5 stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm pretty sure the first time I read this book, I didn't read the entire thing. It's an odd thought, because now, I would absolutely never DNF this, but I guess that just speaks to how tastes change over the years.

As of today, Angels and Demons is easily one of my favorite books. The constant action and simplistic writing style blend together perfectly into a fascinating story of non-stop questions and clues.

The characters felt real, and I connected with many of them, whether that be through their personality, their work, or some other trait. The story was written in such a way that I never wanted to stop reading. (I think I read it faster than I've read a book in a long time.)

The writing style is straightforward. Extra fluff is never used to add to the word count. One of my greatest bookish pet peeves is when fifty words are used where ten would do the job. But there is literally none of that here. Only the necessities.

Every word is necessary, and every POV utilized is important. The story is told from multiple characters' perspectives, but it doesn't feel like an overload. The reader is not all-knowing until the very end, but rather, throughout the story, we get a look into the minds and actions of more than one pertinent, essential character. And each of these people are woven together at the conclusion of the story in a way that I can only describe as this: brilliant.

For fans of thrillers and generally exciting stories with complex solutions, this is absolutely the book for you. Dan Brown lives entirely up to the hype surrounding his name, and that is no small feat.

Now onto The Da Vinci Code...

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The Illuminati-vs-the Vatican. Religion battles science. Creationism meets Big Bang theory.
An adventurous Murder/Mystery/Thriller
Delightfully filled with artful descriptions of the Vatican/Rome/Italy.
"Man's morality is not advancing as fast as man's science"

دان براون من أفضل كتاب الرواية بالنسبة لى
التكامل ال بيعمله ف قصصه بين العلم والأدب والفن والعمارة والجريمة ممتع جدا

بالاخره تموم شد!
نمیدونم از اونجایی که راز داوینچی رو خیلی وقت پیش خوندم ولی اونو بیشتر دوست داشتم. این هیجانش یکم اولاش بود با آخراش وسطاش یکم آهسته‌تر و طولانی‌تر بنظرم اومد….
به هر حال اکشن دوست.
همشم رابرت لنگدان رو تام هنکس تصور میکردم:>
تعقیب و گریز داوینچی بیشتر هیجان داشت بنظرم… به هر حال.

Call it a conspiracy theory, but

How did secret societies, associations, cults, and shadow cabinets influence human history, and how evolved the first stone age groups of chief, medicine man, dealer, and strongest soldier until today and will develop in the future?

An all time problem until enlightenment kicks in in a faraway utopia
It´s not just the realm of religion that has had its fake news problem since the first primitive cults and sects tens of thousands of years or even longer ago. It´s each field and area of human activity that was, can, and will be influenced by the dark forces in the background, the puppet masters controlling the fate of both tribes of thousands in the past or states and space colonies of billions in the future.

Faith vs science, subjectivity vs objectivity, emotionality vs rationality,
Call it as you like, I can´t objectively say much about the epic, endless science vs faith battle, because I am biased as heck and it would go against the obligation of a responsible reviewer to add too much subjective... Go science, show who is the boss, yes, keep using that chokehold,…

A subjective interpretation: I am reading nonfiction for over 20 years and must say that much that has once been deemed impossible, wrong, or lies, became true and influenced the lives of everyone in massive ways. So the truth seems to be pretty flexible. And the lucky ones of us living in so called enlightened democracies could reverse engineer big and progressive history and guess how much of, well, everything could be wrong, lies, and pure fiction. That it´s the opposite of official history in some cases, that many of the weirdo theories about the present and future are the truth, and much of what is written in history books are lies.

Monetarizing this concept was an ingenious idea by Brown (and his not so well known predecessors?)
And I don´t understand the Brown bashing of some people, many authors don´t really care much about the rules of writing or create average quality of consistency, logic, dialogues, and stuff and don´t get criticized for it. It might be possible that it´s more the inconvenient topics Browns is using that are activating the bite reflexes and reactionary mental programs of pissed people preferring proselytizing priests. The fast paced writing style with many different settings, fine infodumps, cliffhangers, and everything similar to a well written Hollywood blockbusters, techno- and psychothrillers is nothing people are ranting about as long as it´s not controversial.

At least the lectors tried to pimp the real science
It´s possible that the new editions of the book have been edited and corrected ( I don´t know), as there are some errors regarding the possibility of the involved physics and technology and wrong descriptions. But as I know publishing houses, they probably still haven´t invested the money to fix the bugs, even in a multi million copies world bestseller, that uses the intentionally produced good old catholic church and JC controversies like no series before.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspir...

