Digital Fortress

Title : Digital Fortress
Author: Dan Brown

This is one book I'd like for keeps (Hehe, don't worry Pojie, I'm NOT taking your book away)

The differance in this book and other Dan Brown books I've read is that here, we are faced with modern day puzzles. Ok.. what I meant to say is that, In da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, we are confronted by puzzles from the arts side, and I mean ancient arts here (errr, not REALLY ancient, but not our modern day types here) like centuries-old paintings and sculptures. but in Digital Fortress, we came face to face with the digital era type codes, something we're more familiar with. It was easier to try to break the code when you can imagine it, rather than trying to remember how did 'The Last Supper' or 'Monalisa' look like. Err, I take that back, not 'easier' but more interesting! I mean.. arggghhh, I'm lost for words here! Writer's block, I guess..

Anyway, once again Dan Brown chooses a lady as the main star here. See, the women of the world are not THAT low in the eyes of some men. Susan Fletcher is the head cryptographer in the National Security Agency where nearly all coded messages that are sent here don't stand a chance to stay crypted. They have developed this invincible code-breaker machine that breaks thousands of codes everyday. However, one day, their normal routine changed. Apparantly, they found a crypted message that the machine couldn't decipher.

Things got worse when they realized this coded message was really sent as a threat to the NSA for some wrong doings they might have done early on and it was up to Susan to find out what was really happening. She had loved working with the NSA, being attracted to coded messages eversince she was small, so she fought hard to save this agency. When she realized the life of her fiancee was suddenly also at stake, it just drove her to double her efforts in breaking the code that was destroying the NSA.

Throughout the book, she learnt a lot about betrayal and how trust is a vulnerable thing to look after. Human greed tops it all off, shoving aside loyalty towards the agency and country. When the truth finally emerges, realizing they had trusted the wrong person who staged a murder for his own need, it changed the woman inside her, but also made her stronger.

This book shows that sometimes, the most complicated problems have the most simplest (dah 'most', 'simplest' plak lagi..!) solution. Haha, you gotto read it yourself to find out what I mean.. but really, I enjoyed this book thoroughly!

One thing though, I still can't decipher this coded message at the end of the book.. any help here?

128-10-93-85-10-128-98-112-6-6-25-126-39-1-68-78

Haha.. ok, ok.. my review here is a bit lame. I was supposed to do this review right after I read the book but I couldn't find the time so most juicy parts I wanted to share are now a blur in my head. But seriously, if you like a relaxing book that could still tease your mind, go grab this one! Its an all-in-one type of book that I'd recommand to anyone :)