Tourism honchos in Washington, where the story is set, are so confident the book will be a big tourist draw that they've already launched a website (washington.org/lostsymbol) steering Lost Symbol seekers to places presumably mentioned in it. The plot is under wraps, but carefully choreographed clues, being released via the Today show, Facebook and Twitter, point to Washington and Freemasonry.
The story then lists a number of hot spots that "I'm Down with Brown" tourists might consider visiting since they probably appear (mostly likely with incorrect addresses and faulty descriptions) in The Lost Symbol. And: "The Da Vinci Code and its sequel, Angels and Demons, spawned multiple commercial tours of related sites in Paris, London and Rome. In 2006, Fodor's Travel Guides printed 150,000 copies of the Fodor's Guide to The Da Vinci Code and is in talks with Lost Symbol publisher Doubleday to produce an online guide, says spokeswoman Meg Rushton."
Now, if people who go as pilgrims to visit sites and landmarks connected with the history of Christianity are deemed seriously religious (and undoubtedly considered "zealots" and so forth by some), what to make of people who spend a lot of money and effort to visit sites associated with poorly written pulp fiction? Yep, they're just tourists. Nothing strange about it at all. After all—it's just fiction. Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving. Move along. Don't stare.
• "I believe the power of Dan Brown is very simple..." (Insight Scoop, September 7, 2009)
• The "It's Just Fiction!" Doctrine: Reading Too Little Into The Da
Vinci Code | Carl E. Olson (March 14, 2005)
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