Making a better bloodline of Christ conspiracy novel.

[The Mythanian]

So, It is widely agreed that the Da Vinci Code isn't that good of a novel. Personaly what annoyed me was all the talk about buildings and cars I had never heard of. Completely set me off, I kept feeling I couldn't imagine it properly.
So, what I'm getting at is what should Dan Brown have done with the novel. The concept was good, the ancestors of Christ walk amongt us in secret and all that, but how could he have made it a better book. What would you do if you got the idea of writing something like that?

[David Mosley]

Check out Garth Ennis & Steve Dillion's graphic novel Preacher instead.

The series also invokes ideas popularized by such books as Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The DaVinci Code (the former was released before Preacher, and it is not known if Ennis was inspired by it; the latter was released after the completion of Preacher). Like these two works, Preacher claims that there is a still-viable bloodline descending from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. Herr Starr reveals to Cassidy that Jesus had children, and did not die on the cross, but instead lived to middle-age, and was killed by a runaway dung cart (so, the bloodline of Jesus theme is treated in a satirical way, not seriously). After his death the Grail guardians took away his offspring, who were forced to intermarry with one another in order to keep Jesus' divine power within the bloodline. For over 2000 years this intermarrying perpetuated an incestuous family tree culminating with the mentally handicapped descendents of Jesus having a child, during the birth of whom the mother dies, effectively producing the last generation of the Jesus' line. The grotesque character of the Allfather D'Aronique, the psychotic and obese ruler of The Grail organization, takes on the mentally deficient son as his ward and uses him to consolidate his power. Jesse Custer's grandmother is the Allfather's aunt, thus explaining how both Starr and D'Aronique are aware of him before the Annville incident.

Herr Starr eventually kills Allfather D'Aronique and the Messiah, taking his place as leader of the Grail organization and severing the bloodline of Abraham, David, and Jesus.

This enables Starr to enact his plan of placing a more aesthetically pleasing, articulate, and compelling "messiah" in place: Jesse Custer.

Although the 'bloodline' plot is only a small part of a much larger narrative, pick it up. You won't regret it.

(Well, maybe you will. It is pretty offensive on many levels.)

[The Mythanian]

I am familiar with Garth Ennis' Preacher, I'm just posting this to see what other people would do with a Christ bloodline theory for a story.
Myself, I'd make various factions of Christ descendents around the world. Some in France, somemore in Egypt, a couple in India, and I would portray said novel from there point of view instead, just because I would think it would be more interesting. What do you think?

[Groakes]

I am working on a Christ conspiracy story at the moment - though the bloodline is not part of it. It has gone through three iterations so far (over about three years) - It's a bugger of a thing. I know the story I want to tell, I just can't find the right framework to put it in....

[The Mythanian]

good luck on that, Groakes