Angels and Demons

Rating:
Summary: Check your brain at the door and try to enjoy the ride
Review: Dan Brown ascribes to Robert Langdon, the protagonist of "Angels & Demons", an "'erudite' appeal." Unfortunately, the work in which Mr. Langdon resides does not share this characteristic.

Brown has created a novel that reads like a made-for-TV-movie script, complete with cliff-hanging commercial breaks. This would be fine, had Brown given himself over to such an endeavor. He did not. With a patronizing nod to his more intelligent readers, Brown liberally doses the text with lengthy philosophical monologues and pointed flashbacks. These only serve to bog down the rest of the 'thrill a minute' prose and seem very much out of place.

Additionally, apparently not trusting the perceptivity of his readers, Brown adds foreshadowing with the subtlety of a billy club. His brute force attempts at guiding readers' perceptions are lacking in conviction, allowing the plot (including the final, obvious, twist) to quickly become transparent.

Despite these failings, "Angels & Demons" makes for a fun read. Akin to an action film, once the reader has put his or her brain to sleep, blissfully ignoring some of the more glaring issues, they are dragged along on Brown's roller coaster. Bludgeoned by plot twists and battered by less than shocking revelations, they follow Langdon toward the inevitable, heroic end.

Readers looking for such a tale will be more than satisfied. Those looking for a more intelligent, less assuming text would be advised to look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as "The DaVinci Code"
Review: "Angels and Demons" is much more predictable, and therefore less interesting, than Dan Brown's more recent book, "The DaVinci Code." It's OK, but it doesn't really compare to "The DaVinci Code."

Rating:
Summary: So bad writing is acceptable...
Review: less than one third of my way into Angels & Demons I began to see the only inevitable way for the story to unfold. This book gives me hope that I too may one day publish a book. After reading horrible cliché dialogue and descriptions that made me want to vomit I was still holding out hope that the book might take the great topic of the Illuminati in an interesting direction. No such luck. The book did unfold exactly as I predicted, much like one of the many bad X-Files episodes that peppered that otherwise great series. Any real in depth insights into the nature of existence were as absent as the cookie cutter characters were forced to help push this unnecessarily long novel forward. I am almost sure that this book was written with a movie deal in mind. I would not be surprised if a screenplay was written first and then lengthy long winded explanations and descriptions were added to make this otherwise short story drag out to book length. I am reminded of days long ago in High School when a paper had to be a certain length. Even if I could say the exact same thing in less words far more eloquently I would unnaturally lengthen the work to meet the ridiculous requirements the teacher laid out. Several hundred pages of this book could be edited and still tell the exact same tired story that is not so cleverly hidden by the Illuminati pretext. Wait for the DVD, if a good director gets a hold of this with a good screenwriter we might have something like Kubrick's brilliant SHINING compared to Stephen King's Novel.

Rating:
Summary: Not if you've got a brain
Review: The plot twists and turns with today's style and the author's inaccuracies on just about everything could be ignored to make this an enjoyable read. However, his allusions to how non-believers can have no morals, and for me a wonderment of why his book attacks the Order of the Masons as being Satanic has made me decide that when I force myself to finish the book I will never read another of his. The world does not need his new versions of torture, nor his misconceptions about the world around him. I've read other somewhat preachy books - one about the millenium being when Christ is reborn that were thrilling and wonderful. I know this book is fiction, but I also know that people read and take a lot of print as truth, or at least the ideas in them. Dan Brown's ideas are of no worth and destroy what fun there could be in reading this book.

Rating:
Summary: Best ever
Review: This book was one if not the best book i have ever read, its so fast pace and your never bored with it, i never wanted to put in down, There some parts of this book that are just jaw dropping, This book is a must read, I LOVE IT!.

Rating:
Summary: Quite good....but the end!!!
Review: At the beginning I really liked Dan Brown's novel. It has an interesting story, an historical background, it comes up with some nice facts and so on....
As the end, however, Dan Brown seemed to have lost ideas. The strangest coincidences happen and the whole story gets more and more confusing. The highlight of dumbness is when Robert Langdon jumps out of a helicopter and doesn't get injured at all (don't try this at home...you'll definitely die).
Nevertheless there are worse books on the market and if you have some time and want to be entertained without using too much of your brains, have a look at "Angels and Demons".

Rating:
Summary: This book tops them all!
Review: I chose this book in part as an introduction to Dan Brown and because of the sale I got on it at the time. I read it all in one day and bought the rest of Dan Brown's collection the next. I've read Grisham and Clancy and Higgins and others, but this book topped them all! Non-stop suspense, intriguing details, and a plot that is weaved like the very finest of tapestries.

This is my first online review ever. I have never felt this strongly about a book before. That's how good it is!

Rating:
Summary: Great read!
Review: I often hear people speak of books they "just couldn't put down" but I rarely come across those myself. Well, this book was definitely one of those page turners. I was just on holiday visiting friends in London when I picked up this book. I found myself waking up earlier and taking longer tube rides just so I could get through a few more pages. This book offers everything: murder mystery, history, science, culture, religion and a bit of romance. Loved it!

Rating:
Summary: A Thriller, but not good theology
Review: There is no doubt that Angels and Demons is a fast-paced thriller. It's worth the read. I'll let others comment on the science versus science fiction behind antimatter in book. However, one had better not take the "history" or "theology" as accurate (In deed one need not be "accurate" even in an "historical NOVEL".) Many of the details of vestiture, language, and theology (e.g. Church's attitude toward "Creationism" along with the "Christian Right") echo the comment made by one reviewer that the Italian translations were not very accurate. But, again as a thriller, it's great!

Rating:
Summary: Exciting
Review: This is a really good book. Fast and interesting. Too bad that 95% of the quotations in Italian are wrong. I realize it's not important to most readers, but it does make you wonder how careful the research was.