Rating: 
Summary: A true barnburner!
Review: Next to Britt Gillette's "Conquest of Paradise", this is the best book I've read in a long time. I'm a first time Dan Brown reader but I'm hooked! I stayed up all night and didn't quit until I finished, blurry eyed and sleepy. I found myself believing every word and had to stop and remember that it's just fiction! I was amazed at the inside information about the Vatican (especially the library), and I finally got out a map and books from my trip to Rome to see if I could find all the churches. Anti-matter, illuminati, choosing a pope - all of it was fascinating. When I finished, I had to laugh thinking about the fact they never ate, slept or made comfort stops and neither could I. The ending was a total surprise! Anyone who enjoys non-stop action and information shouldn't miss this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Fast-paced & full of twists, but sophomoric & derivative
Review: I imagine that Dan Brown learned to write by reading mystery thrillers by Clive Cussler, Robert Ludlum, and the like. His writing is extremely derivative of these authors, and he shamelessly borrows the worst cliches from these books. Like books by the above-mentioned authors, Angels & Demons is fast-paced and full of plot twists. (In fact, just when you think it's over, Dan Browns throws you another curve ball. Then another. Kind of fun, but kind of contrived, as if he wanted to prove to everyone that he can write plot twists.) If the cliches don't make you cringe too much, you'll find
A&D to be a quick, easy, fun and sometimes thought-provoking read. But make no mistake, this is a formulaic page-turner, nothing more.
Rating: 
Summary: Recommended
Review: Although I found this novel to be an exciting and fast-paced adventure mystery, I didn't think it was as good as Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Maybe Dan Brown just got better the second time around or maybe I should have read "Angels & Demons" first. I didn't find "Angels & Demons" to be quite as believable as "The Da Vinci Code." Robert Langdon is definitely a well thought out character and very likeable. The ins and outs of his adventure held my interest. I didn't want to not finish this book. However, I could not put The Da Vinci Code down, whereas this one took me a little longer to finish. Dan Brown definitely puts a lot of time and reserach into his books and I look forward to his next mystery!
Rating:
Summary: "Dum" but fun: a book to hate and love
Review: This is a book to both hate and love, despise and enjoy, for it is quite literally sophomoric: wise in the themes that it tackles but moronic in the way in which it handles them. The major weaknesses of the book are its poorly-developed and one-dimensional characters, its host of plot implausibilities, and its legion of factual mistakes in geography, history, theology, ecclesiology, art, and foreign languages (to name but a few areas). My favorite goof in the book comes on page 122 (of the paperback edition), where the author mistakingly uses the Latin word "Dum" (which means "while") for "Deum" ("God"). I normally would regard this as a mere typo missed by a careless editor (if there even was an editor); but in light of the many other mistakes in Latin and Italian in the book, my suspicion is that the author just didn't know any better. Such amateurish errors are more than matched by the book's many factual errors, which make the claims of some that there is much substantial knowledge that can be gleaned from this "well-researched" book both astonishing and sad. The worst ongoing weakness of the book, however, is its utter implausibility. Introduced early on is a plane that travels (for no apparent reason) at an incredible Mach 15, which is the approximate speed that the characters would have to move to accomplish all that they do in the allotted eleven hours (counting from the protagonist's landing in Geneva). For example, Professor Langdon does in mere minutes by means of incredibly lucky finds and great intuitive leaps (and in what must be the world's most complicated and idiosyncratic library) research that would take any other professional scholar weeks, months, or years to accomplish. This is the same brilliant academic who earlier, together with the crack minds of the Swiss Guard, was unable to figure out that their own crucial, stolen wireless camera (and the destructive device on which it was focused) could be located simply and quickly by isolating its transmitting frequency, which they had to know, and triangulating on its signal. Later in the novel, this mental giant also thinks it is a good idea to sneak up on a ruthless, professional assassin whose feet are firmly planted on terra firma by climbing waist-deep into a nearby fountain, pointing a gun at him, and saying "Don't move." Still later, having (of course) narrowly escaped being drowned in that incident, this brilliant Harvard professor tries virtually the same approach, only this time, fortunately, without the water . . . but, unfortunately, without the gun either. As another example, I challenge the reader to try to imagine all of the events described as happening between 11:39 p.m. and midnight, or even the ground supposedly covered in the process: from the steps of the basilica, to its subterranean bowels (with a pause to kneel and pray), back to the surface, to a helicopter and an altitude of 2 to 3 miles. Absurd -- except, perhaps, at Mach 15! But the novel really "jumps the shark," as they say, in the last sixty pages or so, where an ill-founded and ridiculous plot twist occurs that is an insult to any intelligent reader. Why the author feels the need to jerk his audience around in this way and just there is beyond me. He has already demanded a willful suspension of disbelief of enormous (some would say biblical) proportions. For all of its multitudious flaws, however, I hate to admit that enjoyed reading this stupid book. I think a part of the fun was in trying to anticipate the next "Dum" mistake or new demand on the reader's already strained credulity the author would make. Would I recommend the book? To a person with time on their hands who would like an easy, mindless, action-packed romp, sure. For a more mature reader interested in well-researched and slick Catholic ecclesial-theological intrigue, however, I would recommend dusting off an old Morris West or Irving Wallace novel. If this book is any indication, Dan Brown can't (so to speak) hold a candle to the likes of them. To those who declare that this book is the best they have read, either ever or in a long time, I would say: "De gustibus non disputandum." That means "There's no accounting for taste," though Brown, I suspect, would translate it: "It's no use arguing about the wind." Mercy.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibily bad
Review: I hardly know where to begin. The character development is on a level with the old Doc Savage series, ie if you can't find a stereotype, the character won't be found in this book.
