Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown

This book is factually incorrect. Research of the Brotherhood, Knights Templers and Knights Hospitallers is limited.

It's a work of fiction, though. You can't expect it to be perfectly accurate.

so? It's a novel, and a damn good one.

Dan Brown actually did a lot of research on his book and used fiction to twist fact, that is one of the reasons why there is so much controversy about this book. The Priory of Zion, was a really so society that existed in the mid 1900's but wound up being shut down... that alone should tell you that other facts in the book will be exagerated as well. Although I hope you enjoyed the novel.

Actually he just re-hashed Angels and Demons to fulfill a contract with his publisher. It is also a badly edited.
"Faction" as the industry is now starting to mess with is very problematic. I have a History Degree (specializing in Reformation History) and worked my ass off for it. I also respect the critical skills that go into retaining history the value and the research historians do to obtain primary sources and analyze them properly not conveniently. This includes working with linguist to translate materials, translated materials, historical documents, photographs or other visual evidence (that needs to be analysed in historical context) such as sculptures, paintings, jewellery etc...Something Dan Brown did not do.

So while Dan Brown wrote and entertaining piece of fiction, it was nowhere researched properly to the quality of historical value. However it did provide a resurgance of interest in the Templars. Let me point out they were nowhere as powerful as Mr. Brown's book fictional book protrays them (except maybe during the Crusades).

um....I think you're missing the point here. The novel (which was much better than Angels and Demons) was not meant as a historical dissertation. It was meant as a work of fiction. Good research or bad research is irrelevant. The point is the story. If it is a good story, the author has succeeded in their aims. This is by no means belittling the arduous work of historians; it is merely saying that a novelist's work is rather different.

As a fan of historical fiction I have no problem with with entertaining fiction and combining the two. I am big fan of Philippa Gregory, Ellis Peters among others. yet that is the difference between someone who uses there skills of research in a fine manner and someone who rips off others for crap.
When one chooses to use historians efforts as there own as Dan Brown has interviews and not to cite the research his validity as a writer much less a researcher is nullified.
Dan Brown's efforts to re-edit and package previously published material is simply an indication of his character to begin with. As I mentioned before it was poorly edited. I am not a fan of his "historical" work and wish he would have stuck to the techno-thriller genre he had better success in. Unfortunately his contract did not allow that. An interesting article in PW discusses this.