Good. Not as good as Da Vinci code. ( )

An easy read, this book is action packed with alot of suspense and details. The novel has alot of fascinating information in it that allows the imagination to run wild. The ending was rather odd and boring. The last few chapters rambled on (much like Angels and Demons.) It should have ended on a high note once everything went down. ( )

This one is action-packed and extremely fast-paced story. Again we follow professor Langdon as he tries to solve the mystery before the crack of dawn in order to save the life of his best friend (is it just me or every Brown's novel after "Da Vinci Code" has that "24" feeling :)) while being hunted by a very, very disturbed villain.

Thing i did not like that much is the fact that entire novels seems to be a commercial of sorts for Freemasons - after reading this novel man can only start to wonder why people do not like and trust that secretive society of powerful men when they only want human society to prosper and live happily.

Again, Brown describes all the locations in the book with great detail and maybe in these descriptions (together with some interesting anecdotes from history) lays the main surprise for reader. Writing style is cumbersome in some parts but all in all book succeeds in its main goal - to entertain you - plus you will hear some interesting things that will hopefully make you read some more serious works on the matter.

As one reviewer already said - read Brown's works as novels, not history works and you'll enjoy it.

Recommended. ( )

I know it has become fashionable to review wildly commercially successful novels and slam them with one or two star reviews, and I’ll be the first to admit that Dan Brown’s fiction is hardly classic literature, however the simple fact remains: I lay in bed at night reading his work and I don’t want to quit reading.

Granted, you might dislike his writing style; the short cliffhanging chapters, the preposterously indestructible and omnipotent villains (present in both Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol), the bizarre leaps in logic and analytical processes that enable our hero (Robert Langdon, a/k/a Tom Hanks) to work his way through the maze of symbols and riddles, but again, I have to force myself to quit reading at 2 a.m., when other writing has me nodding off at 11 p.m.

As in his two most recent blockbusters, The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, Brown takes a subject matter rich in mystery, legend and symbology, and crafts an immensely interesting tale, based partly on fact and largely on logical extension of those facts. This time, his subject is the Brotherhood of Masons and their highly secretive beliefs and myths. As in his two Catholicism based predecessors, there will be numerous blogs and articles pointing out the inaccuracies in The Lost Symbol. To those, I would say: THIS IS FICTION, people, not history (though there is plentiful educational material in all of Brown’s work).

Bottom line, if you enjoyed The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons, you will certainly like this novel as well. It is written on the same template and with the same style as his earlier work. I’m sure there will come a time (as it did with Grisham, Clancy and McMurtry) when the formula will get old, but in my opinion it hasn’t happened yet. I must admit that the final 20-30 pages of religious lecture and mystic spiritualism wore me down somewhat, but the action filled and highly educational preceding 400+ pages more than balance the account.

I am somewhat confused by those who vehemently dislike this novel. Not because there aren’t valid criticisms, but instead, why anyone that hated it would have read it in the first place. After all, virtually everyone that reads this book has read The DaVinci Code and Angels and Demons. If you hated and despised those two, why would you even read this book? I suspect many of those slamming this work, secretly enjoyed reading it, but are embarrassed to admit it. ( )

Dan Brown is a pretty known quantity at this point. He's not going to be winning any literary awards any time soon. His novels feature a heavy dose of codes, secret symbols, and obscure facts wrapped in a fast paced action thriller. You'll find short chapters, cringeworthy dialogue, and the occasional sentence fragment. I assume that anyone picking up this novel already expects this.

So the only question is: how did it stack up against expectations?

Personally, I found the subject material less enthralling than the previous Robert Langdon novels. As secret societies go, the Masons simply aren't all that interesting (or even particularly secret). Those who might have expected a grand explanation of why there are so many masonic symbols found in our nation's symbols and monuments would be disappointed - the only explanation offered is that many of the founding fathers and powerful people in general were and are masons. Again, not especially secret, and it would do nothing to dispel the many conspiracy theories relating to the subject. Whereas the code breaking done in the previous two novels took us on a tour of art history to find the clues, in this novel the codes were confined almost entirely to a single fictional pyramid. And though the action moved all over Washington DC, the settings were usually irrelevant to the progression of the mystery. The "big reveal" was delivered anticlimactically, altogether dull, and not especially believable.

Most of that is just my personal viewpoint, and others may differ. But many of the elements that I liked about the previous two novels simply weren't here.

Also, for whatever reason, I saw the final twist coming a mile away, despite the incredulity of it. His novels are so formulaic that many of the plot twists can be predicted long before they're revealed.

All that said however, if I judge it purely as a thriller, it has plenty of exciting action and it's certainly a page turner. It's not a bad bit of light reading, and one can do worse for themselves than to pass an afternoon reading it. ( )