The plotting is clever, but I kept being offended by mistakes which could have been easily avoided and were totally unessential to the plot.
To give a few examples, the author claims that the Hassisins were named after hashish, when actually hashish is named after the Hashishins of Persia. The Hashishins were not enemies of the Vatican, they were totally involved in politics in Persia.
At one point, the hero is amazed to hear that the female lead, despite being a physicist, is a practitioner of yoga, an ancient Buddhist practice. First of all, yoga is originally Hindu, not Buddhist, and it has been highly popular for quite a while in Europe and the US.
I finally gave up on the book when the protagonist described the pyramid on the Great Seal as being designed by Henry Wallace, with the collusion of Franklin Roosevelt. Why not the truth, it was designed by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. They were all Masons, and the story would not have been harmed at all. This is just sloppy writing.
Rating:
Summary: A true barnburner!
Review: Next to Britt Gillette's "Conquest of Paradise", this is the best book I've read in a long time. I'm a first time Dan Brown reader but I'm hooked! I stayed up all night and didn't quit until I finished, blurry eyed and sleepy. I found myself believing every word and had to stop and remember that it's just fiction! I was amazed at the inside information about the Vatican (especially the library), and I finally got out a map and books from my trip to Rome to see if I could find all the churches. Anti-matter, illuminati, choosing a pope - all of it was fascinating. When I finished, I had to laugh thinking about the fact they never ate, slept or made comfort stops and neither could I. The ending was a total surprise! Anyone who enjoys non-stop action and information shouldn't miss this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Such an assortment of misinformation...
Review: I work at CERN. This book's relationship to fact or anything like it is minimal at best. What a pile of garbage - the only thing you can safely credit is that CERN in near Geneva and that there is a huge accelerator (being built) there.
Everything else is hokey baloney. Everything. Which means you really can't take anything he says seriously. At all.
That in addition to being a Mad Libs/Xerox rehash of DaVinci Code. Which also wasn't terribly burdened with facts. The philosophy was laughable and... sophomoric. What can I say? That being said - when I wasn't groaning out loud, or laughing, it was an OK thrill ride. It's not worth all the fuss, though - this isn't in the same league even as Grisham or Clancy.
Rating:
Summary: Angels and Demons
Review: In Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, he tells about a mysterious brotherhood that has been perceived as dead for centuries. When Robert Langdon receives a horrible fax photo, he is transported into Vatican City to try and decipher a long lost code on the path of Illumination.
Brown is a genius. He takes the true, hard facts and studies all of the mystery surrounding them. Then he sees how these facts tie together. His observations are twisted into a breathtaking thriller. Brown writes in a way that always keeps you thinking.
Having read this after The Da Vinci Code, I was already familiar with Brown's style of writing. I look back and see that this book may have been useful before The Da Vinci Code, but it is still a really great story standing on its own.
I really have enjoyed this book and consider it one of the best books I have ever read. It is a catching read. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in the mood for a fast-paced thriller. You will be caught in Brown's writing trap and won't be able to put it down.
Rating:
Summary: More research needed
Review: One other reviewer cited numerous errors of language, geography, etc., but the one that really irked me concerned the physics. The supposedly brilliant physicist Vittoria wants to use antimatter as an energy source to cure the world's ills, but fails to reconginize that no matter how efficient the production of anitmatter might be made, one cannot get around Einstein's mass-energy equivalence. Even with 100% efficiency, it would still require putting as much energy into the production of antimatter as the subsequent annihilation would release. While the story is a fun read on a rainy afternoon, it was built on such a flimsy foundation that I was glad when it was over.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaining Fiction... And maybe some fact?
Review: This book does make some implausable leaps, but its allowed to do so because its a work of fiction. I found the information entertaining and the storyline believable enough that I could keep reading without stopping to say, "What the...". Character development is poor but it didn't bother me that much as many books nowadays lack the careful character development of past authors. As far as the research information in the book goes, its definitely intriguing, although debatable. But, in defense of the research, how many people in the world can say that they haven't skewed a some research in their favor while writing a report or term paper. I think that if you have interest in the subject this book deals with and can get past a few leaps of imagination without getting completely off kilter you'll like this book or at least find it intersting. Conversely, if your a literary afficiando that needs everything to be totally in order you probably won't like the book at all.
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