Codex

On a completely non-JavaOne note, I picked up and read Codex on the way out here, and I’m agreement with Bob Sutor (as an aside to Bob, your statements lately have not gone unnoticed): it was disappointing, though my reasons were different than his. Not being intimately familar with NY geography, I wasn’t thrown off in the same way that he was, but overall I thought the plotting was a bit loose, with the end more or less unbelievable (without giving anything away, the main character struck me as trusting to the point of absurdity). The prose was also rather pedestrian, jarringly so at times. If you like this sort of novel I’d recommend instead Zafon’s Shadow of the Wind which is better written (though not even in the same league as Garcia-Marquez’s Hundred Years of Solitude, regardless of what the cover claims), or if you’re really adventurous, Barnhardt’s Gospel, which is far more erudite.