Rating: 
Summary: Still not DaVinci Code... but worth the read
Review: I guess I had higher expectations for this book since I read The DaVinci Code first... nonetheless it was a good story that brought in elements of physics and antimatter technology, a Satanic cult, and Italian art... Dan Brown has an interesting way of doing that! Robert Langdon is a great character--sometimes his feats seem a little too extraordinary, but they are still fun to read about. I found the Illuminati history interesting, as well as the discussions about the art and symbology. Overall a pretty good book, but DaVinci Code still is my favorite!
Rating: 
Summary: A Fun Ride, But It's Still Pulp
Review: Make no mistake, this is a fun summer read. But that's all it is. There's a review on the cover of the book that says that it's a thriller with an "unusually high IQ." That's a bit of a stretch. Dan Brown combines an impressive knowledge of science, architecture, and art with a shallow understanding of (and apparent bias against) Christianity to produce a fun book that shouldn't be taken seriously. And there are parts where the author says things like "if he'd only known what would happen later that day, he would have stayed in bed." This is unspeakably awful and gives the feel that you're reading a Hardy Boys novel instead of a "high IQ" thriller. I also had a hard time routing for the main character because he was such a weenie. This made the more suspenseful parts less exciting because I was secretly hoping the guy would get killed. Still, the idea for the plot is great and there are parts of the book that are pure pulp euphoria. But I don't think holding a tarp over your head would help much when you're falling from a helicopter far up in the sky. Maybe that's just me.
Rating: 
Summary: A terrific and informative book
Review: This book makes you think....a fine thriller loaded with interesting facts and theories. The style is a bit trite but this is a book well worth reading...then grab the Da Vinci Code
Rating:
Summary: Angelic Plot, Demonic End
Review: This is a wonderful thriller, full of twists, turns and mysteries galore. The story centers on the Catholic church, conspiracies, and the art world. It's a very enjoyable read but I couldn't give it a 5 because this author suffers from, what I affectionately call, Crichton Syndrome. This simply means that the book builds to amazing heights but the end is less than satisfying...in most cases, downright dumb. You'll love the book, just turn your "suspension of disbelief" button to high for the ending. You'll need it to believe parts of the climax.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely fabulous!
Review: I've been hungry for a book like this for years. Ever since being disappointed by other vatican thrillers titled BASILICA and REQUIEM (ugh). I would highly recommend ANGELS AND DEMONS, as well as THE DAVINCI CODE to anyone who enjoys mysteries, thrillers, or just a darn good read. Just delicious. Could have done without the little romance, but hey what the heck. I enjoyed the puzzle, the history, the scientific aspect, etc. What fun!
Rating:
Summary: Pretty good, pretty annoying
Review: I read this book because a bunch of people told me I should read "The Da Vinci Code", and I learned that this was an earlier book in the same "series". I felt i should read this one first, especially since I could get it in paperback. I am not usually a thriller fan (I've only read two thrillers previously that I really liked, despite occasionally trying others). Anyway, I got the book and started reading it with some trepidation. The extremely gruesome beginning nearly put me off the book, and certainly made me think it was going to be a lot more viscerally gross than it turned out to be. However, I kept with it, and finally made it to the end. It's a pretty good book, but a couple times, I nearly threw it across the room. Other reviewers here have donee a good job of explaining what is good about the book (lots of interesting puzzles, a fast-paced twisty plot, decent pacing, the concatanation of myriad random things into a rational pattern, and some interesting philosophical issues to wrestle with), so I won't belabor them. it was a fun book to read, and at the end, I did not feel I had wasted my time, as I so often do when I read thrillers. That having been said, I found lots of things annoying about the book, and sometimes, it was hard to keep myself from flinging it out the window. The heavy-handed foreshadowing (starting with the comment on page 23 -- paperback edition -- about how some random fact he had just learned was going to save his life later tonight in another country) drove me nuts. I don't mind cardboard characters in a plot-driven novel like this, but I think that cardboard characters should refrain from changing their fundamental natures with no explanation. When the final plot twist depends on someone being other than who the reader thinks that person was, there should have been subtle signs of that earlier, which the reader can review in her mind and say, "Aha! I missed that!" Plus, the entire plot depends on Langdon's intuition being very very shrewd, so the occasional failures of his intuition were very noticeable. (like when he climbed onto the helicopter so he could make use of the random fact he had learned on page 23). Finally, the notion that a bunch of Renaissance scientists would have chosen English as their "pure language", while explained cleverly in the plot, is just too convenient, and broke my suspension of disbelief. I had to put the book down for a day or two after that happened before I could resume the roller coaster ride. I've heard that many of the heavy-handed writing problems are gone in the sequel, so I will probably read it. In the end, this book was not a waste of my time, but it did not make it onto my list of "thrillers for the ages". Oh, and comparisons to Umberto Eco simply serve to underline the deficiencies of this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Don't plan to do anything else
Review: Don't plan to do anything else but read, when you start Dan Brown's Angels & Demons. If I could give it more than five stars I would. I usually read for a half hour or hour at bedtime, but this book was so intriguing that I devoured it in a day and a long night - literally could not come up for air. (sorry about the cliches, but they really fit this book!) The loss of sleep was worth it. Brown's research into the Vatican, physics, the science-religion debate, churches and architecture and statues in Rome, and the Illuminati was really intricate, and made the book seem very realistic. I do not like books with a religious theme or sub-theme, as they tend to be preachy. However, here Brown raised various sides of issues that really got my mind engaged. The science-religion issues were essential to the book and seamlessly interwoven with the thrilling chase through the Vatican and Rome to find the killer and stop the anti-matter explosion. Brown put lots of twists in the book - some were easy to anticipate, but the obvious isn't always correct. Each time I thought the book had reached its climax something new happened and it kept going. If you don't like too much violence (I don't), you may be turned off by the first chapter - but stick it out - there are only a few graphic parts, and Brown doesn't stretch them out too much. The book was full of tension, and I was delighted at the end to crack up laughing out loud at a line that was totally unexpected and helped bring me back to reality. Be sure to allow yourself plenty of uninterrupted time for this one, because you may find it hard to put down!
