DVC Mania!

For everyone living in a cave (I'm talkin' to you, Osama!), The Da Vinci Code opens today (in the US)! I'd love to see it this weekend, but probably not enough to wrestle with the crowds. I can wait, especially since the early reviews have been mediocre at best. I'm pretty sure all the people who have read the book are evenly split among a) comparing it favorably to sliced bread, b) despising it with a white-hot anger of holy righteousness, and c) thinking Dan Brown's writing skills almost put L. Ron Hubbard to shame. No matter what, I don't think there's a person alive who wouldn't change places with Dan Brown these days.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, although the infamous "back story" of Jesus/Mary Magdalene/Holy Grail/Rennes le Chateau/Templar/Rosslyn Chapel/Priory du Sion secret history fun, which so many people have seen as some sort of epiphany, is nothing new to me. I've been reading books in this vein for most of my adult life, and trust me when I say Dan Brown didn't come up with a single thing that hasn't been said a hundred times before. But he did make a fun post-modern pulp adventure story out of it.

Everyone knows about the connection to Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, but I personally prefer The Templar Conspiracy by Picknett and Prince. If you really like this sort of thing, other favorites of mine (although touching only tangentially on Da Vinci Code-esque material) include Fingerprints of the Gods by Hancock (for a more "scholarly" updating of Von Daniken), Rule by Secrecy by Marrs (for the most way-out combination of secret societies and aliens throughout history you could want to find). If you want something a bit more grounded (if you can call the John Birch Society grounded), but no less fascinating, I recommend The Unseen Hand by Epperson.

On a related note, I am lucky enough to be one of the 10,000 finalists for Google's Da Vinci Code Quest. The final round starts today, so wish me luck!

ADMINISTRATOR'S NOTE: Apparently there may have been a few changes in some scenes of the movie.