Digital fortress door Dan Brown

Reading report English

Author: Dan Brown Title: Digital Fortress Pages: 510

Year: Digital fortress was written in 1998, and my edition was published in 2004

Setting: The story takes place in the USA and in Spain, a small part takes place in Japan. The story takes place around the time it was written, or in the near future.

Plot: Susan Fletcher is a brilliant code breaker who works for the American National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA has a brilliant computer called TRANSLTR, which is very fast and can break every code. One day Susan gets called to work, because TRANSLTR seems to be unable to crack a certain code, digital fortress. It turns out that an ex-employee Ensei Tankado wants to destroy the NSA by making digital fortress (which he invented) public. If that happens everybody can see the secrets of the NSA, which would be a great threat for the USA. The only way to stop Digital Fortress is to enter another code, which only Tankado knows. Susan tries to crack the code and hopes to sop Digital Fortress. Meanwhile Susan’s fiancée David is sent to Spain by the director of the NSA to try and find Ensei Tankado and get the code from him, the code is known to be on Tankado’s ring. Then Tankado is murdered and as a last action he holds his hand up, a hand with three fingers. In the end it turns out that three is the code they need to enter to stop Digital Fortress. In the end it turns out that Susan’s boss is the bad guy, and after killing two of his employees he gets killed himself. It is up to Susan to save NSA. She informs the prime director, and with the help of a team of technicians she solves the clues left behind by Tankado. They find out that 3 is the code to stop Digital Fortress and that is the end of the story.

Theme: The theme of this book is computers, and if we can always rely on computers.

Main persons: Susan Fletcher is a very bright code breaker and cryptologist, she works for the NSA. She is the main character and is a round character because her ideas about most subjects change during the story. David Becker is Susan’s fiancée, he tries to find the code to stop Digital Fortress and helps to crack the code at the end of the story. David is also a round character. Ensei Tankado is the brain behind Digital Fortress, he is Japanese and has lost two fingers during the world war two bombing of Hiroshima. Though he invented Digital Fortress he never meant to make the NSA secrets known worldwide, all he wanted was for the NSA to respect peoples privacy. He is also a round character.

Point of view: The story is told by a narrator but always by the main characters point of view, the reader knows the thoughts of the main characters.

Personal opinion: A wonderful book, very thrilling! I would recommend this book to everyone, it is easy to read an understand, it is very thrilling and makes the reader think about how the story will end. The end is quite surprising!