Rating:
Summary: a fun fast read--bring it to the beach
Review: Brown has written a fun and interesting thriller-one which combines science fiction, history and religion. This is the kind of book you should bring to the beach or on a plane-it's a quick read and will keep your interest until the end. When a scientist/priest is murdered under strange circumstances, Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor of iconography, is called in to explain the mysterious symbols carved on the dead man's body. Langdon notes that the symbols referred to the Illuminati-a heretical group which has battled the Catholic Church...but the Illuminati have long since disappeared...or have they?! Langdon sets out to discover if the Illuminati are still active and if they are behind the murder. You won't be sorry you read this-my only complaint was a minor one (as an historian of science, I have to point out that science and religion are not and have not always been in diametric opposition to one another
Rating: 
Summary: The Pot Boils Over
Review: At 569 paperback pages, "Demons and Angels," tells a clever story that would have been twice as clever at half the length. Religious potboilers come with particular devices attached. Primary, of course, is the battle between good and evil, with both usually embedded within the Catholic Church. The good are generally comprised of conservative clerics tinged with liberal/humanist streaks; and the bad are either ultra-conservatives working through an obscure cult to bring the church back to some medieval purity, or out-and-out Satanists suckered by the Prince of Lies, and intent on destruction. Satan, himself, has been known to make a personal appearance. "Demons and Angels," remains true to form but adds enough, shall we say, "Devilishly clever," twists and turns to refresh the genre. The ritual murder of a priest/physicist who has captured anti-matter in the labs of a Swiss Scientific Foundation provides the device that gets this page-turner ripping along. We're quickly set up with an ever-resourceful he-man scholar, his gorgeous and ever-resourceful counterpart - who happens to be the priest/physicists adopted daughter; a slightly demonic lab director; an impossibly dull chief of Vatican security; and a "camerlengo" who may or may not be the second coming. Author Dan Brown then throws in the cult of the Illuminati; the skullduggery of a Papal Conclave; art history; religious and scientific arcana; and enough Perils of Pauline cliff-hangers for two books. This huge pot is Mr. Brown's undoing. There's so much here that we have characters discussing art history, and religious lore as they're, literally, running between murders and acts of daring-do. And there are so many such acts crammed into a twenty-four hour period that it becomes impossible to suspend disbelief -a fatal flaw for a thriller. Had Mr. Brown managed to cut about 200 pages "Demons and Angels" would have been one hell of a book. As it is, it's interesting, and exciting, but ultimately a failure. Perhaps he does better with the "The Da Vinci Code" which on first look appears to be a second chance. We'll see.
Rating:
Summary: Assault on the Vatican
Review: Leonardo Vetra, physicist at CERN, the world's largest scientific research facility based in Switzerland has been found bizarrely and ritualistically murdered. Vetra had been branded across the chest with the word Illuminati. Max Kohler, head of CERN, immediately contacted Harvard religious iconology professor and art historian Robert Langdon. Kohler hoped to summon Langdon, one of the world's foremost authorities on the secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati. The Illuminati was a secret society conceived by Italy's most enlightened men in the 1500's in response the church's censure of scientific truth. The society was comprised of scientists, artists and mathematicians who were at odds with the church and lead by Galileo. Some radical members advocated violence against the church. Meetings were clandestine as the church had subjected some members to torture and death. As Langdon examined the murdered scientist who was also a cleric, Vetra's daughter Vittoria burst into the complex. Also a renowned physicist she had been involved in a project outside the facility and was alerted to her father's death. It was soon learned that Vetra had been working on a means to simulate Genesis in the laboratory. He had suceeded in creating matter from nothing using huge particle accelerators. Also created as a by product was anti matter which was determined to be a force far more powerful than nuclear energy. To contain the created anti matter Vittoria had invented a receptacle which by using powerful magnets suspended the anti matter in a vacuum. It seems that if anti matter comes in contact with any matter including air it annihilates or devastatingly explodes. Upon investigating Vetra's lab it is detemined that a large droplet of anti matter has been stolen and will detonate within 24 hours. The anti matter which can vaporize an area with a half mile radius eventually turns up in the Vatican. Langdon and Vittoria Vetra rush to the Vatican and soon learn that a plot hatched by the long thought dead Illuminati is threatening this very holy ground. The Vatican is in the midst of the Conclave, an assemblage of 165 cardinals, to elect a new pope as the pope has just passed away. The Vatican is being temporarily lead by trusted camerlengo (chamberlain) of the pope Carlo Ventresca. Langdon, Vittoria and the Vatican Swiss Guard using an obscure Galileo manuscript must decipher the secrets of the Illuminati to thwart the plot to destroy the Vatican. Dan Brown in a prequel to the Da Vinci Code uses a very similar formula to construct a plot which highlights his impressive knowledge of religion and art. The story proceeds intriguingly but gets bogged down in a utterly fantastic and implausible conclusion. Brown learns his lessons well as the Da Vinci Code is a more polished work.
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