Spotify Hörbuch (ungekürzt)
Ein super Auftakt der Robert Langdon Reihe, die ich nun gerne weiterhören möchte. Auch wenn ich den Film schon einige Male geschaut habe, war das Buch natürlich noch besser, da viel detaillierter. All die geschichtlichen Infos und vor allem auch zum Thema katholische Kirche und Papswahl fand ich unheimlich spannend und sehr interessant dargestellt! Auch wenn es hauptsächlich aus Langdons Sicht geschrieben ist, finde ich es spannend zwischendurch durch die Augen anderer Charaktere zu blicken und die Geschichte aus ihrer Sicht zu erleben.
Den Sprecher des Hörbuches fand ich übrigens auch sehr gut. Er konnte die Atmosphäre wunderbar herüberbringen! Man fühlte sich direkt nach Rom versetzt und folgte Robert Langdon durch alle Rätsel und Aufgaben.
Ich werde mir direkt den zweiten Teil vornehmen :)

اولین کتابی بود که از دن براون می‌خوندم. همیشه نسبت به این بشر گارد داشتم اون هم به خاطر این بود که شنیده بودم توی کتاب‌هاش خیلی به علامت‌های گروه های سری و مخفی و اینا بها میده. خب درست فکر می‌کردم. این کتاب یک کتاب سراسر نماده که در هر جا هم نویسنده در موردشون توضیح میده. البته اینکه توضیحات ضمنی نویسنده در مورد تاریخ ایتالیا و واتیکان و کلیسا و الی آخر چقدر صحت داره از چالش‌هایی هست که ذهن منو درگیر خودش کرده و شاید یه زمانی که وقت بیشتری داشتم برم دنبالش.

از نظر معمایی کتاب بدی نیست. البته تا حدود صفحات صد، کتاب تقریبا کند پیش میره و حوادث پیوستگی ندارن ولی از اون جا به بعد هیجان چاشنی کار میشه و تقریبا پای کتاب میخکوب میشی. البته به نظرم اون اصل غافلگیری رو نتونسته خوب در بیاره چون من به شخصه از دو سوم کتاب به بعد تونستم حدس بزنم ماجراها زیر سر کیه. در هر صورت به عنوان یک اثر معمایی جنایی متوسط طبقه بندیش می‌کنم.

اما این کتاب از یک نظر دیگه بهم حس خوبی نمی‌داد. به نظرم نویسنده با قصد و غرض در مورد جبهه‌های داخل کتاب نوشته. مثلا مشکلی که واتیکان و کلیسا در قرون وسطی با گالیله و جریان علم داشت رو به مشکل علم با مذهب و ناسازگاری اون تا همین الان ربط میده و تا لحظات اخر کتاب اصرار شدید داره که این دو تا به شدت با هم در تناقضن. حتی کشف ضد ماده که مثلا نشانگر وحدت علم و مذهب هست رو در اخر کتاب از طرف یکی از واتیکانی‌ها به شدت می‌کوبه. کلا رفتار فرضی کلیسای کاتولیک با علم رو به نظرم نمی‌شه به کل مذاهب دنیا تعمیم داد.

از طرف دیگه واقعا نمیدونم چه پدرکشتگی با مسلمون‌ها داشته این نویسنده. در حالی که کتاب درگیری دانشمندان اشراقی با واتیکان رو روایت می‌کنه، قاتل اجیر شده اشراقی ها مسلمان و عرب معرفی می‌شه. در حالی که رفتار‌ها و اعمالش به اسلام نمی خوره ولی نویسنده به مخاطب می قبولاند که اره این داره طبق دینش پیش میره و امشب خدای خود را در آسمان زیارت می‌کنه. اینجور برداشت‌های یک طرفه نه تنها از اسلام، بلکه از هر تفکر و مذهب و مسلک دیگه‌ای به نظرم نفرت بر انگیزه. حالا اگه ادم تفکر خودش رو برای خودش نگه داره یا بگه این تفکر منه، مورد نداره اما اینکه بخواد در لفافه این مسائل رو در ناخودآگاه خواننده بذاره خیلی خیلی حرص درآره.

در مورد این نماد‌های فراماسونی و ایلومیناتی و اینکه اینا همه دنیا رو گرفتن و هممون تحت سلطه اوناییم انقدر هر روز همه جا میبینم و می‌شنوم که فکر کردن در مورد این موضوعات برام عذاب آوره و اصلا دوست ندارم به اینجور مسائل، هرچند اگه واقعی باشن، اهمیت بدم.

