The Nimble Books Blog

Finally, some real news about THE SOLOMON KEY. According to the publisher, quoted in today’s Wall Street Journal, the release date has been set — but it is a secret. Which is progress! There was no release date at all before. There’s no new news about the content of the book (or any confirmation of the title), but the thrust still seems to be that the book will be set in Washington, D.C. and focus on those wacky Freemason Founding Fathers.

I brought out my SOLOMON KEY pre-book/meta-book in 2005 (!)

“The Solomon Key” and Beyond: DIGITAL FORTESS, ANGELS & DEMONS, DECEPTION POINT, THE DA VINCI CODE, and more …

and I have to say it has stood the test of time quite well. It has already made a pretty healthy profit, and among my forty titles in print ranks sixth in lifetime revenue per month.

The content is still sound because book is far less speculative than most efforts in the pre-book genre. I cover Brown’s entire oeuvre, and I include a detailed analysis of Dan Brown’s work habits and narrative strategies, but I didn’t think it wise to go on speculative excursions into the occult and Freemasonry before seeing the published books. I stick closely to what Brown and his publishers have actually said about the book. Judge for yourself if you like my approach: take a look at the Table of Contents in Search Inside the Book mode.

I’ve gotten better at covers since I published this book, but I’m reasonably satisfied with the dominant cover image: Kryptos in the CIA courtyard is still a pretty darned cool piece of Washington architecture, and it’s neat to look at and learn about. I would probably use a different font for the title type. Although the cover colors look clunky, they are keyed off the colors used in THE DA VINCI CODE, so I don’t think there was a principled basis for a better choice.

I will update this book when THE SOLOMON KEY finally comes out, but I am not sure exactly what mechanism I will use — I may update this edition, or I may issue a separate thinner paperback. Either way, I will provide a PDF softcopy to previous purchasers, as stated in the book. (Simply send me proof of purchase using the email address in the book).

I will update this post as publication nears. Until then, enjoy the anticipation!

Cordially,

Fred Zimmerman
Publisher, Nimble Books LLC

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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!

Tags: Dan Brown, Front Page, The Solomon Key and Beyond by admin
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The secret’s out: `Da Vinci’ mania fading - Yahoo! News

NEW YORK - It couldn’t last forever, right? Simmered by three years of lawsuits, religious debates and conspiracy theories, brought to a boil in May by the Hollywood movie, the craze for all things “Da Vinci Code” is finally fading, publishers and booksellers agree.

“I would definitely say it’s slowing down,” Barnes & Noble fiction buyer Sessalee Hensley says. “Once everybody got past the movie, the whole thing peaked.”

No more “Da Vinci” spinoffs. Yay!

I saw this coming two years ago when I published THE SOLOMON KEY AND BEYOND.

Technorati Tags: dan brown, solomon, da vinci code

Tags: Books I Won't Be Reading, Dan Brown, The Solomon Key and Beyond, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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The Da Vinci Code Movie Photos - Da Vinci Code Photos, Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou
Gallery of photos from the Columbia Pictures movie “The Da Vinci Code” featuring photos of Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Paul Bettany, Ian McKellen, Alfred Molina and Jean Reno. (Photos © Columbia Pictures)

Tags: Dan Brown, The Solomon Key and Beyond, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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Defamer, the L.A. Gossip Rag: First Rumblings Of A ‘Da Vinci Code’ Disappointment

Based on the first reviews trickling in from an eve-of-premiere press screening of The Da Vinci Code at Cannes, this might be a good time for the Imagine assistants to make a busy-work project of re-alphabetizing the office take-out menu binder in anticipation of a possible office-lockdown lunch of shame once their bosses return to LA from their promotional rail tour on the Blasphemy Express. An early Da Vinci Code panning round-up (links in Defamer article):

· “The feeling moved quickly from one of great anticipation to one of, shockingly, great boredom…instead of the film building to a white knuckle conclusion, it was the audience fidgeting as Da Vinci passed the two-hour mark and unveiled the first of its half-dozen endings…by the time the big climactic moment of the film finally arrived, the audience burst out laughing, as if this were yet another classic bit of Tom Hanks comedy. As the credits rolled, not a single bit of applause was heard.” [FilmStew]

· “[R]eaction from Cannes critics ranged from mild endorsement of its potboiler suspense to groans of ridicule over its heavy melodrama. ‘It’s a movie about whether the greatest story ever told is true or not, and it’s not the greatest movie ever screened, is it?’ said Baz Bamigboye, a film columnist for London’s Daily Mail. ‘As a thriller, well,’ he continued, shrugging.” [AP]

