Duped Book Blogger Forced to Use Four Exclamation Points!
“In a stunning development, the seemingly contrite anonymous R confessed in an e-mail that he not only made up the supposed secret concerning the publication of Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, but that he couldn't even remember what he said the secret was. The receiver of this misinformation - nationally known book blogger Thriller Guy - suspects that alcohol was somehow involved in R's, now discredited, original post.”
OK, OK, enough of this. Yes, it's true, late last night an e-mail arrived from R saying he was just having a bit of fun with TG. Fortunately, I didn't reveal the supposed secret, though I'm going to now because I still think it was an inspired guess. The main part of R's comment is in the entry following this one, a rather rambling missive that ended with the words, redacted in yesterday's entry, - concerning the eminent publication of The Lost Symbol - that... “the new book is only part one of two.”
It explains so many things, among them...
1. Why it took Dan Brown so long to write the book. Most authors in this genre (TG included) take about a year to research and write a novel. Brown took, what? Five years? Of course you have to factor in his time used spending some of the money he made with DaVinci Code, that's got to eat into your writing day, but even then that's a long time to be sitting in front of a computer working on the same project. (Spare me the snooty comments about how long it takes to write a non-genre, “literary” novel.) So, if you believe R's secret, Brown took that long because he was writing not one, but two books.
2. It solves the problem facing Brown of what he was going to write for his next book after The Lost Symbol. The answer was The Last Symbol: Part II. And now it would already be written and he wouldn't have to go back to work for many more years, if ever. (This is a subject of an upcoming blog: If you made a ton of money with a book would you ever bother to write again?)
3. The publisher is pretty much guaranteed to make even more money than would be the case if it was just one book. People would buy the first book because they're ravenous for another Dan Brown product, and if he didn't blow it completely he'd have them on the hook for the second part. So instead of selling 5 million copies (first printing) they would sell ten million just by having Brown write long, which he is wont to do anyway. Most writers will tell you that the hard part of writing is coming up with a new idea for a book. Once you're into one and rolling right along, you can write it forever. The trick of the thing is figuring out how to end a book.
See what I mean? It's a brilliant publishing idea, and if R was in the business (he's not, turns out he's a lawyer) he'd be sitting in a shiny new office for having come up with it. So there you have it, the whole, tawdry story.
OK, TG is tired of writing about Dan Brown. For those of you who can't get enough of the subject, the Washington Post has two giant articles today on Brown and the book, and Perceptive Poster Joel sends in this link to a website where the real secrets of the book are revealed:
http://thecryptex.com/news/washington-traitor-redux
Dear TG: You set up a straw man and then knocked him down. Weak, TG, weak. How do we even know that "R" exists and that you didn't must make up the whole thing just for blog fodder?
ReplyDeleteCome on TG. You're better than this! This was a sad moment in an otherwise awesome and superior thriller blog career.
Bo
Wouldn't that be a kicker if it turned out to be true after all? This is one possible reason as to why the publisher has been leary of allowing any advance reviews. There must be SOMETHING within the pages that they want to keep secret as long as possible.
ReplyDeleteJust about 5 days to go--
To the anonymous bo... Nope, all true, every word of it, except the parts that weren't true. TG doesn't have the imagination (or the time) to construct such an elaborate straw man. I leave that to such inventive writers as Dan Brown.
ReplyDeleteAnd to thecrowelfiles... Yes, wouldn't it be funny if it turned out to be true.
Hello there - it is I, "R." TG did not make me up and his blog today is accurate with one exception. No alcohol was involved in my posting. I am a lawyer and send so many emails that once I posted, I forgot all about it and since TG did not put it up on the site, I couldn't go look at it. And yes, my comment was rambling. But not this one.
ReplyDelete