NovelCritic

Resources and Advice for Aspiring Authors

Links of Interest for Authors
Published and Self-Published Novels Reviewed

Digital Fortress

In Digital Fortress, Dan Brown, the author of Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code, takes a stab at the realm of computers and high tech encryption verses our rights as citizens to keep secrets.

Dan Brown has picked a new hero for us to follow — or a couple of them. One of the NSA’s top cryptologists and her boyfriend find themselves in the middle of a political fight between a government trying to prevent secrets from threatening the peace of the United States and a cryptologist trying to protect the rights to privacy of everybody on Earth. An ex-NSA cryptologist is supposed to have developed an encryption called Digital Fortress, a self-mutating string capable of encrypting anything in such a way that no computer anywhere can possible decrypt it.

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

In this book, Voldemort has returned to the world in full power (he did that at the end of the fourth book, so I hope I didn’t spoil it for you). Harry Potter has a godfather now who he can hang around with (Sirius Black went into hiding at the end of the third book, so he couldn’t be around for much of the fourth book).

Now, you’re probably thinking, “How can J.K. Rowling possibly write three more books in the series (since there are supposed to be 7 years of schooling at Hogwarts) with Voldemort back?”

Here is how she did it.

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The Sword of Shannara

The Sword of Shannara was the first book written by Terry Brooks, and the series of Shannara books is now easily one of the most famous series of Fantasy books of all time.

I recently finished re-reading the book (it was a long time since I had first read the book), and I was still amazed at how much detail Terry Brooks can place in his books and how good the story was.

The first book has Shea and Flick Ohmsford in search of the legendary Sword of Shannara helped by a few other heroes from the four lands including the forbidding and mysterious druid Allanon. The Sword of Shannara, the druid tells the brothers, is the only item which can defeat the Warlock Lord, an evil entity who is trying to take over the four lands.

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