What do you assign to Orthanc?

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I'm staring to think I'm the only man alive who's yet to read a Stieg Larsson book - and I'm Swedish too. That dead man's success is unbelievable, but I just can't shake the instinctive feeling that if everyone loves him so much he can't be any good. It's silly I know, and eventually I'll probably read him, but the whole thing reminds me too much of the mass hysteria another book I haven't read brought on, namely The DaVinci Code.

I know that instinctive feeling only too well (it kept me off Harry Potter for years, until a friend had mercy and forced The Philosophers' Stone on me as a birthday present), and more often than not the feeling is right. As for The DaVinci Code, all you missed is an entertaining read playing with ideas that have been around for decades. Larsson is in another league altogether. He writes characters I couldn't help but care deeply about, makes them face and swallow every kind of tough **** and has them emerging victorious and changed by the experience. Give him a try, I don't think you'll regret it.