Digital Fortress
Dan Brown, 1998
Mystery, thriller & crime Contemporary fiction
A beautiful NSA cryptographer discovers a code that could cripple global surveillance—and the agency will do anything to bury it.
Feels like curiosity and serenity. About power and society.
A page from the book
The oldest question about power, asked about the people who protect us.
Who will guard the guards ? If we’re the guards of society, then who will watch us and make sure that we’re not dangerous? Dan Brown.Dan Brown wrote Digital Fortress as his first published novel, after leaving his job teaching English at Phillips Exeter Academy.
Books that feel like this
More by Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code
Dan Brown, 2003
A symbologist is pulled into a murder, a cipher hunt and a centuries-old secret hidden in plain sight across Paris and London.
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown, 2000
A Harvard symbologist is pulled from his bed into one night of pursuit beneath Rome, where a corpse is branded with a sign only he can read.
The Lost Symbol
Dan Brown, 2009
A symbologist is summoned to Washington for a lecture and pulled into one night of Masonic codes, hidden monuments and a missing mentor.
Where to get it
Some of these links earn us a small commission, at no cost to you. It keeps BookFeed free.
Questions readers ask
- What is Digital Fortress like?
- Feels like curiosity and serenity. About power and society.
- What should I read after Digital Fortress?
- If you liked Digital Fortress, try The God of the Woods (Liz Moore), Disclosure (Michael Crichton) and World Without End (Ken Follett).
A taste of the feed
The particular fury of someone who has never been held accountable.
Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.
The God of the Woods · Liz Moore
The founder who can’t imagine a life after the company.
“Nobody knows,” Sanders said. “Bob built the company from nothing, fifteen years ago. When he started, he was selling knockoff modems from Korea. Back when nobody knew what a modem was. Now the company’s got three buildings downtown, and big facilities in California, Texas, Ireland, and Malaysia. He builds fax modems the size of a dime, he markets fax and E-mail software, he’s gone into CD-ROMs, and he’s developed proprietary algorithms that should make him a leading provider in education markets for the next century. Bob’s come a long way from some guy hustling three hundred baud modems. I don’t know if he can give it up.”
Disclosure · Michael Crichton
Hunger frightens a child more than hellfire does.
Gwenda knew that Jesus was telling her not to sin, or she would be tortured by demons; but humans frightened her more than demons. If she failed to steal Sir Gerald’s purse, she would be whipped by her father. Worse, there would be nothing for the family to eat but soup made with acorns. She and Philemon would be hungry for weeks on end. Ma’s breasts would dry up, and the new baby would die, as the last two had. Pa would disappear for days, and come back with nothing for the pot but a scrawny heron or a couple of squirrels. Being hungry was worse than being whipped—it hurt longer.
World Without End · Ken Follett
Read pages from books like this, one at a time
Keep reading in the feed