Dan Brown’s latest novel, Origin, is a con and people should ask for refunds.

Firstly, there is no real motive for the killing of futurist and inventor Edmond Kirsch – whose deliberations and beliefs are as old as Charles Darwin (On The Origin of Species was first published in 1859).

Secondly, Dan Brown does not provide his readers with a full transcript of a decoded encrypted message given in audio, but only writes about the revealed audio content in the form of conversations about it between the characters in the novel (Kirsch's internet broadcast where he explains what he has found; Kirsch in part states: “I’m sorry to have to show you this, but in every model I ran, the same thing happened. The human species evolved to our current point in history, and then, very abruptly, a new species materialized, and erased us from the earth”, Chapter 95).

Thirdly, Dan Brown’s idea for Origin is not that unique from the angle of cinema history – check out the 2010 movie The Genesis Code – which represents standard evolution versus creation fodder (written by Michael W. Leyton, 1944-2011).

Another mucking-up of a subject matter by Dan Brown.

Origin crashed into the abyss – by late November it was on sale half price in Waterstones bookshops in the United Kingdom. By January 2018 it was on sale for $17.46 on Amazon (reduced from $29.95).