Home :: Books :: Audiocassettes  

Arts & Photography
Audio CDs
Audiocassettes

Biographies & Memoirs
Business & Investing
Children's Books
Christianity
Comics & Graphic Novels
Computers & Internet
Cooking, Food & Wine
Entertainment
Gay & Lesbian
Health, Mind & Body
History
Home & Garden
Horror
Literature & Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers
Nonfiction
Outdoors & Nature
Parenting & Families
Professional & Technical
Reference
Religion & Spirituality
Romance
Science
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Sports
Teens
Travel
Women's Fiction
Angels & Demons : A Novel

Angels & Demons : A Novel

List Price: $26.00
Your Price: $18.20
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .. 72 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not a Bad Book
Review: I thought Angels and Demons was a good book overall. The book was suspensefull and kept you wanting to read the next chapter.It seemed a little long at times becuase it seemed like he could have ended the book at a couple places earlier in the book, but the ending he gave was still really good. I liked how it kept you guessing at who was the good guy and who was the bad guy.
My only real problem wth the book is how i find some of the events in it a little unbeleiveable. Like when Langdon managaed to survive the fall from the helicopter with a real parachute. I mean the idea of someone surviving that fall seems ridiculous. And it also seemed like a lot m ore went on then would have been allowed in just a 24 hour period.
All and all thought I thought the book was very entertaining and I like it a lot.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Science vs. Religion
Review: After reading The Da Vinci Code, I did what most did and read Angels & Demons. Angels & Demons still had all of the conspiracy theories and religious facts that The Da Vinci Code had, but Angels & Demons added the element of God vs. Science (instead of Gods vs. God). I found this conflict incredibly interesting and once again, Dan Brown wraps a suspenseful story around his theories and research.
Whether or not Dan Brown's research is true, the facts and theories presented in Angels & Demons had me doing my own research on the Illuminati and the secret history of the Catholic Church. This book gets you interested in certain things that most readers (me included) didn't even know existed before this book.
The first few pages of the story may sound slightly familiar if you've chosen to read The Da Vinci Code first but the rest of the story is truly unique. I read quite often, but I rarely find a book that I simply can not put down. I even lost sleep over this book.
If you've read The Da Vinci Code, then this should be your next choice. However, if you haven't read either, don't worry. You can read either one first and still understand everything that is going on.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: disappointing
Review: I read this after reading the Davinci Code. It follows too much of the same pattern but since I loved the first protagonist, I read on. It is intersting in some parts and gory in others and also exciting near the end but then gets very tedious. Brown manages to totally destroy the book with the ending. It seems he couldn't end with anything inspirational or thought provoking. The ending, in fact, made me angry that he had wrecked the book to propogate his own cynicism.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: fuhgettaboutit
Review: i did not care for this book. DA VINCI CODE was wonderful. pass this one up.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Angels and Demons
Review: Angels and Demons is definitly a good choice for anyone who likes action thrillers. the book was fast paced and was nothing but non stop action. from the first page the book had me hooked but i kind of wish i would have found out about this book before i read the sequal da vinci code. Robert Langdon takes you on a non stop adventure as he tries to unravel the mystery of 4 murdered cardinals. Each cardinal is branded with a different ancient symbol that leads langdon on his quest. Langdon searches all over Rome to stop the destruction of the city. The ending is awesome and it will keep you guessing the whole time.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Picking on Robert Langdon
Review: I have to admit, this book kept me on the edge for a long time. I enjoyed the plot, and ended up finishing it in three days. However, there are other errors in the book that irk me aside from the Latin and historical mistakes. Robert Langdon bugged me the most. I actually have a problem with most of Brown's characters (except for the Englishman in The Da Vinci Code), but I decided to choose Langdon to pick on.

The problem with Langdon is that he's nearly perfect. He doesn't have many faults, and his character is two-dimensional despite the odd quirks of claustrophobia and his Mickey Mouse watch. Brown portrays him almost like James Bond with a chivalrous touch: intelligent, thoughtful, distinguished, and, though modest, still vain enough to keep up a good physique. He's never held a gun before, but still manages to fire the Hassassin's toe off, and he still ends up getting the chick in the end (in the Da Vinci Code as well). Still he has a child's troubled past of his father's death and his own incident where he fell down a well. Just enough background information to make you feel sorry for him. Now what man wouldn't want to be Robert Langdon?

I think both Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code have wonderful fast-paced plots, but Brown needs to work a little on character development. Also he wrote phrases like, "If the killer were inside..." when you're supposed to say, "If the killer was inside..." You say "The killer was inside," not "The killer were inside." I'm 14, and I know that. For the grammatical errors, I'll also blame the editor who should have caught them.

