Deception Point - Fact Checking Dan Brown and the Worlds' First Astrobiology Novel

If forced to answer this question today, a consensus might build around the particulars of one record-setting novelist, Dan Brown. After only one year in hardcover, 53 printings, and 14 consecutive weeks in first place on the New York Times bestseller list, Brown's

Close-up of famous shapes measuring 20 to 200 nanometers across in Allen Hills meteorite [ALH84001], found at Allen Hills, Antarctica, showing what has generated debate and controversy around claims of ancient fossilized microbial life. Around 28 Mars meteorites have been identified so far.

Image Credit: NASA current blockbuster novel "The DaVinci Code", is already "the bestselling adult novel of all time within a one-year period". There are 6.8 million copies in print. But before authoring that runaway bestseller, novelist Brown wrote another book, arguably the first novel directly addressing the astrobiology community's interests. Entitled "Deception Point", Brown's book finds itself on a shelf among the vast library of other novels about creepy creatures from another world. But Brown is perhaps unique in considering what astrobiology itself seeks to examine: how would a cross-disciplinary team validate another lifeform? One finds this book not classified as much among science fiction novels as shelved among those page-turning thrillers.

The novel is also likely the first mainstream fiction to use the term 'astrobiology' explicitly when describing NASA's programmatic search for life elsewhere. Brown's thriller has the potential to introduce the scientific discipline called astrobiology to a wider audience than any effort to date. Brown has become known as an intricate plot-weaver; his stories pay attention to the finer details of a particular setting.

"Deception Point" is convincing to those interested in astrobiology based on its locations alone: an arctic ice shelf, the deepest ocean ridges, and ultimately the world's meteorite collections. But how solid or slippery that arctic ice shelf may prove for the author's fact checker is worth a round-trip journey to the ends of the astrobiology discipline itself. Can a plausible case be assembled that life is not anywhere but now right under our noses, among the many meteorites that bombard Earth annually? What fallout, both politically and scientifically, might accompany an announcement that Earth had been visited by fossilized biology from another world?

As an artist and film-maker, James Cameron has a particular personal interest in space, NASA. Credit: Lightstorm/Cameron If any fiction author working today could take on these perplexing questions, they would have to do considerable background research. Brown did just that. As Penzler's Pick reviewed "Deception Point" in 2001, "It is a pleasure to report that his new book lives up to his reputation as a writer whose research and talent make his stories exciting, believable, and just plain unputdownable... I repeat, Dan Brown's research is very, very good." In truth both the book's questions are complex to answer. According to filmmaker James Cameron , we may know the answer to the expected political and scientific fallout of finding fossils on a meteorite already, since a case study happened once before in 1996. "I think we already know," Cameron told Astrobiology Magazine. "Didn't Bill Clinton announce that the Allen Hills meteorite contained Martian organisms? Don't we already know the answer to that? People went, "Hey, there's life on Mars, cool. It's bacteria... If ( aliens ) don't land on the White House lawn and get out with a death ray, I think the average person is not going to be deeply shocked psychologically. Our expectations have been so elevated from science fiction movies."

The plot of "Deception Point" hinges on a biologically interesting meteor being profound enough to shake presidential politics. In an intricate twist on fact, the press conference held by Brown's fictional President announces that a meteor has been found swarming with strange insect-like fossils. To fact check what ensues in "Deception Point", or any novel for that matter, is daunting. If the fiction were intended to be a textbook, this story might take up where the 1996 Mars meteorite left off. But given Brown's meticulous attention to detail, the task is capable of providing a rich survey of astrobiology just to sort out the facts from the fiction. So in contrapuntal fashion, consider how one might try to mark up the first mainstream astrobiology novel and to check its booknotes.