'Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci' Writer'

Judge Rules in Favor of 'Da Vinci' Writer
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press Writer


Author Michael Baigent speaks during an interview in Toronto ...
LONDON - A judge ruled Friday that best-selling author Dan Brown did not steal ideas from a nonfiction book, ending the suspense about whether the novelist committed copyright infringement in his thriller "The Da Vinci Code."

High Court judge Peter Smith rejected a copyright-infringement claim by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail," who claimed that Brown's blockbuster "appropriated the architecture" of their 1982 book. In the United States, the book is titled, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

A film based on Brown's book and starring Tom Hanks opens May 19.<snip>

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"Today's verdict shows that this claim was utterly without merit, I'm still astonished that these two authors chose to file their suit at all," Brown in a statement, adding that he was "eager to get back to writing."
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http://www.comcast.net/entertainment/index.jsp?cat=ENTERTAINMENT&fn=/2006/04/07/363021.html&cvqh=itn_code

Sure--those formulaic novels don't quite churn themselves out. Almost, but not quite...

Brown should go to prison, or worse, for that piece of crap.

could not get passed 50 pages in it

I was trapped with it on an airplane for 4 hours. It was either that, or browse 'SkyMall' repeatedly.

Seems to me that the author has enough doe that either he or his publishers could pay someone to come up with a phony lawsuit. Great promo for the movie.

But it does prove one thing -- it's not talent that counts, it's your agent.

did millions of others.... But, I think Angels & Demons was even better.
Are you sure you're just not pissed off at the ant-religous tone?

Seriously, I actually didn't detect an "anti-religious" tone in Da Vinci Code. In fact, I was disappointed it didn't go further into the "Jesus as householder" theme, which actually is no big deal among those familiar with Eastern themes of religion.

The lack of imagination in the rendering of the actual writing, though, was teeth-grating to me. (And to clarify, a friend borrowed the book from the library and thought I might like to read it, too -- that's how I came to be in possession of it.)

I don't remember much about the book, but I do remember the leading female character struck me as being completely without credibility, and poorly drawn. Especially since she was raised by a grandfather who specialized in enigma, yet she was always so wide-eyed about the different situations in the book. Also, her "reunion" at the end was just so poorly realized.

The main character himself had nothing compelling about him to make me especially interested in anything that happened to him.

The constant illustration of every character's innermost thoughts was almost like entering a literary Tower of Babel, and the flashbacks within flashbacks -- enough already.

The puzzle of "what language is it" was obvious to me from page one -- why not to these "expert" characters?

And other little things. Now, to give you an example of novels I love -- the Touch of Frost series (except for the last one, Winter Frost) are among the very best mystery novels I've ever read. Also, I'm a big fan of the Inspector Morse series of novels (which admittedly can go two ways -- almost fatally dull, or absolutely brilliant.)

Anyway, you can't please all of the folks all the time, can you? :)