All in all, three stars, because the writing and characterization was poor, but the plot was still full of cinematic twists, and turns, and unexpected surprises that fully engross the reader. I also enjoyed the morbidity of the murders.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: I want my money back
Review: I want my money back, this is what this book deserves

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Just okay
Review: I'm not a brainy-iac, so I don't know whether the wrong latin word was used or whether historical facts were misrepresented. All I know was this was one hard pill to swallow. First of all, for the first third of the book I didn't understand why the hero in this story was contacted in the first place. And I simply didn't believe the whole premise of anti-matter. It made no sense of how it was created or stored. I couldn't get past that. How do you do that...and how do you store it? Okay,

let's get to the Mach 15 plane. Why does this man have this? Plus, the hero failed to save any of the cardinals. Indiana Jones--this man is not. For a smart man he doesn't a lot of dumb things. Plus, these people can run across towns in matter of seconds..maybe a minute. But the subject matter is different...which is the whole trick to Mr. Brown's popularity. And for that my hat goes off to him for that.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Fun but plenty of mistakes and preposterous timing
Review: A fun read, but all the mistakes wreck the suspension of disbelief, and anyone knowing something about Rome would have a VERY hard believing the timing of the plot. Mr. Brown would have been better off doing a bit more research and tripling or quadrupling the time involved. At the very least, it would have been a bit more believable, to no detriment to the novel. Also, a lot of Italian word errors, and way too many errors about Rome and its layout to count. On one page, the facade of St. Peters faces west, on another it faces east (the correct orientation); the helicopter fly-in from the Da Vinci airport to Rome is incorrect; S.M. Popolo is at the NE corner of piazza del Popolo, not the SE corner; S.M. Popolo is described incorrectly; you can't drive through Rome's medieval district in 5 minutes in light traffic, let alone heavy traffic; the fountain in front of the Pantheon is small and doesn't really block the view of the Pantheon's entrance; you can't swim in Bernini's fountain in piazza Navona- the basin is too shallow; you can't see Rome's skyline by climbing up the fountain; you can't run from Castel Sant Angelo to the Vatican in 5 minutes in the viaduct- unless you're a mile runner starting fresh; running through the Vatican complex (both St. Peter's and the papal offices) takes a lot longer than is described- both are immense; you can't get from St. Peter's Square to the top baluster of the facade in a few minutes; etc etc etc. It's a shame, because a little care in these basic departments could have gone a long way to making the book better.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Brain candy...
Review: A friend gave me Dan Brown's Angels and Demons and advised me to read it before his more famous The DaVinci Code. I was surprised to read some really negative reviews. Yes, the book is not without some flaws. The characters could be fleshed out a little more, there are numerous errors, and the ending was a bit hokey. But Brown takes his readers on a thrilling, fast-paced ride with lots of twists, turns and bumps. I was so anxious as I neared the end that I read the last 200 pages of this 569 page book in one night.

Angels and Demons starts out with an elite scientist/priest being murdered at a top secret nuclear research facility, C.E.R.N. The body has been branded with the word "Illuminati. The Illuminati was a powerful, clandestine group founded during the days of Galileo when the Roman Catholic Church was persecuting scientists and suppressing scientific discoveries. The victim, Leonardo Vetra, has been trying to prove through science the existence of God. Vetra, and his daughter Vittoria, have developed a revolutionary new discovery-antimatter. It has the potential to be the greatest source of energy, but it also has the power of mass annihilation. Vetra's killer has stolen a considerable amount of this antimatter from Vetra's lab.

The C.E.R.N. director calls in Harvard professor and expert on religious symbology, Robert Langdon. Langdon has extensive knowledge about The Illuminati. Langdon teams up with Vittoria to try and solve this mystery. Not only must they find the stolen antimatter (which has been stashed somewhere inside The Vatican and will explode within hours), but they also must help to find four kidnapped cardinals (on the eve of the election of a new pope).

For those who find fault with this book, there is so much that makes it worth the read. We get some history on Roman Catholicism, the papacy and The Vatican. We learn many tidbits of Vatican trivia. The Vatican Archives and Library must be an unbelievable treasure trove. We also learn some tidbits about Rome-her history, her famous landmarks, churches, fountains and works of art. Brown takes us through the steps to electing a new pope. And of course, there is the age-old discussion of organized religion vs. religious belief vs. science. But what makes Angels and Demons especially fascinating is that there is so much truth interspersed throughout the book. C.E.R.N. is a real research facility, and antimatter has already been discovered. The Illuminati were an actual group, and we're left wondering if they really died out (as Langdon surmises). And of course, there is all that history previously mentioned.

This book has a blockbuster ending that includes a miracle or two. It was a little far fetched in spots, but still enjoyable. And I had not a clue who the real villain was until the very end.

So despite some flaws, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Angels and Demons. I look with great expectation to reading The DaVinci Code.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 .. 72 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates