Rating: Summary: Jaw-Dropping! Review: Not being a big fan of suspense litterature, I had my doubts when one of my clients suggested "Angels & Demons" as a great read...but seeing his enthusiasm for the book, I started reading it the same evening...and finished it 2 days later! Just amazing! I don't know what I was expecting, but I certainly was not expecting such a "chef-d'oeuvre" like this one. Dan Brown is certainly an author to be discovered, his books to be read with careful attention.Enjoy!
Rating: Summary: Very Enjoyable Review: Angels And Demons is another great Dan Brown Book. It is enjoyable on many levels, continuing the hybrid of mystery and religion themes set forth in The Da Vinci Code. Very Enjoyable
Rating: Summary: Wonderful! Review: An amazing book by the author of the Da Vinci code. It shares certain similarities with the Da Vinci code: a prominent person gets murdered which prompts a phone call to Robert Langdon, who investigates it along with a woman who's related to the deceased, and together they get immersed in a sinister world of religion, anti-religion, murder, intrigue, and the like. The big difference between the two books is that Angels and Demons centers on the age old debate between religion and science and whether they are compatible. Like the Da Vinci code, I read this book in one night. Brilliant! I have only two minor quibbles: 1) the physics information got a little heavy at times. I found myself skipping over a couple of pages when Kohler and Vittoria were talking about physics and anti-matter 2) a couple of things went on too long and were too abstract for me to wrap my brain around, such as the camarlengo's televised address to the world about science and religion. It definitely showed that Dan Brown has an incredible grasp on the complexities of the religion vs. science debate, but I found that scene a tad hokey. Besides those two little things, this book is superb! Read it!
Rating: Summary: religion meshed with science, an eye-opening book Review: Being a Christian and a student of science, both this book and the Da Vinci Code was extremely captivating to me. Nonetheless, setting the subject aside, the story and plot alone was incredibly attention-grabbing. Although i love both books, i must say i took longer to read this than the Da Vinci Code. But I'm not sure if it was because it's just a tiny bit less suspenseful or because I read the Da Vinci code first, and the novelty of Dan Brown's writing and style caused me to not be able to put it down. However Angels&Demons' story line was a bit more complex than the Da Vinci Code, and less predictable so that was great. I had my suspicions of who the culprit was in the Da Vinci Code but when the culprit was revealed in Angels&Demons, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Some people might be annoyed with the author's attention to details, namely, the history, traditions, and inner workings of Catholicism and the Vatican. I never enjoyed history in school, or any other liberal arts subject matters, but I feel his explanations and details necessary to the storyline. These two fiction novels were surprisingly educational and I was glad to have learned so much after each reading. Part of what makes these books so great is that they contains so many facts, which ground the stories and prevented me from thinking that the events happening were too outrageous/unbelievable. I wouldn't start these books if you can't afford to lose sleep /put off whatever you were supposed to do!
Rating: Summary: Then suddenly it all made sense... Review: This book is all set within a 24-hour period. It's got mysticism and cults, action, violence, romance, discussion on religion and science and pretty much all the things you need for a quick, addictive little book that will obsess your mind. I got a little irritated by the fact that the main character has repeated moments of clarity where SUDDENLY it all makes sense and a section of plot is explained through his revelations, but then again, the plot is pretty contrived to begin with. I found I enjoyed it none-the-less.
Rating: Summary: Amazingly gripping Review: Dan Brown is an author for the new age intellectual, mixing a good balance of religion and science ideas to create a masterpiece. This book should be getting the praise his later book " The DaVinci Code" is. It is one of the most well written gripping books I have ever read. Being a history and art buff this book interested me on more than one level. I can whole heartedly claim this man to be a genius. His main character is the kind that men can admire and women can wish they could date. The perfect mix of chivalry and reality, Robert Langdon comes alive in this book. Amazingly most people I feel could relate to him even though he is a Harvard professor, he isn't haughty or unapproachable. I would give this book 10 stars if possible I loved it.
