The Da Vinci Code was published in 2003.  The movie, starring Tom Hanks, came out in 2006.  Now, in 2007, I thought that all of the apologetics material related to this novel had been published.  I was mistaken.

Francis De Souza, an electrical engineer from southern California, has taken on the subject in a new book, Shredding the Da Vinci Code and Vindicating the Deity of Christ, available from Outskirts Press.

I had never heard of Outskirts Press before, but as soon as I opened De Souza’s book and skimmed a few pages, I knew that Outskirts had to be either a vanity press or a self-publisher.  I was absolutely correct–it’s the latter.

How did I know that?  Simple.  De Souza’s book contains no clear separation between paragraphs and no citations.  There is no bibliography.  The poor formatting and the lack of citations are both major strikes against this book, but I thought that I would give it a chance.

I gave up on this book 106 pages into it, and I would have burned it happily forty pages prior to that.  This book is the biggest waste of time, and despite the sentiments of a few positive Amazon reviews, contains no original information.  In fact, had I not known the information that De Souza presented, I would have been hard pressed to learn it from this book.

First, there is no introduction to the book.  Absent the title and book description, I have no way of knowing exactly what and how this book will really present.  But I’m not surprised that this book lacks an introduction.  That would indicate that, at some point, the author thought about what was actually going to be included in this book.  This book seems to be written in a stream-of-consciousness style with no unifying voice.  As if De Souza wrote it as a series of vignettes, but never actually intending to write a full book.

Second, we have the aforementioned paragraph issue.  Sometimes, there is a blank line between paragraphs.  Other times, there is just a hard return.  It is very difficult to visually see where paragraphs end, so the pages look like massive blocks of text.

Third, the grammar is very difficult.  Aside from the usual misplaced commas, the italics sometimes stress the wrong words.  That makes sentences mean things that the author probably never intended.  De Souza often speaks in metaphors but doesn’t explain them adequately.  Related to that, the voice of the book lacks any sort of unity.  Sometimes he speaks directly to the reader.  Sometimes he holds an imaginary conversation with Robert Langdon.  Sometimes he holds an imaginary conversation with Dan Brown.  De Souza never alerts his readers to the switch in voice.

Finally, no bibliography or citations combined with De Souza’s apparent lack of expertise in church history and theology, leaves no credibility whatsoever to any of De Souza’s claims.  That means that this entire book is a farce.  It could be completely made up for all anyone knows, because the author leaves us no way to check out his claims.

With all of that going against it, I gave up on this book after De Souza spends fifteen pages attacking the way Dan Brown writes.  This is really the pot calling the kettle black.  Considering how poorly written De Souza’s book is, that borders on hypocrisy.

The verdict?  This is the worst book I’ve ever read.  I can understand why De Souza had to go to a self-publisher.  No reputable editor would touch this book without major overhauling.  Leave this book on the shelf where it belongs, and check out the other, superior literature debunking Dan Brown’s novel.