Angels & Demons

Angels & Demons is the kind of thriller that grabs you by the collar and keeps moving. The chapters are short, the stakes are huge, and Dan Brown knows exactly where to cut a scene so “one more page” becomes five more chapters. Robert Langdon is a great guide through all the symbols, codes, and chaos, and the Rome setting gives the whole story a dramatic, cinematic charge.
What worked best for me was the momentum. The blend of science, religion, history, and conspiracy is a lot, but the book sells it with confidence and speed. Vittoria Vetra adds a strong presence, and the central chase has that breathless countdown energy that makes it very easy to lose an entire evening to this book.
Some parts are definitely over the top, but that show more is part of the appeal. This is not a quiet or subtle novel. It is a glossy, brainy puzzle box built for suspense, and it delivers. I had a genuinely good time with this one 📚 show less

This is a near-future thriller about an Illuminati plot to destroy the Vatican, or maybe something else entirely is going on, but saying anything else would be a spoiler. The plot is exciting, the characters are very good; indeed, it's a tribute to how good these things are that I kept reading despite all the times I got kicked out of the plot by the author's own startling ignorance on things that could have been easily checked--some of them in any decent desk dictionary, such as the meaning of the word "canonization". At some points, Mr. Brown appears to think that it means "ordination". At other points, that's not a possible reading of his usage of it, but neither is the correct meaning a possible reading. He has notions about how show more papal elections work which are wrong, and which are clearly wrong just from an examination of the results of the last few, and which are important to the plot. There are other instances where he's assuming a general ignorance that seems improbable to me, although, given that Mr. Brown clearly has no clue what "canonization" means, I may be overly optimistic. The instance of this that hit me over the head at the beginning of the book: Our Hero, Robert Langdon, is a Harvard professor, who has written a book that makes him a magnet for conspiracy theorists whose obsessions center around the Illuminati. He has a website on which he has no contact information, in the interest of making it a little bit harder for the kooks to find him in the real world. He gets a phone call from someone who has found him through his website and wants him to come immediately to consult on a matter relating to his specialty, religious symbology--but the caller doesn't say where he's calling from. He does say that he has already sent a plane to pick up Langdon, and he can be at the destination in about an hour. He also says that he located Dr. Langdon through his website, and when Langdon says that's not possible, he says that he's from the laboratory where the Web was invented.

At this point, of course, a little bell went "ding" and I said, "But CERN is a lot more than an hour away from Boston."

Dr. Langdon does not say this, or think it, or anything similar. He does not realize until he's disembarking from the spiffy new space plane that the mysterious caller sent that he's not in North America anymore. (The space plane is a CERN invention, too.) There follows a discussion of how Americans all think that the Worldwide Web is American technology. Unfortunately, the content of the discussion leaves me in some doubt as to whether Mr. Brown realizes that there's a difference between the internet and the web, and that the internet is American technology.

The yawning factual errors in this book left me wondering how many yawning factual errors I was missing because I don't know enough about, say, anti-matter, or Renaissance art. Don't read it if you're feeling at all sensitive to such errors. If you're in the mood for a good brain-candy thriller, though, and prepared to slide over the factual errors, it's great fun. show less

"Probably the most important thing about this book is that it is fiction. If you take ficiton personally, you might want to go talk to a professional about that. But if you like great characters, a page-turning plot, and a book that will make you think, then you're in luck here. And yup, you'll hop on google and try to figure out which if his details are historical and which are just plain fun. I like a book that makes me confront how subjective and fuzzy history is. Angels and Demons play in the gray areas; if you like black and white, look elsewhere."

*** Note : borrowed book from library. ***

Angels & Demons was gripping first book in Robert Langdon series that revolved around ancient Illuminati brotherhood and their vendetta against catholic church. It was about science vs religion, terrorism, hope and faith, good vs evil, catholic rituals and ceremony, history and art.