· “‘Nothing really works. It’s not suspenseful. It’s not romantic. It’s certainly not fun,’ said Stephen Schaefer of the Boston Herald. ‘It seems like you’re in there forever. And you’re conscious of how hard everybody’s working to try to make sense of something that basically perhaps is unfilmable.’ [Reuters]

· “[D]irector Ron Howard and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman have conspired to drain any sense of fun out of the melodrama, leaving expectant audiences with an oppressively talky film that isn’t exactly dull but comes as close to it as one could imagine with such provocative material; result is perhaps the best thing the project’s critics could have hoped for.” [Variety]

Uh-oh.

Tags: Dan Brown, The Solomon Key and Beyond, Uncategorized, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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This reader knows not the journey he has begun

Reading The Da Vinci Code, “Harry Potter for adults” comes to mind. There’s a sense that writer Dan Brown and Potter author J. K. Rowling attended the same creative writing course.

“Tell the story using the simplest words you can,” their instructor might have advised. “You’re not writing poetry here. People aren’t looking for colour or rhythm or even a bon mot now and then; just tell the damn story.”

Ouch.

The game of Clue is quickly solved: It was the albino in the museum with the revolver.

But wait. Show me a mystery in which a murderous albino works for himself, and I’ll show you a flawed mystery.

Zing! Good one.

Tags: Dan Brown, Harry Potter and the Chariots of Light, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J. K. Rowling, The Solomon Key and Beyond, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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courant.com | ‘DaVinci’ A Godsend To Book Industry

Heckuva job, Brownie!

Dan Brown’s novel “The DaVinci Code” - which suggests Jesus married Mary Magdalene, the Catholic Church suppressed that history (and women in general) and the Renaissance genius’s paintings hide clues to the whole story - is a publishing phenomenon. The author may be a false prophet, but his profits are for real, and Friday will mark the book’s second coming, so to speak: the film version starring Tom Hanks.

The release of The Da Vinci Code movie is stirring the creative juices of the world’s reporters. Good one, Brownie!

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PRESS RELEASE Move Over “Da Vinci Code”

Move Over “Da Vinci Code”
“The Key To Solomon’s Key” Ignites Historical Bombshell of ‘Biblical’ Proportions

MIDDLEFIELD, MA — (MARKET WIRE) — 05/16/2006 — Readers looking for an even more striking revelation will find it in a controversial new book that hits bookstores next week. “The Key To Solomon’s Key, Secrets of Magic and Masonry,” by Lon DuQuette, brings subjects of mystery and intrigue, Freemasonry, Knights Templar and King Solomon, to an astounding conclusion. DuQuette, a celebrated occult author and Mason, reveals for the first time an intricately woven connection between King Solomon’s legend and the Templar/Masonic legacy.

Loon alert.

Not that I shouldn’t take a glance or two in the mirror…

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URL to the Da Vinci Code trailer:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/da_vinci_code/

Tags: Dan Brown, The Solomon Key and Beyond, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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Updated May 2006 with 60 pages of new material!

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Doubleday Books | The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman; Forewords by Dan Brown, Ron Howard, and Brian Grazer; Afterword by John Calley

The Da Vinci Code Illustrated Screenplay goes behind the scenes of one of the most highly anticipated movies of all time, created by Academy Award–winning filmmakers Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Akiva Goldsman. Offering unprecedented access to the tightly guarded “closed set,” and a view of the filmmaking process that has never been seen publicly, screenwriter Goldsman provides a backstage look at the incredible journey to bring Dan Brown’s record-setting novel to the big screen. Goldsman’s richly rendered screenplay is included here in its entirety. It offers a fascinating new way to experience the story …

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Rescuing Da Vinci

Published by Laurel Publishing, LLC., Rescuing Da Vinci is the first comprehensive photographic telling of the amazing and largely “untold” story of Hitler and the Nazi theft of Europe’s greatest art and America and her Allies’ recovery of it. The book is 320 pages in length and contains more than 460 photographs including 60 in color. It is the first time this group of photographs has been assembled in a single book. These photographs, rarely published and with clarity not seen before, illustrate masterpieces being handled in unimaginable ways.

This sounds great! I want to get a look at it.

Tags: Against A Dark Background, Dan Brown, The Solomon Key and Beyond, What's New for Book-Lovers by admin
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