A tv producer wrote to me asking my thoughts about what would be in THE SOLOMON KEY. As a starting point, she presented a good list of the “usual suspects” ranging from Masonry to the esoteric history of the U.S. capitol. This is how I responded to her:
think all of the things you list below are fairly probable to be in the book, but my guess is that you are too heavy on the past and too light on the future-connected elements. People don’t usually see it this way, but strictly, speaking, all of Brown’s books belong in the science fiction genre, because they all assume the existence of future technology and are set in the future. Even in “Da Vinci Code”, if I remember correctly, Langdon takes a supersonic plane that does not now exist (not Concorde) to reach France promptly, and the time setting appears to be 2015 or so. ANGELS & DEMONS, of course, has a huge plot strand with CERN and antimatter explosives that do not (fortunately) exist.
Add to that the facts that Brown has probably not been asleep the last six years, while the world has been convulsed in war, and that he has strong commercial instincts, and I feel sure there will be an important element of the plot that is tied to current or near-future events. How can you write a book set in Washington now without some reference to Iraq (Babylon), intelligence, and the Middle East? Brown’s clever, so I expect him to find a new angle on those things.
The obvious bit of “secret architecture” to bet on is the CIA building and the mysterious Kryptos sculpture in it (which–very cool!–makes an explicit reference to the opening of the tomb of King Tut). I provide a VERY concise summary of that controversy in my book, but, believe me, I suppressed a lot of detail in the interests of fairness to the ordinary reader. There is an online community of hundreds of people, including former intelligence officers, who are obsessed with the very high-grade cryptographic challenge. I would start with the person named “Elonka” who has a website about Kryptos — you should be able to find her by Google, let me know if you have trouble. Also the sculptor of Kryptos is alive, very adept at keeping his secret, and I would be surprised if he is not willing to be interviewed by the BBC.
Hope this helps, and feel free to write anytime. When THE SOLOMON KEY comes out, I will be doing a chapter-by-chapter response. In the current book, I play it safe and seek to avoid offending Brown fans, but my thinking has evolved, and in the next book I will be a lot more frank when I think Brown is talking through his hat. Great plotter, clever guy, lots of terrific ideas, but no reason to give him a free pass, either!
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Tags: Dan Brown, google, Old Front Page Stories, science fiction, The Solomon Key and Beyond
