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***Why did you finish it?***
Goes with the territory, Ocean. I'm a fiction editor and part of the job's keeping an eye on trends. As I said, I've no downer on Dan Brown as a good, jobbing author. I do think, though, that had *The Lost Symbol* been his first novel rather than his latest -- riding on previous success -- he wouldn't have gone far. For a start, any decent editor would have had the clout with a first-timer to ask him to revise the ms to give his characters credible motivation. He would have insisted on better characterisation and more realistic dialogue and done something about the adverbial promisuity. He would also have asked for a beginning, a middle AND an end. *The Lost Symbol* doesn't climax, it merely fizzles out. N
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