Rating: 
Summary: Oh please....
Review: After enjoying the yarn Brown spun in THE DAVINCI CODE (albeit while overlooking the pitifully cliched characters), I picked up this prequel. However, you'll have read another review to find out if any of the story after page 9 is worth your time. I stopped there. When a briliant, handsome, single, wealthy Harvard "symbologist" walks into an airplane hanger to find a futuristic jet that travels 15 times the speed of sound and is owned by a private nuclear research company, and THEN climbs aboaord like it's no big deal to settle in for an hour's flight from Boston to Geneva....that's where I get off the boat. Au revoir, Mr. Brown.
Rating: 
Summary: Move over Michael Crichton, there's a new man in town...
Review: Just in time for the 21st century, Dan Brown jumps to the top of the mass-market suspense/thriller genre with a handful of intricately plotted and furiously paced novels. The best of these -- despite the incredible sales and longevity of THE DA VINCI CODE -- is by far ANGELS & DEMONS. Propelling it's lead character (symbologist Robert Langdon) and readers into an enigmatic plot that unwinds page by page, ANGELS & DEMONS touches on science, religion, history, art, architecture... With every turn of the page, you descend deeper and faster into a story in which the very existence of God hangs in the balance. The characters are thin, their motivations and actions are sometimes odd, but the relentless plot pushes you onward. The historical elements are recognizable enough to make you wonder about the truth of these details, but not overbearing. The pace is so quick anyway that you won't have enough time to be slowed down. ANGELS & DEMONS isn't aspiring to be a history lesson, a scientific thesis, or a critical essay, but it DOES aspire, quite successfully, to be a no-rest-for-the weary, no-holds-barred, white-knuckled, page-turner of a thriller. Sometimes that's all you need.
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Summary: My favorite Brown
Review: I've read all of Brown's book, and this one is by far his best--even better than Da Vinci Code. The two are VERY similar, but A&D is better written in my opinion and the plot is more believable. Also recommended: McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD
Rating: 
Summary: Kinda like Da Vinci code, just not as good...
Review: This book reads like a practice attempt at writing Da Vinci code. The plot, characters, mystery, and story line are good, just not as good as da Vinci. The thing I most disliked about this book are some of the way-over-the-top things that happen that seem to be stuck in to make the plot work (i.e. supersonic airplanes, anti-matter bombs, miraculous escapes from helicopters). If you loved Da Vinc, you'll like this... similar, just not as good.
Rating:
Summary: Childish, pathetic book
Review: This book is pathetic...it is almost a bad comic book translated into text. The personalities of the characters are stereotyped and unidimensional, things happen without reason. The vilains are as credible as Batman's Penguin. In fact, nothing in this book is credible, from the ultra-sonic space ship-like plane to anti-matter bombs. The heroin's father dies and she has the reaction and feelings of a Miss Universe competitor talking about world peace.
It is possible to write a book using fantasy, if you are able to have some drama and some good characters (check Jules Verne). This is not the case. This book sounds like two guys got together for beer, and after drinking a dozen, started to think about a story, adding a character here, an action scene there, a fantastic gun there. The they add the patches together and make a book.
It is a mystery to me how this book is a bestseller.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Work of Art - Don't Miss This One !!!
Review: Angels & Demons is an unbelieveably well conceived and written. It may be the most interesting and creative novel I have read in years! Kudo's to Dan Brown and his amazing talent. You will find Mr. Brown's style easy to read and character development is wonderful. This novel just sucks you in and doesn't let go until the end. Whether you are a mystery buff or just enjoy a good read, you shouldn't miss this novel. It also introduces Robert Langdon, who is a central figure in the DaVinci Code. After reading the DaVinci Code, I was interested in reading some of the other novels written by Dan Brown and picked up Angels & Demons, as well as Digital Fortress and Deception Point. I would suggest you do too, you won't be disappointed!
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Summary: I have always been fascinated with the Illuminati so...
Review: I was delighted to find this book. It is a great story, very fast moving.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, average paperback thriller
Review: This book is good beach reading. It moves pretty fast and the descriptions are vivid. BUT, the culprit is revealed very early with an aside that is the movie equivalent to a suspect looking directly into a camera after the others have left the room. Too obvious.
The story should have ended much earlier than it did. It would have made for a tighter novel. Instead it wound up with some very fantastic and insipid plot twists that kind ruined the first 400 pages. They seemed like afterthoughts, as if he had a 500 word minimum and had to tack on more stuff at the end. That was disappointing.
I have not read the Da Vinci Code yet, but I hope its written better than this, for the sake of all the people who say its a great book.
Good for beach reading, but not great, or even good, literature.
Rating:
Summary: Great read . . . great companion
Review: This makes a great companion book if you're traveling to Rome. The descriptions are wonderful and you can actually see the churches, statues, etc. while there. Read it on the plane going over--my suggestion. And while I read "The Da Vinci Code" first, I liked "Angels & Demons" so much more. The writing is better, the characters are better (even though some are the same as "Da Vince" they're more "real")and the descriptions are just riveting! I also enjoyed reading two other books recently: McCrae's "Bark of the Dogwood" and Steinbeck's "East of Eden."
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Summary: Excellent Tour Guide to Rome
Review: With almost five hundred reviews written for this book, I doubt I have anything new to proffer, but repetition may serve well for here. Angels & Demons is firstly a very quick read. At 570+ pages in paperback, I read it in two days. It was mostly for this reason that I started reading it in the first place. I did not intend to read it, but before I could register to stop reading, I was on page 50. What sucked me in were the facts; the trivia and the fiction based on reality. CERN, the Vatican, Rome, its history and art and architecture. All the facts of location and art and history are reported to be non-fiction. This was by far the most worthwhile part of the read. Learning the history of the Illuminati and the major disputes between renaissance science and the Catholic Church made slogging through the story worthwhile. But it is the story that is the weakest part of Angels & Demons. Standard thriller stuff that is plot driven to the extreme and features next to no character development. The main character, Robert Langdon, has neither outstanding characteristics of behavior or charm with the exception of his skills in an archive room using a spatula. He's a walking, talking plot facilitator. Getting trapped, getting untrapped, and for being such a smart guy, he seems to know little about anything that is not art history. (I am neither scientist nor art historian yet I had heard of CERN and its particle accelerator.) The director of CERN is a mish-mash of generic creepy old-but-genius characteristics, who knows more about particle physics than nearly anybody else alive, but knows next to nothing about art or religious history. The female companion of Langdon is eye candy, which is disconcerting for a text-driven adventure. But how can a character be that engaging when she is genius as all the others, yet as an orphan at age nine did not know the meaning of "adoption", and whose most memorable description is that she is, "Lithe"? The rest of the characters follow the same pattern of connect-the-dots plot fulfillers, with the exception of one: the Pope's Chamberlain. He was actually interesting and the novel actually attempts to make him multi-dimensional. Unfortunately the last fifty pages of the novel become an exercise in destroying the nifty web of history, conspiracy, and some character development that was built up in the first 500. (It did not help that I figured out a key plot revalation about 300 pages before it happened thanks to the author's way too obvious attempt to be clever.) If the story had ended fifty pages sooner, this review would have been four stars. Unfortunately it becomes too much. But I did get a nice tour of Rome and a punch-drunk history lesson to boot, so it's not all bad.
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