Rating: Summary: Fun and fast reading! Review: Fast-paced and well written Angels & Demons is better than its title suggests. A mystery set in the 1990s involving age-old intellectual prejudices is very appropriate for a decade of modern day opulence. As a Whodunit, it is up there with some British classics from other decades. To revisit the timeless battle between science and religion is always welcome to inquiring minds. So much of our daily lives have been influenced by what people know versus what they have faith in and believe to be true. The story line is based on the Anti Christ theme, where goodness somehow takes a wrong turn and the hero is the villain, but the adventure is in the twists and turns through intellectual history as well as the physical premises of the Vatican and Rome. Appreciating this book is the based on whether one is the type who walks through the streets and buildings of history to feel, see and recall what took place there even before one's own time, or if one sees the obvious physical environment in the present with no thought to its place in the past. To some, reading about the catacombs and opulence of the Holy Roman Empire and Vatican City will be revealing; while to others, it will simply be the detail that masks the mystery of who is behind the killing of past and future popes! This book will be well read for pleasure ten, twenty and even fifty years from now. Historians may even find it useful to gage our own time. It has a classic story line, the plot twists and turns to keep it suspenseful, but most of all, it is a well written historical novel about a Byzantine complex organization which has thrived since Christ. So much of what Brown writes about and rediscovers as background with readers has been simply forgotten or misunderstood. If a novel tickles our assumptions while unraveling a mystery, all the better! This is a great book. Two other quick Amazon recommendations are: WILL@epicqwest.com by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. Happy Holidays everyone! :o)
Rating: Summary: Foucault's Pendulum for dummies Review: A shallow, dumbed down version of Umberto Eco's great Foucault's Pendulum. After all of the raves I have heard about this book and this author, I was very disappointed. The characters are predictable and only lightly fleshed out, especially the villians. Everyone's motives in action and in life are easily explainable in a paragraph or two, and many of the characters are just absurd (the assassin especially, or sorry, Hassassin). The plot is filled with historical references and conspiracy theories, but it all feels hastily put together and too light, as if intended for TV. A second-rate thriller at best.
Rating: Summary: A great read! Review: A great read! I truly enjoyed reading this It's a rarity these days to find an author capable of such good storytelling. The story is well written and very engaging, and despite the fact that it lost some momentum in the middle, I found myself eagerly turning pages to find out what would happen next. All in all, though this is not quite a perfect novel, it comes close.
Rating: Summary: Taut, complex, intellectual and suspenseful Review: A dead Pope. Four missing cardinals, the favorites to succeed him. A murdered particle physicist branded with the mark of a secret society believed dead for hundreds of years. An American professor of religious iconography and a beautiful physicist out to avenge her father. These are the key ingredients in Dan Brown's first novel featuring Richard Langdon, and they mesh together to create an original, powerfully interesting and fast-paced story. Set in the form of a macabre and thrilling scavenger hunt (with the four cardinals, and ultimately the survival of the Vatican and the Church, as the prizes) around Rome, the book's action is compressed into a single, heavily-packed twenty-four hours. While this would be complex and fascinating enough on its own, the addition of the lore of the Illuminati, and the recasting of familiar tourist sites of Rome as signposts on a secret, subversive journey add a flair to the novel that is unique. If Robert Ludlum had written "The Name of the Rose" the result might have been very much like this novel- but Dan Brown is his own author, and he puts O. Henryish twists in almost every turn of the plot. If there is one quibble I have with "Angels and Demons", it is a very minor one. Throughout, all major characters are referred to either by their names or by an English translation of their titles, with the exception of the Pope's chamberlain- "camerlengo" in Italian- who, although introduced by name, is referred to by his Italian title throughout. Whether this is intended to reinforce this character's dedication to his role over his selfdom, or to separate him from other, more mundane minor characters, it becomes both repetitive and wearing over the course of the book. But this is a minor detail in the overall tapestry of the story. I began this book rolling my eyes over the co-opting of the Illuminati as a plot device and the ho-hum idea of a satanic cult murdering both physicists and cardinals. By page 50, I was hooked, and by the end, the book had drawn me in so completely that none of the plot twists seemed outlandish. On the whole an excellent read, and certainly a good lead-in to "The Da Vinci Code", which I've just started.
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