4.0 Stars
This was such a gripping page turn that kept me reading in order to find out what was going to happen next. The story really felt very cinematic and I could really picture the scenes (even though I haven't watched the movie). The book had some info dumps about physics and religious history. This could bother other readers but I lapped it all up. I would highly recommend this one to anyone in a reading slump.

I wasn’t expecting to love it as much as i did!
All the historical and art stuff really were vivid!
Little too much exposition though made it a little tiresome but otherwise is an engrossing read!

4/5

Because the movie version of Angels & Demons is being released soon, I decided to read the book first. As is almost always the case, I'm sure the book is far better. The book has great suspense that keeps you interested on each and every page. Because this edition is the illustrated edition, I also enjoyed doing arm-chair travelling in Rome and Vatican City. The photographs are beautiful and are very helpful in picturing in your mind where the story unfolds.

Angels and Demons by Dan Brown was one of the best page-turners I have ever read. From the very beginning I couldn’t put it down. I did not know where Dan Brown would take the story next. Following the main character Robert Langdon, a Harvard symbologist on his first great adventure was breathtaking. I wanted to learn more, to know the secrets of the Illuminati and the only way to do it was to let the story naturally unfold as I read. I can usually guess what is going to happen in thrillers, but Dan Brown did a wonderful job keeping everything a mystery until absolutely necessary to reveal the secrets.
I first read the book on a flight from Seattle to Rome, with a few places in between. Never having read the Da Vinci Code before hand I didn’t have as high of expectations as most people do when going to read Angels and Demons. I have often heard that the Da Vinci Code is much better than Angels and Demons but I disagree. Angels and Demons is Dan Brown at his best. I love how he took historical events, places, art and turned them upside down into a thriller that left me wanting more.
Dan Brown not only wrote a good novel but he also brought up the old argument of Science vs. Religion. Both sides of the argument are thoughtfully brought up in Angels and Demons and in the end it is up to the reader to decide which side they believe is the right path for them. I love that he didn’t try and persuade the reader of his view on the subject but instead put the evidence and arguments out there for us to make up our own minds.
Having traveled to Rome and seeing the places talked about in the novel Dan Brown did a wonderful job putting the readers in the places talked about. As I walked the path of Robert Langdon it seemed even more real to me that events as radical as the illuminati pulled off in the book could have actually happened, giving more power to the fast paced adventure.

I liked this book. In as much as a person can like, say, cotton candy. It tastes good at first, but after a bit the taste starts to lose some of its sugary goodness and just becomes a sticky mess that you hope doesn't get in your hair or on your shirt.

The premise was interesting: I liked the whole Illuminati and church conspiracy. The suspense of the novel kept me engaged. But like I said, too much of a good thing just becomes problematic. To be honest, after a few hundred pages, the writing really started to annoy me. I wasn't expecting Dan Brown to give me something as well written as say a John le Carre novel, but I wanted more originality. I wanted sentences to pop and zing as they should in a thriller novel.

I guess it comes down to this: ANGELS AND DEMONS was good brain candy, and I'll read other Dan Brown books. In time, of course.

RECOMMENDED (a great three to four hour killer of time)

& I was left... STUNNED! Just, just, stunned. Incredibly, this one is the one to top when it comes to adventure & history and pace & ingenuity.

I've recently noticed how much history is revered (rightfully) by the modern authors. This is a different type of historical immersion. This is about bringing it to the forefront... something in the past is incredibly relevant, vital, to the present.

Everyone but me had read this, & after Da Vinci Code--that bitch of an overrated heathen--I thought Brown was a phony (in company of Nicholas Sparks, among others). Not so. This is a MASTERPIECE indeed.

I read this in like two sittings. All 710 pages of oversized print.

I was soooo hooked I recalled many other lesser books that have riveted me. This one is so incredibly put together, it is no wonder Brown has been heralded by the general readership, ingrained in the zeitgeist.

The awesomeness of this work lies in the battle between science and religion, perhaps one of the most seminal works about that topic. It explores this duality literally, symbolically... every which way. That they are married, both science and religion, is the thesis. Brown proves this with the precision of a skilled scientist. & with the heart of a devout... historian.

So I honestly want to give the book three stars. What I enjoy about Brown is how he can write almost 600 pages of a book and I get almost to the end and realize that it has taken place all in the space of one day. As a writer, I would love to be able to do that. The weaving of religious and scientific themes into an adventure set in European locales is also right up my alley.

What I don't like... and why I am forced to drop down to two stars (just a few examples):

That same time stretching often results in a parceling of time that is terribly irritating - most of the book actually isn't just in less than one day but in about four to five hours. Unfortunately, in one part of the book, given twenty minutes, the protagonists can, say, drink tea and eat scones, talk at length about their theories about what's happening, run from one location to another, save someone, and research an important historical fact. But during another twenty minutes, they don't seem to have enough time to, say, run the length of a block and enter a building. It must be difficult as an author to keep track of this sort of incongruity but this is Brown's special trick and it's irritating that he can't follow his own rules. It needs to be either one way or the other but not both.