I watched movie ages ago. I vaguely remembered who was the real mastermind behind whole scheme of murders and destroying Vatican City and still I enjoyed reading the book. It made me curious to solve the mystery of finding Illuminati lair and catch the killer. (which I didn’t remember much)

Writing was amazing. It was gripping, fast paced, and descriptive with loads of information from the very first page. I always show more love fictions that provides factual information that I wouldn’t have read or known before. Characters were interesting, realistic, and well developed. Best part of the book was theme, description of setting and art and history.

The end was brilliant but I don’t agree with what they decided. Overall, Angels & Demons was brilliant, thought provoking, action packed and thrilling mystery filled with religious history, science and art.

Read full review on my book blog by following this link - https://booksteacupnreviews.com/2020/10/13/angels-demons-robert-langdon-1-by-dan... show less

A good page-turner, Brown's suspense style is definitely one of note. Although at times a bit "drug-out," the action seemed to be non-stop throughout the story, full of well-placed plot twists and turns. My beef with Brown is only that what he posits as "fact" is generally a simplistic version of what he determines as fact; meaning, his facts can easily be misconstrued from how he presents them. I know this is a work of fiction; however, this work of fiction is preceded by a listing of "facts" to help ease the readers into believing the storyline. This communication at the beginning of the work can confuse some (many) into believing that his presentation of fact is 100% accurate, which is definitely not the case. In this respect, I feel show more the author is being disingenuous, which taints the overall value of the work. show less

I think "The Da Vinci Code was a fluke. Everything else I've tried by Dan Brown is cliche, and predictable. And, unlike "The Da Vinci Code," Dan Brown's disdain for Catholicism shines quite clearly in this work. In Da Vinci, the mystery and ideas were interesting enough to take front stage; not so here. The villain was incredibly predictable, and Langdon is, well, boring. Sad, because the premise of a priest studying physics to prove the existence of God (and possibly doing so!) had a lot of potential. This was the last book by Brown I'll read.

OK, the story, if not even a little bit believable, was reasonably entertaining. I don't demand believability!

However, the way this book is written is just unbelievably condescending. Brown feels the need to explain what the BBC is, what a particle accelerator is, insists on translating VERY basic foreign phrases, and gets basic word definitions in repeatedly under the guise of not having his characters know what things are. This wouldn't be so bad if the characters weren't supposed to be a physicist/biologist and a professor/symbologist. (A college professor has never HEARD of CERN?) The 'obscure' tidbits of knowledge that supposedly prove Langdon is brilliant in his field are most often common, pop-culture kinda stuff. He also divides show more "Christian vs. Pagan" symbology up in a way that people of centuries past did not. (It really would not have been considered shocking for a religious sculptor to also carve pyramids and obelisks, for example. And as of when is a dove a solely 'pagan' symbol?)

Luckily, most of the really irritating bits are in the beginning of the book - once people start dying, things get moving and the definitions fall by the wayside.
Still, I was hoping for a bit more... I didn't find the descriptions of life either at CERN or in the Vatican to be realistic AT ALL. (Oh, and as a library person, the bits dealing with when Langdon is allowed into the archives alone, without the help/supervision of a professional - sorry, but no way. They couldn't go wake up an archivist/librarian? And I don't believe that there is ANY evidence that the Vatican denies access to the materials in its catalog to non-Catholic researchers on the basis of their religion. From what I've read, it operates much like any other restricted archive - you have to have credentials as a qualified researcher, you need to request an appointment and the specific articles you want to see in advance, etc. Standard practice. And I really don't know about suffocating to death in an archival vault in 20 minutes. Unlikely. At least it's not something they ever warned us about in library school.)

I've been to Rome, and the book didn't succeed in bringing me back to the aura or feel of that beautiful and ancient yet modern city.
The religion vs. science debates brought up in the book are certainly timely, but fairly basic - they never really delve that deeply into the issues. Still, there are some really amusing bits, and some unexpected twists and turns in the plot.

Still, I should probably mention that it follows a very similar formula as the Da Vinci Code - if you've read one recently, the other may seem sneakingly familiar.... show less