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Summary: Treasure Hunt + Heresy = A Lot of Fun
Review: I always enjoy a good treasure hunt story, maybe everyone does. That's part of what made "Raiders of the Lost Ark" so much fun for me. This is another treasure hunt but the best part of the book is not the hunt but the treasure and the story behind it.I read most of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" many years ago so I already knew something of the legend of the Knights Templars and the "real" Holy Grail. The story fascinates me, though we'll probably never know if it's true. This book is another boy/girl chase story that, without the treasure part, would be similar to "The Bourne Identity" or "Three (or Six) Days of the Condor". And for a lot of people that would be plenty. For me, however, that would have just made it fairly routine and not that interesting. I want to recommend this book to those who are unaware of the legend of the Knights Templars or Mary Magdalene, etc. for an eye-opening and thought-provoking story. For those who aren't interested in opening their eyes or provoking their thoughts, I'm sure you'll enjoy it as a page-turning thriller.
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Summary: So glad I picked this one up.
Review: I work part time at Borders Books and had an opportunity to read an advance copy. What a joy! I love thrillers, art history and history in general. This one has got believable characters, a great meshing of multiple plotlines, and a couple of nice surprises at the end.
Thoroughly enjoyable. I've been recommending it to Borders customers ever since.
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Summary: A Modern Indiana Jones Story
Review: Okay, this book is definitely plot-driven, and there's not a lot of character development, but that's beside the point in a book like this. This book teems with secret societies, cryptography, exotic puzzles, and fascinating historical detail. If you liked the Indiana Jones movies, or if you have even a passing interest in the history of religion, the Holy Grail, the Knights Templar, and/or a great mystery that clips along from plot twist to plot twist, then this book will suck you in and not let you go.
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Summary: A Smart and Funny Fable
Review: Dan Brown has written an erudite, funny, and hugely entertaining fable about the history of Jesus, the Bible, the Roman Catholic Church, and those who study them. I suspect that the only readers who won't like "The Da Vince Code" will be those Christians so committed that they cannot see the fun in playing a fictionalized historical "What If?" game with the life of Jesus or those who are unwilling to suspend disbelief sufficiently to accept a wildly entertaining but preposterous tale. Trust me, the plot of this book has more to do with the Brothers Grimm than it does with provable historical fact. No matter, this is a tremendously satisfying read. 5 stars out of 5.
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Summary: A thinking person's book
Review: The success of this book is that it's a fictional work that brings the non-fictional world into better focus. As a story, it's fine and interesting enough to hold your attention. I found myself staying up til the wee hours of the morning in a race to finish it, but I'll also admit it's not any kind of epic piece of literature. It's a fun loving and informative summer novel. The 5 star rating is for the fact that it opens the reader's eyes to topics in history, art, mathematics, and religion that might have been overlooked, but which are startingly true. No matter how fantastical the background to the tale may sound, remember that none of the background is a work of fiction. And for those disturbed by how the real world organization of Opus Dei is portrayed in the book, be aware that the organization's aspects depicted in the book are also true. There are many legitimate books, websites and support groups available to confirm all the darker issues depicted in this book. I'm convinced the author was more concerned about informing the world about all these background issues than about the fictional plot. In this he succeeded. This book has provoked many eye opening discussions amongst folks I know and for that I am eternally grateful. Any book that can produce the amount of intellectual discourse and soul searching that I've recently observed deserves 5 stars.
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Summary: Great Book!
Review: One of the best books I have read in the last few years. The only people who won't like it are those who believe the Bible is fact. This is a thought provoking book and was great entertainment.
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Summary: I read it but am afraid to tell my friends
Review: This is a compelling mystery remixing the grail mythos. However Mr. Brown's characters and their emotional interactions are preadolescent.
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Summary: Educational page turner!
Review: Using the info found in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and other Rennes-le-Chateau material (and taking the names Sauniere and Bezu for 2 of his main characters), Brown has crafted a Crichton-esque page-turner, that also balances our 1500+ (not 2000 as he points out) year patriarchal religious bent with a (it seems to me, more natural) goddess-worship view of religion. Lots to learn (and the author doesn't invent it, type in "Rennes-le-Chateau" in Google for an eye-opener) while page-turning furiously (I read it on Metro escalators). Far from coming across as "atheistic" or one-sided, Dan Brown presents a balanced, sympathetic view (maybe a tad condescending, coming from the perspective that the Grail material is in fact, true) of conventional Christian belief.
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Summary: Relax, it's fiction!
Review: I'm not sure what's got everyone so riled up about this book: perhaps it's the multitude of conspiracy theories that come together to make this story work? Maybe it's the potentially offensive character who kills in the name of the Catholic Church? I think it's a combination of the two. The book is based in truth - Brown did his research on the subjects of art, cryptography, and secret societies. But from there, he takes off in an imaginative and exciting direction, weaving a first-class story about art, history, murder, conspiracy theories, and secret societies. His protagonist, a symbologist named Robert Langdon, is trying to find out why a great art historian and curator at the Louvre has been murdered, and why he has been thrown together with the man's granddaughter by chance. Or has it been planned all along? Computer scientists, historians, and anyone with an open mind (remember, this is fiction, despite the strong factual base the story is built upon) will enjoy the twists, turns, puzzles, and intelligence involved in The DaVinci Code. It's a fast read, the characters are interesting, and the plot is absolutely stunning in its originality. Some earlier reviews mentioned awkward prose throughout the book, but it seems to me that that's just how certain characters speak. Internal thoughts and the author's vivid descriptions flow more gracefully than the sometimes stilted speech of some characters, but it wasn't a major issue. I certainly wasn't stumbling over it as I read. The pace of this book speeds up more and more until you get to the end and just can't put it down. This was the first e-book I bought for my pocketPC, and I'm glad I got it. I was reading it at every possible moment: in the car, on the bus, while cooking dinner. Though the beginning is very low-key, giving background on characters, history, and facts, you get sucked in quickly, and by the end, you find yourself staying up until the wee hours of the morning trying to read as much as you can. The online web quest that accompanies the book is highly recommended, too. Visit Dan Brown's web site to check it out - I'm glad this author has thought of his readers to such an extent that he's willing to create something like that for us to have fun with.
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Summary: Sacreligious Wild Goose Chase
Review: The Davinci Code unfolds as a Grail Quest, but it's really just a wild goose chase. The book has to be one of the most sacreligious books in recent memory; doing for Christianity what Muslims felt the Satanic Versus did for Islam.
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