Every few chapters, he seems to feel the need to reintroduce his main protagonist by first and last name, "Robert Langdon stood in front of the church..."; like we haven't met this character yet for every single paragraph for the last 126 chapters (and no, I'm not exaggerating on the numbers of chapters).

This really, really frustrating thing where the protagonist, Langdon, is this brainy professor that can supposedly figure out these relatively obscure, secret messages hidden by other brainy men hundreds of years ago in order to save the world... and yet he can't figure out the REALLY obvious things right in front of his face. I was listening to this on audiobook and I SWEAR, I kept expecting a three year old child to pipe up from somewhere in the back of the crowd, saying, "Oh, come on, mister! You can't see that? Seriously? Aren't you supposed to be the hero? Even I can see that!!

And, finally, lines like, "The silence that followed might as well have been thunder." Um, what... honestly, what? Is this Brown's version of "A thunderous silence followed..."?

It's really rather frustrating because I honestly think that in many ways Brown is rather talented; in some of his plotting, the details, the ideas he pulls together. I just wish that in other ways - the writing, some characterization, he could catch up with his other abilities.

After reading The Da Vinci Code, I was going to read both this and Digital Fortress but I do believe I will stop here... wishing I could tip it over to the three stars.

Angels and Demons is one of the most insidiously-constructed page turners I’ve ever read and unlike other such efforts (Richard Laymon’s IN THE DARK) I actually raced to the end of it rather than throwing the thing half-finished against the wardrobe in rage. Think of Hercules Poirrot. Think of Inspector Morse. Think of Agatha Christie. Once you strip all the character and soul from these genre writers you have Dan Brown. They all have in common the one writer trick, etirwer (the backwards rewrite). I don’t mean check a book for spelling and grammar. I mean write a basic plot line. Then go back. Adding in detail that will drive the narrative relentlessly towards what you sketched. Stuffing the book with glimpses of false trails and dead ends to keep the reader in the dark, so to speak. Confounding the reader in a way that will make him feel insignificant and meaningless.

This, for me, is the worst of all genre writing tricks.

Professor of Symbology Robert Langdon in his tweed and nuclear physicist Vittaria Vetra in her Lara Croft gear go in search of the thieves who killed Vittaria’s dad and stole the anti-matter from CERN and find themselves in what appears to be a travelogue of the more obscure bits of Vatican City. It reads just like that, a Treasure Hunt type of book. The reader is dragged along with teasing glimpses of THE TRUTH behind the religion and the war with science that has waged through the ages. But it could have all taken place in a virtual world like the internet or a library with mischievous librarians swapping cards around so old ladies can no longer find their Mills and Boons.

Any good book should involve, include, confront or enrage the reader – this book cored out the reader’s personality so that by the end you didn’t care if there were 30 more pages yet to go as the final threads of the convoluted narrative finally unravelled.

This book (maybe all Dan Brown books) should come with a mental health warning: At no point in the reading of this book was the reader in danger of thinking.

An ultimately vacuous exercise in Franchise Management D.B. even sneaked in an early reference to the following Professor Langdon mystery The DaVinci Code. Enough already!

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...

This book almost ruined my education.
Seriously, whilst I was supposed to be doing homework, I spent three hours reading this.
When I was supposed to be studying for a maths test, I read this.
During science, english, Religion, Drama and Humanities lessons...I read this.
It was that amazing.
For the past week, I have not been asleep before 1AM, because I have been reading this thriller.
And well after I turn of the light in the early hours of the morning, Angels And Demons clouds my thoughts.
One word to describe this book is unputdownable.
Because it really is.

I finished this book on the way home from school today.
And I was walking home.
What a sorry sight I must have been, school bag on back, in full uniform, walk 1.5 kilometers form school to home, and not even looking up from the pages once.
I finished with about 100 meters left to walk.

I loved The Da Vinci Code , but Angels & Demons was way better.
It was smart, thrilling, mysterious, adventurous, scary, intense,....and Unputdownable.
The only reason it did not receive full marks from me, is because the majority of the first 130 pages, at the CERN labs. All that science talk, particle theory and antimatter flew right over my head. Unfortunately, that made the book in-eligible for full marks.

And the Twists!.
Oh my, the twists and turns in this book blew me away. Just when you think you know where the story is headed, something happens and the whole plot is thrown into organized chaos.
As did the action scenes.
And the mystery.
And the writing style.
Yeah....pretty much everything was exceptional.

I espcially liked the realisim.
The real life locations, the Illuminati, CERN....All based upon fact.

Dan Brown, I tip my hat to you.
You have penned a fantastic read.

(B-) 70% | Satisfactory
Notes: The apotheosis of laugh out loud, so-bad-it's-good writing, it's at first enthralling but descends into garish absurdity.

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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 .