Dan Brown's Origin

I really had no idea what to expect when I started Origin by Dan Brown. The only Dan Brown book I'd read prior to this one was The Da Vinci Code. But everyone read The Da Vinci Code, right? This novel was recommended by a community book club member as a title that would be interesting to discuss. It was selected. I read the book. And then, due to family commitments, I missed the meeting! This is a meeting I wish I could have attended.

Dan Brown is a master of red herrings and very open-ended chapters. The chapters were quick and easy to read. And as you finished one, you wanted to read on to see where Brown was going. A discussion of the book would most likely include the writing style as well as the storyline.

In this Robert Langdon book, the Harvard professor and expert breaker of codes and symbols is drawn into a controversial news announcement regarding science versus religion. His former student, scientist, futurist Edmond Kirsch, is letting the world in on where we come from and where we're going. We being the human race. Edmond is murdered in the early part of the book. We read on to find out why Edmond was murdered and what was going to be in his announcement. What he had to say was supposed to damage or destroy the world's ancient religions.

Kirsch's invention, Winston, his artificial intelligence counterpart, leads Langdon and Ambra Vidal, fiance to the prince of Spain, on the quest to unleash Edmond's planned announcement as well as to figure out who killed their friend, Edmond. Some of the book is quite fantastical, but for me, it was interesting to imagine just how far artificial intelligence might go in my lifetime. This book certainly left me with a lot to think about.

Since I often forget what I've read about 5 minutes after I've read it, now that I'm mostly reading on my iPad, I've developed the habit of screen capturing pages that I want to go back to. Sometimes I'll write notes of the screen chapter so I'll remember why I thought that passage was important in the first place. It's exceptionally handy for books that I'm reading in advance of a book club discussion.

Here's what I thought was important in Origin.

Early in the book, I thought the science versus religion... or science versus anti-science was going to stream into global warming. Maybe because what he's written about scientific fact doesn't seem to jive with the dispute over global warming today.

"Science is the antithesis of faith," Kirsch continued. "Science, by definition, is the attempt to find physical proof for that which is unknown or not yet defined, and to reject superstition and misperception in favor of observable facts. When science offers an answer, that answer is universal. Humans do not go to war over it; they rally around it."

How much is truth in this book? I know the book was well-researched, but some of the modern technology is alarming.

Several years had passed since an American kid named Cody Wilson had designed "The Liberator" - the first 3-D-printed polymer gun - and the technology had improved exponentially. The new ceramic and polymer firearms did not have much power, but what they lacked in range, they more than made up for by being invisible to metal detectors.

And here is something I have thought myself quite often and have it expressed it to others very recently.

"Consider this!" Edmond declared. "It took early humans over a million years to progress from discovering fire to inventing the wheel. Then it took only a few thousand years to invent the printing press. Then it took only a couple hundred years to build a telescope. In the centuries that followed, in ever-shortening spans, we bounded from the steam engine, to gas-powered automobiles, to the Space Shuttle! And then, it took only two decades for us to start modifying our DNA!"

"We now measure scientific progress in months," Kirsch shouted, "advancing at a mind-boggling pace. It will not take long before today's fastest supercomputer will look like an abacus; today's most advanced surgical methods will seem barbaric; and today's energy sources will seem as quaint to us as using a candle to light a room!"

I realized how little I knew about Francisco Franco and how ruthless he was, all in the name of religion. Nor did I realize that Spain had a national political agreement to "forget" everything that had happened under Franco.  We must never forget!

Here's another line that jumped out at me. When, exactly, was this book written?

Fake news now carries as much weight as real news.

Edmond had a Tesla Model X specially designed specifically for him by Elon Musk. Ambra wants Langdon to watch a video - while he's driving. He embraces the self-drive mode the same way that I did when I first test drove a Tesla.

"Autopilot," she said.
The effect was quite unsettling, and Langdon could not help but leave his hands hovering over the wheel and his foot over the brake.
"Relax." Ambra reached over and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It's far safer than a human driver."
Reluctantly, Langdon lowered his hands to his lap.
"There you go." She smiled. "Now you can watch this Casa Mila video."

When my brother was 13, I think he snuck out of the house and bought himself a Radio Shack  Tandy personal computer. My brother is now a successful IT professional.

"Tandy TRS-80," Winston said. "Edmond's first machine. He bought it used and taught himself BASIC when he was about eight years old."

Here's another bit that I liked. And I'm not a huge fan of Brown's simplistic language. But this worked for me.

I call it 'Prayer for the Future.'" Edmond closed his eyes and spoke slowly, with startling assurance. "May our philosophies keep pace with our technologies. May our compassion keep pace with our powers. And may love, not fear, be the engine of change."

There were a few other lines that I highlighted, but as I am reviewing them, I realize a few of them are spoilers which I choose not to include here.