Welp, looks like there will no release of The Solomon Key in 2006. This just reported in The Bookseller:

Dan Brown's much-anticipated next novel will not hit the shelves until 2007, more than a year later than his publishers had originally planned. Transworld m.d. Larry Finlay confirmed that Brown's writing had been delayed by his involvment in the Tom Hanks film and the High Court trial. "[The book] is out of our schedules for this year," he said. "I think and hope it's going to appear in 2007."

In the wake of the news, Brown emailed The Book Standard, explaining "My books are time-consuming to research and complicated to construct. I am taking the time necessary to ensure that this new book is every bit as entertaining as The Da Vinci Code.” (thanks Fred).

I guess the best thing to do in the meantime is read my book on The Solomon Key (*wink*).

Wired has news that the cryptographic Kryptos sculpture at CIA headquarters - said to be a plot element in The Solomon Key - actually has a typographical error in it's cipher. The Kryptos Group has also released a statement about the correction.

A new book of interest is The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms, by Elonka Dunin (Amazon US). Why post this on a page about Dan Brown you ask? Simple - Dunin is most well-known for her work in decoding the ciphers of James Sanborn, the creator of the Kryptos statue at C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia. As I point out in my book The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key (Amazon US), Sanborn and Kryptos are quite likely to play a part in Dan Brown's much-awaited sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Dunin confirms as much in this short interview. Interestingly, she also has a personal comment from Dan Brown about the one degree discrepancy between the co-ordinates coded into the dust-jacket of The Da Vinci Code (again, see my book if you don't know about this), and the actual location of Kryptos:

I've asked Dan Brown about that. He just says, "The discrepancy is intentional"...It points to the general location of CIA headquarters, about 150 feet southeast of the sculpture. His books are basically treasure hunts. I think he's planning to do that in Washington, D.C. One of the "go here, get a clue" is going to be, maybe, "Kryptos."

An interesting piece of extra information, ne c'est pas?

A surprising source for new information about the next Dan Brown novel is...Dan Brown! As part of his testimony for the ongoing court case in London (over alleged plagiarism of Holy Blood, Holy Grail), Brown submitted a very detailed witness statement which works through the writing of each of his books. Within this statement, there are a number of new clues to topics and sources for the new book. I've gone through and listed these in a new essay here on site, "Solomon Key Hints - From Dan Brown Himself". Feels good to have predicted a number of these sources correctly!

There have been some rumblings that bookstores are mentiong a May 2006 release for Dan Brown's next book, and one particular person over at the Cult of Dan Brown forums has said they have been sent a flyer from the Doubleday Book Club which says the same. Anybody else heard mention of this?

I've added another essay to the site (all previous articles can be accessed at any time via the 'Latest Essays' box on the right hand side of the page) - the most recent addition is titled "The Masonic Foundations of America", and looks at the Masonic and Deist influences which shaped the founding of the United States of America. As I point out in my book The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key (available from Amazon US), this subject looks likely to be explored in the sequel to The Da Vinci Code. It's worth exploring in any case, as it's truly ironic that politics in the U.S. in recent times has been shaped by Christian fundamentalist groups, when the nation was originally founded as a refuge from such ideological thinking.

This essay originally appeared in Issue 3 of Sub Rosa magazine, along with a number of other great articles on various 'alternative' topics - including a brilliant piece from Mark Oxbrow on the real history of Rosslyn Chapel. All issues of Sub Rosa are freely available as a PDF download from the website, so I encourage everyone to go download Issues 1 to 3 for some great reading (Issue 4 is due out in March).

The UK's Independent has a small report saying that industry speculation about an Autumn 2006 release for The Solomon Key looks to be off-base:

Meanwhile, Transworld plays down speculation that Dan Brown's new book, The Solomon Key, will appear next autumn. To think that the health and wealth of so much of the book trade is conditioned by the actions of a reclusive ex-teacher.

So when should we expect it? A Xmas 2006 release perhaps, or will the release be pushed right back into 2007?

I've added two essays to the site on the topic of The Solomon Key, which were originally published over the past few months in magazines and websites. "Dan Brown and the Ku Klux Klan" looks at some strange connections between Washington, D.C., Freemasonry and the Ku Klux Klan, and throws up some wildcard ideas which might turn up in Dan Brown's next book. "Dan Brown - The Udjat and The Solomon Key" is probably a lot closer to the subject matter in DB's upcoming novel, as it finds some very strong connections between the Da Vinci Code web challenge, and the likely resources Dan Brown will be using for his research.

Don't forget also, that we have an entire chapter from The Guide to Dan Brown's The Solomon Key available online: "Strange Constructions" (see the bottom of that page for viewing options) peruses the location of The Solomon Key (Washington, D.C.) for esoteric and Masonic locations which will probably become the landscape for the plot (as Rome and Paris do in earlier novels). Even better, just buy the book already (details over to the right of this page)!