Angels and Demons

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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.

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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.

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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: [e-mail] by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. Happy Holidays everyone! :o)

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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.

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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.

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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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Summary: movie paced with no real depth
Review: A decent story. At times Browns writing can be almost hardcore sci-fi and other times its amateurish. If the characters seem like their at a dead end you can always expect the word 'suddenly' to pop up. "Robert is stuck with no where to go.But Suddenly, he finds a magic key in his pocket"... I was thrilled at the end of the story, I swore I knew who would end up being the bad guy, but as if Brown felt insecure with the climax he went on and on. Almost trying to justify the end so that he would not offend anyones faith with the conclusion. If you like movies you'll love this book but dont expect anything too captivating.

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Summary: Genuinely terrible
Review: Clumsy writing, no real characterizations, and a plot that is nothing but unmotivated turns and twists. Skip it, skip it, skip it.

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Summary: The one before "The Da Vinci Code."
Review: Before "The Da Vinci Code" became a runaway bestseller and a cultural phenomenon, Dan Brown wrote "Angels & Demons." Both books feature the brilliant Harvard symbologist, Robert Langdon, a man who is good at solving arcane puzzles. Both novels feature deadly conspiracies. In both books, Robert has a female sidekick who is as beautiful as she is brainy.

Robert is called away from academia when he receives a mysterious telephone call at five in the morning. The head of CERN, the world's largest scientific research facility, has summoned Robert to see a corpse. An ancient brotherhood, known as the Illuminati, may have resurfaced. They appear to have murdered and branded a renowned physicist, and they are threatening to destroy many other lives in their quest to bring down the Catholic Church.

Robert, along with Vittoria Vetra, daughter of the slain scientist, must retrace the path of the Illuminati in an effort to save lives before the villains can complete their deadly mission. Robert's knowledge of symbology and iconology lead him to the Vatican archives, where he unearths ancient documents with important clues. The novel is basically a race against time. Will Robert decipher the hidden clues in time to foil the Illuminati?

I have several problems with "Angels & Demons," as I did with "The Da Vinci Code." The sole aspect of this book that is compelling is the obscure information about science and art. The characters and dialogue are wooden, and the plot is formulaic melodrama. The twists and turns at the end come very far out of left field. At almost six hundred pages, the book is far too long and repetitious. One particularly irksome habit is Brown's constant use of italics and exclamation points for emphasis. This device wears thin very quickly. Although this series has undoubtedly captured the public's imagination, Brown lacks the narrative skills to bring his ideas to three-dimensional life in a work of fiction.

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Summary: Fact or Fiction - Either way it's pretty good
Review: In Angels and Demons, Dan Brown spins a pretty good yarn by mingling historical fact, fiction, some speculation, and some good story telling. As you will undoubtedly find by reading the reviews posted here, the book is, of course, not perfect in every sense ...but, which ones are?

In ways reminiscent of older Michael Crichton books, Brown covers a lot of ground historically, technically, and in a more subtle way, metaphysically. What is interesting is the way in which the prodigious amount of factual detail is presented. It is almost always introduced by the varied characters, in support of their even more varied agendas. In light of this resultant point of view, the character's 'facts' can be perceived as skewed, even flawed. That's part of what makes these characters and by extension this book fun to read. The mostly believable characters are not hollow representations spewing encyclopedic, impossible to refute, historical facts. They move the story along at a near perfect pace by presenting their case, their facts, viewed through the prism of their own experiences in support of their ultimate, sometimes hidden goals. It is left for the reader to weigh their motivations and determine the accuracy of their information.

I think some reviewers confuse the characters' point of view with Brown's endorsement of the accuracy of their assertions. A lot of this detail is controversial as you would expect prompting some to brand it inaccurate at best or even propagandist in the extreme. Interestingly enough some of the details as presented in Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci Code are at odds with one another. For example: the historical role of the Illuminati vs. the Freemasons. Is it possible Brown got the same details wrong twice? Or is it really that the characters have differing views on the same pieces of historical detail?

My criticism of this book (which some may see as a plus) is that it is very similar to the Da Vinci Code in just about every structural way. The basic premise is different but executed in the same fashion as its ancestor. The protagonist, the same Langdon from the 'Code, meets up with just about the same characters, albeit with different names, come to some startling similar conclusions en route to temporarily cracking some age old mysteries.

All in all Angels and Demons is a thoroughly enjoyable work of fiction. A beautiful by-product of which is that its themes may pique reader's intellect enough to invite them to perform additional research and heaven forbid read some actual history books.