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Summary: Look Out Umberto Eco!
Review: Dan Brown's Angels and Demons combines the intricate connections of Foucault's Pendulum with a pacing that will keep you from sleeping, eating, and from any basic social interaction. An impressive accomplishment!
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Summary: Thrilling adventure
Review: Angels and Demons is a thoroughly engaging thriller. It's one of those wonderful books that grabs your attention right at the start and takes you on a wild ride all the way to the end, while keeping you tethered to reality with fantastic factoids. At times the action left me breathless, if not squirming with anticipation, like a great rollercoaster ride. Just when I started to relax the action would take a sharp turn and leave me hanging by my well-gnawed fingernails. Don't try to read this if you have any other plans or you'll never get to them. This is a real page-turner.
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Summary: Galileo, Milton, Bernini, Raphael, Cecil Rhodes, George Bush
Review: And the list of names above is just a sample of historical figures that play a part in this tale that moves almost as quickly as the corporate plane from CERN.When I first saw the book and the clever cover I thought it was a gimmick, and generally books with a hologram or in this case an ambigram or other device to get your attention I tend to find disappointing. In this case that feeling could not be further from the truth. If you really enjoy reading a book that is a meticulously assembled puzzle, or perhaps an enigma that is at once high-tech and 500 years old, this book is for you. If you enjoy the misdirection that a Charles Palliser novel offers you will enjoy this. As I read this Author for the first time I was reminded of the first Robert Ludlum book I read "The Matarese Circle". And like that reading experience I now will go back and read the Author's previous work "Digital Fortress." Religion versus Science, Galileo versus The Vatican, or perhaps The Illuminati versus Catholicism, or is it religion? Interested in how you can learn the truth of the tale? How about your wallet, have a dollar bill?, good place to start. A book on Bernini's work will help; one of the main characters in the book needed one. Perhaps a map of Rome, or of the smallest Country in the world, actually you need none of these as the Author provides all you could want. A dollar bill as a bookmark will add to the fun. This is an extremely well researched work that relies on facts, turns its back on cheap literary sleight of hand, and will deliver to the reader a great experience. Do you know from where the word Assassin is derived from? I do, and I have seen other Authors botch this, Mr. Brown gets it correct. There are other details like that that I was familiar with and he nailed them all accurately. This inspires confidence as a reader when he introduces a topic you are unfamiliar with. I chose to check on several of those, and again the information in the story was dead on accurate. I normally don't check the details of a book this closely, as this book was suggested to me I felt I needed to do so in light of how highly I was to rate the work. I had no obligation to read or comment upon the work. If you enjoy a great literary ride for pure pleasure think of the better books by Ludlum, Clancy, Dale Brown, Forsythe, LeCarre, and their peers in the genre and you will enjoy this book. And when the book is finished the experience can and should be extended. The book also has an associated website. I won't say what is there, as it will spoil the book. However when reviewed after the reading is complete it makes the whole "Angels And Demons" experience even better. Doubt a detail in the book; the site will probably lay it to rest. But again, book first, site second. I am sure others will copy this bundling of the web with a book, I only hope it as well done as in this case. I recommend the book without reservation. As I said "Digital Fortress" has been added to my reading list. Very well done, enjoy!
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Summary: Brown has written one of the best summer books of the year!
Review: Just finished Angels & Demons, and Dan Brown has made a book that entertains just as much as it teaches. As a history major, it is hard to find books that contain a little historical truth, much less a lot of it. Brown has done that, and more. A&D gives a history lesson rivaling those taught in any Ivy league school, yet carries the reader on a multitude of hair-pin turns and thrill rides through Rome. The twists come right after another, culminating in a climax that is second to none. Anyone who has an interest in the Vatican, the mysteries it holds within its crypts and vaults, or just plain loves a good thriller, A&D is the book for you. Excellent summer book to take to the beach, but bring the suntan oil, you won't be moving for quite a while.
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Summary: Outstanding
Review: If you want to read one book this year that will keep you so entertained, you'll not be able to stop reading (cliche'd but true), this is it. The surprises in store for the readers is amazing. Simply one of the best adventures of the year (so far). Highly recommended...
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Summary: fantastic read
Review: almost missed my connection out of chicago last week because I got so engrossed in this story / simply ingenious / borrowed book from a coworker (she raved) and never put it down / have met few thrillers this darned fun to devour / a few miniscule complaints about masonic history (being one myself) but tiny quibbles in an overall unforgettable read / highly recommended
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Summary: Preposterous Plot
Review: Did I read the same book as the other reviewers? Although, the book was full of very interesting facts, they were interwoven into the story in a very annoying way. The narrative was overly melodramatic, amateurish, and sometimes downright silly. For people with a deadline to meet they sure had a lot of time to discuss everything to death. The plot was just plain ludicrous.
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Summary: Some good ideas, but paltry substance.
Review: A candidate for the "wait for it in the paperback bargain bin" category. The intentions of this book are eminently noble, and one dreads to think on the midnight oil the author's research staff must have endured to discover some of the factual information set forth. But the lace-thin story just doesn't meet the requirements of the material, which ultimately serves as simple namedropping. Imagine reading a quick 200pp novellette about Buddhism, the CIA's inner sanctum, and Astrophysical Cosmology - a couple guys dashing around and blowing things up isn't going to cut it. But that's this book, more or less. So while the story ideas could have been, if developed, interesting, look to a thorough writer like Ludlum or Clancy to tell stories with the substance one looks for in such presupposed tales of intrigue. For example, if an author establishes the pretense of a group planning to destroy the Vatican, readers will justly expect to learn something meaty about the motives and expectations of these terrible people. But the Illuminati remain as much in the dark at the end of the story as they were in the beginning. So, the book, while it has a page or two of tasty sauce, really has no meat to speak of.
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Summary: INGENIOUS and INFORMATIVE
Review: "Angels and Demons" is one of the best thrillers I have ever read. Besides being unable to put the book down, my wife and I learned a great deal about the Catholic Church, Rome, and the creation of anti-matter in the laboratories of Switzerland. I was fascinated to learn about the connection between the secret Illuminati brotherhood, the Masons and even the U.S. one-dollar bill. Behind the superb story, there is a rich backdrop balancing the conflict and agreement between science and religion. With the election of a new pope in the foreseeable future and the November choice between Gore and Bush (with their admitted ties to the secret societies of the Masons and Skull and Bones), this book gives readers much to think about, provided they have time to catch their breath from all the surprises, chills and thrills in the ingenious plot. As a bonus, the ambigrams throughout the book are unbelievable!
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Summary: Best of the best
Review: As a voracious reader, I have read the best. "Angels and Demons" is a heart-stopping thriller that keeps you turning pages until you arrive exhausted at the end. You're truly "in on the chase." Improbable as it seems, Dan Brown has combined nuclear physics and antimatter with Renaissance art, old Rome and the Vatican. You conjure up the images in your mind, but the icing on the cake is Brown's Web site which shows you the CERN facilities, the plane and then the exquisite artwork of Bernini and others as well as a peek inside the Vatican. It's a book that teaches, makes you think, and entertains, all at the same time. Few authors can accomplish that. Thanks, Dan Brown. You have a new fan.
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