Ask Zoltar! Make up your own questions.

[Andrew, Wound Up]

Mic Breakers - I apologize if you read this book based on it being our selection. As you can see there have been no discussions or questions. After some early enthusiasm about how this book would allow for a range of questions related to its mixture of adventure and historical secrets... I quickly fell into a completely uninspired slump due to the utter drollness found within.

This will be our only topic on this book. Ask any questions you want here and they MAY be answered by... Zoltar (or anyone else bored enough to play along).

No spoiler marks needed! Feel free to answer your own questions. Ask questions unrelated to this book.

Go go go!

[Andrew, Wound Up]

*Was this whole novel really just a vacation tax write off for Dan Brown?

My theory is that Dan asked his accountant: How can I take a great vacation but deduct it all as an expense? The accountant and his team of lawyers devised a plan where Dan, his friends/family, and a team of interns traveled around Europe. They kept their receipts. The interns were supposed to go to various places and take detailed notes for Dan, but instead they got drunk and plagiarized wikipedia pages instead. Dan eventually had to glue all the interns "research" together with a goofy plot so that he could claim the whole thing was work related.

*Did Dan Brown have to pay the writers of The Game any $$ for ripping off their plot?

*Were any other readers bothered by the fact that Langdon kept having time to give architecture lessons when he should have been running his ass off?

*Why did Brown even bother linking this novel to Dante's Divine Comedy?

This actually ends up being a somewhat minor concern in the scheme of things, but... he forced himself into cumbersome plot gymnastics for the goofiest of reasons. The whole mask subplot - was really just a few hundred pages leading up to a clue made up by the bad guy. The orchestration at the ending couldn't have been any cheesier. Actually...

*Does anyone actually buy Robert Langdon's character as a book-powered Indiana Jones?

*How were the editors not annoyed with Brown's constant line by line recap of the videotape?

*Was the portrayal of amnesia better in this novel then in the average daytime soap opera?

*Recommend a different book that uses Amnesia as a plot line successfully.

My nomination: The Raw Shark Texts.

*Is it any fun to play Mouse Trap if your siblings already activated the mechanism and you aren't allowed to reset it before you start your game?

*How would you define the narrative viewpoint of the book?

A***ole. I love a well done unreliable narrator. This was just all over the place.

[Michelle, Overrun By Pets]

Why was it necessary to mention Dante, Inferno, the Divine Comedy and any other inconceivable connection to such on every page?

Why would a gifted thespian, super-genius become a general physician?

Why doesn't a gifted super-genius know where to find and connect with other smart people?

Does anyone else want to exert physical harm on an author who intentionally misleads the reader into thinking the super-evil geneticist is ambiguously gay?

Why do the descriptions of famous locations in the ever-exciting country of Italy read like boring Wikipedia paragraphs that make me not interested in the slightest?

Why can't Robert Langdon ever save his own ass (i.e. he always requires a beautiful young woman to lead him out of harm's way)?

Why is Sienna bald again?

How many times did we have to "recap" the for-media-release video?

Is there anyone else left that thinks calling Robert Langdon for help is a good idea?

Can we get someone to really start working on that sterility-inducing pandemic?

Could we add "chthonic" in, just one more time?

Why is Robert Langdon's eidetic memory such an integral part of the story line?