با این همه احتمالا این اخرین کتابی نیست که از دن براون خواهم خوند.

+ فصل های کوتاه کتاب یکی از ویژگی‌های بسیار مثبت و دوست داشتنی‌اش بود

This was Brown's book before the infamous "The Da Vinci Code." In many ways, this book was like a rough draft for "The Da Vinci Code", same character Langdon, same other characters, same basic start, same concepts, same bad research passed off as fact, same trick of having nearly every chapter end in cliffhanger, the same in so many ways.
Sadly, I think he did a better job the first time around.

I recommend you have a computer handy so you look up what Brown is talking about, and that way you can have a better idea of what it really looks like. Added bonus too, you can have a laugh over how Brown had to forced it into his world to make the plot somewhat cohesive.
Look, if you want to write fiction, do so but please own up to it being fiction! Trying to pass off the Ecstasy of St. Theresa as being so pornographic in nature that the Vatican had it exiled to a small church, is, well, wrong as wrong as gets.
Brown throws out a number of stunningly stupid statements, like asserting that since Christianity is syncretic, God-eating (the Holy Communion) was taken from the Aztecs. How, Brown never explains, since the practice was established by Christ himself during the Last Supper around 33 A.D. and the Aztecs didn't show up until 1248 A.D. I figure Brown left it open so he could write some sort of time travel book, involving a long lost secret that the Aztecs built their pyramids as sort of a dry run, traveled back in time and were actually behind the pyramids in Egypt. And, of course, were the sect that created the Christ-myth due to a poorly thought out plot.

Thanks to the internet, you too can have fun poking holes in the book. See, for example, CERN's site on the book. And if that doesn't do it for you, here's a good site looking into all the errors.

A sample from the last site:

"While walking around the CERN campus, Langdon notices a marble column incorrectly labeled Ionic. Langdon points the mistake out to Kohler: "That column isn't Ionic. Ionic columns are uniform in width. That one's tapered. It's a Doric -- the Greek counterpart." (26) The problem is that Ionic columns are themselves Greek. The three orders of classical columns, Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian, are all Greek in origin, so it's impossible for the Doric order to the be the Greek counterpart of the Ionic. It's also much easier to distinguish the Doric from the Ionic based on their capitals; Doric columns have plain capitals, while Ionic columns are topped by volutes or scrolls."

That irked me when I read that passage, because not only is a poor joke, it doesn't make sense!

Let's ignore the bad, the erroneous, and the ugly, and you have decent little thriller zipping around Rome looking at art. Of course, it has to zip along, slow down long enough to think about it, and a host of questions start to swarm up. Like how Langdon has a whole theory on who the bad guy is and how Langdon was involved in these rather preposterous circumstances. Of course, the premise is wrong, so that that whole house of cards fall down. Not bad in of itself, but then Brown doesn't ever provide any reason Langdon was involved after that.

Of course, you aren't supposed to notice while reading it, and preferably not afterwards, either. Doing so reveals how badly Brown writes. He can't provide a single decent reason why his hero is there, aside from a vague "Because" and a shrug.

I'm envious of Brown, he can't write well, has plot holes big enough to drive the Popemobile through, bad research and "facts" that aren't, and yet still is entertaining, popular and, most galling perhaps, published.
Caveat lector.

Not as a master piece as Da Vinci Code. This book is more into thriller and adventure plot. The plot is also not as controversial as Da Vinci Code. The morale story is focusing on science vs religion.

Its a plausible plot.

This book was amazing. That's my one word to describe it. Throughout it, I had a diversity of emotions: At the beginning I loved it; at about 30% , I was still enjoying it, though it sometimes seemed a little convenient; by around 85-90% of it, I was sure I was going to rate it 2 stars, because of probably the biggest Deus Ex Machina I had experienced so far in books... but Brown saved the book in the cleverest way possible, and here I am, giving it a well-deserved 4-stars rating.

That is not to say the book was perfect, because it wasn't. Here is what I kept thinking while reading it (at it quickly became my main complaint): It read like a book made out of a movie, not otherwise, which was actually the case. I have in fact read books made out of movies, that is, the movie came first, then the book. What do they all have in common? The writing is deficient and tells me barely anything about how things look like... in other words, the descriptions are weak. Like, I didn't know how to picture things in my mind. I had to google some things because their descriptions were not enough to give me a clear image.

