn't you have a law stating a president could not be re-elected after completing two terms?? I guess that was after Roosevelt then.
The book contains an anecdote about Nixon and the Air Force one but the Air Force One if from the nineties and the first US president to use it was Clinton, its too new to have been Nixon's presidential airplane but the way the anecdote was written suggests it.
The plot is a bit far fetched because it seems highly unlikely that someone could fake a meteorite full of (earth!!) fossils then shove it under the ice at exactly the right postion for it to be ice-dated to 1716...
There are several plot holes:
1) Getting it there. In order to do this this huge rock has to be hauled under the arctic ice and a tunnel must be drilles straight up INTO the ide from the underside then the rock should be put in by a robot arm that is to withdraw when things are frozen to the extent of being able to support the rock. Suuuuuure... Gravity anyone? Ice/water density, hello? The ice that was drilled loose would float in the drilled tunnel and have to be scooped out before it freezes solid again but we're talking about a floating gletsjer on the northpole here...
2) The water level in the 60 meters deep excavation tunnel is one meter below the rim of that tunnel. When ice melts it looses one third of its volume. When sixty meters of ice melts in a 60 meter tunnel the water level reaches only 40 meters. The plankton would be deep in a dark hole and never have been noticed. Bbye with your story mr Brown.
3) No scientist in their right minds, no matter how excited, when not completely drunk or stoned, would reach deeply into a dangerous tunnel in the ice for a water sample when there is any form of a piece of string available from which to hang a container and fish for a watersample. He could have used his shoestrings even...
4) No self respecting paleontologist would fail to recognise a known fossil species / no esteemed marine biologist would fail to recognise a deep sea arthropod.
5) Don't ever mess with NASA. You can't fool the NASA like that, ever. They've got the world's leading scientists on just about everything space related. To insinuate stupidity on this scale within the NASA is rather insulting even if its just fiction.
The book, a thriller is well written and extremely captivating. As usual with mr Brown's writing the plot seems a tad bit far fetched. Its a very AMERICAN novel too, being about the NASA and the American government.
I was surprised to read Franklin Theodore Roosevelt had FOUR terms as president of the United States?? Didn't you have a law stating a president could not be re-elected after completing two terms?? I guess that was after Roosevelt then.
The book contains an anecdote about Nixon and the Air Force one but the Air Force One if from the nineties and the first US president to use it was Clinton, its too new to have been Nixon's presidential airplane but the way the anecdote was written suggests it.
The plot is a bit far fetched because it seems highly unlikely that someone could fake a meteorite full of (earth!!) fossils then shove it under the ice at exactly the right postion for it to be ice-dated to 1716...
There are several plot holes:
1) Getting it there. In order to do this this huge rock has to be hauled under the arctic ice and a tunnel must be drilles straight up INTO the ide from the underside then the rock should be put in by a robot arm that is to withdraw when things are frozen to the extent of being able to support the rock. Suuuuuure... Gravity anyone? Ice/water density, hello? The ice that was drilled loose would float in the drilled tunnel and have to be scooped out before it freezes solid again but we're talking about a floating gletsjer on the northpole here...
2) The water level in the 60 meters deep excavation tunnel is one meter below the rim of that tunnel. When ice melts it looses one third of its volume. When sixty meters of ice melts in a 60 meter tunnel the water level reaches only 40 meters. The plankton would be deep in a dark hole and never have been noticed. Bbye with your story mr Brown.
3) No scientist in their right minds, no matter how excited, when not completely drunk or stoned, would reach deeply into a dangerous tunnel in the ice for a water sample when there is any form of a piece of string available from which to hang a container and fish for a watersample. He could have used his shoestrings even...
4) No self respecting paleontologist would fail to recognise a known fossil species / no esteemed marine biologist would fail to recognise a deep sea arthropod.
5) Don't ever mess with NASA. You can't fool the NASA like that, ever. They've got the world's leading scientists on just about everything space related. To insinuate stupidity on this scale within the NASA is rather insulting even if its just fiction.