Truth be told, descriptions are very important. You cannot exaggerate with them because what you'll create is a tedious book no one will want to read. However, if barely no detail is given about the imagery of the book, you can't simply see the things how the author wants you to. That is why this book gave me problems. The deaths of some of the cardinals were impossible for me to picture. I even had to watch the movie to get an idea, if that tells you something.

Nonetheless, I still deeply ejoyed the book. It was one of the fastest-paced books I've ever read. Really, I can't remember a book that got in the action as quickly as this one did. Riddles, Illuminati, deaths, ancient books... I loved every piece of it and I do not regret reading it. I wonder why in hell it took me so long to start it. My father had gotten himself a copy of it more than 4 years ago, and till now I am reading it. Why, though, I know not. I totally recommend it. Now I'm immediately starting the next of Langdon's adventures.

P.S.: I'm perfectly aware I spoke next to nothing about the plot, but believe me, it's better the less you know about the book. I went completely blind to it. Believe it or not.

n  n

يخربيتك على جمال الرواية
يخربيتك على المعلومات الي فيها
يخربيتك على النهاية دي
يخربيتك على الطريقة الي عرضت فيها قكرتك

***
رائعة من روائع دان براون ، عادي يعني الرواية تكون جميلة كده ♥
بتناقش موضوع الدين والعلم ، وبالأدق الكنيسة والعلم ، الموضوع اختلف دلوقتي ؟ صح!
الكنيسة الي بتكره العلم لانه بيبعد الناس عن الكنيسة مش عن الدين نفسه ، والعلم الي بيكره الكنيسة لمحاربتها للعلم والعلماء على مر العصور ، رغم ان العلم كل يوم بيثبت وجود إله .

الطبقة المستنيرة

n  n
اقلب الصورة وشوفها تاني كده*

الي ظهرت ف القرن الخامس والسادس عشر الميلادي ، الي كل العلماء ف العصر ده كانوا بينتموا ليها على مستوى العالم هروبا من ظلم الكنيسة للعلماء وتعذيبها ليهم زي اوضح واحد جاليليو ، كان هدفهم استمرار ابحاثهم وعلمهم من غير علم الكنيسة في روما ، ومن غير علم اي مخلوق على الارض ، الوضع الي ادى لاقتصار العلوم على افراد الطبقة المستنيىرة .
وفجأة يظهر الكاهن كارلا فانتيسا ويستغل اسطورة الطبقة دي عشان يرجع الناس للكنيسة مستخدما استراتيجية الخوف والامل لجذب الناس ...
ولكن يصبح الصائد هو المصيدة !!

***

لما بول ديراك قاس اللف المغزلي للالكترون وحط معادلة لف الجسيمات الاولى حول نفسها ، وجد ان الناتج هيبقى سالب (-) وموجب (+) ، والي بيثبت ان الالكترون الي (-) ليه جسم مضاد (+) . والي بيثبت ان كل جسيم ليه جسم مضاد ليه . بس كالعادة محدش اهتم لنظرية ديراك لحد م كارل اندرسون اثبت وجود البوزيتورن (مضاد الالكترون) فعلا والي بيحتوى على جسيم مضاد (بيحمل عكس اشارة الالكترون) ،، ومن هنا بدأت قصة المادة المضادة وقوتها الخارقة بس محدش يعرف عنها حاجه غير انها عكس المادة ولما بتتصادم مع المادة بتنتج قوة اكبر بكتير من الطاقة النووية .

الموضوع ده بيفكرني بحصة الدراسات ، المستر كان بيقول لما اترمت القنبلة النووية ف الحرب العالمية الثانية ، مكنش حد يعرف حاجه عن القوة النووية ، فلو حصلت حرب عالمية ثالثة ، الله اعلم بالاسلحةالي هتبقى موجودة اصلا !
وفعلا ، ف الحرب العالمية الثانية محدش كان يعرف ان العلماء اكتشفوا طريقة للانشطار النووي الي بيصنع القوة النووية ، وفجأة ومرة واحدة لقوا القنبلة النووية بتترمى في هيروشيما ونجازاكي .

لو فقط يظهر أمامي ذاك القائل أن الروايات مجرد مضيعة للوقت وأنها لا تحوي اي فائدة

عمل تستمتع به أدبيا وعلميا وتاريخيا وجغرافيا وحتى دينيا ...رائع