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| Angels & Demons | 
| Author: Dan Brown
Publisher: Pocket
Category: Book
List Price: $9.99
Buy Used: $1.91
You Save: $8.08 (81%)
New (51) Collectible (4) from $4.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  2167 reviews
Sales Rank: 936
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 736
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 4.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1416524797
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781416524793
ASIN: 1416524797
Publication Date: March 28, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A great (despite its flaws) page turner for the beach... July 13, 2008
Unlike a lot of readers, I read Angels and Demons before reading The Da Vinci Code, so I can't really compare the two books directly (although I've been told they are pretty similar).
Angels & Demons introduces the reader to Brown's protagonist, Robert Langdon, professor of religious iconology and art history at Harvard University. A&D begins with Langdon being awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call from the director of CERN, the world's largest scientific research facility in Geneva, Switzerland. One of their top physicists had been murdered, with his chest branded with the word "Illuminati." Langdon, being an expert on the ancient secret society known as the Illuminati, is called upon to help solve the murder.
The murder victim is Leonardo Vetra. One of the world's leading physicists and a Catholic priest who has adopted a daughter, Vittoria (who ends up being Langdon's foil for this story). She is also a scientist at CERN. Vetra and his daughter created the antimatter to simulate the Big Bang. In his mind, this would show proof that God exists, being able to create new matter and antimatter in the same way God created the universe. Vetra's murder, though, allows one of the canisters to be stolen. The question of who stole the canister and what they planned to do with it is soon answered. The canister is quickly found on a security camera in Vatican City, with its LEDs counting down the time until the batteries run out. The security camera, however, is nowhere to be found, leaving the canister's whereabouts a mystery too (this is one of those plot holes that Brown gets a lot of heat for -- it would be easy for someone to triangulate the signal from a wireless video camera and locate it quickly, but I digress). Langdon and Vittoria quickly set off on a chase through Rome and Vatican City, to help find the canister and return it to CERN before it explodes at midnight.
The story takes a while to get going, with a lot of introduction and history and exposition about science and religion at the start. But once Brown gets down to business (around page 75) I found the plot engaging and pretty good. So much stuff is happening at once, and so much of it is amazingly involved and cool. I literally didn't want to stop reading to take a short bathroom break on a couple of occasions. This is the sign of a good story (that I was to read more of it) in my estimation. So I have to say that A&D is one of the most effective page-turners I've read in quite some time. You can argue with me all you want about the religious iconography and historical interpretation of the story, but in the end, it is just that, a story. An easy to read, fun story -- not great and meaningful literature (I try not too look for meaning in things where there doesn't have to be meaning).
As Langdon and Vittoria set off on their investigation, they follow a trail of multiple ritualistic murders, the threatened obliteration of an entire country, the potential death of a major world religion, secret societies that go back 500 years, new scientific discoveries that will change the world, and much more. Besides the cult murders taking place and two mysteries to try and unravel, Brown's plot takes us on a frantic chase through the churches of an ancient city following secret symbols left behind during the Italian Renaissance, a countdown to the destruction of an entire nation, and much, much more. It was easy to stay up and finish reading this book over the long 4th of July weekend.
The plot is the strength of the book, it's is easy to get lost in the involved (some say convoluted) intricacies of Brown's story... from about page 50-500. Unfortunately the last 50 pages are over the top melodrama and enclose multiple endings, conveniently wrapping up lots of loose ends in a rather perfunctory manner. These last 50 pages should have been sent for re-writes by Brown's editors, but as a fan of the SF genre I am used to reading books that require a reader to suspend their disbelief for periods of time so these last 50 pages were not bad enough to ruin the very enjoyable bulk of the story (but I am hoping that he's fixed that short coming in The Da Vinci Code).
 Way better than The DaVinci Code! July 13, 2008
If you liked The DaVinci Code then I guarantee that you like this one better. I highly recommend this book.
awesome can't wait to read it July 12, 2008
I'm excited to get going on this book.. I know it's going to be great..
Angels July 9, 2008
Purchased for my mother who is blind. She enjoys exciting novels and this was during the new Pope's election making it very pertinent. She enjoys books on tape and throughly enjoyed this bestseller. I read the novel and wanted to share it with her. I would recommend to friends.
A Guilty Pleasure July 7, 2008
I like Dan Brown's work. Admittedly, it's not what I would write--normally, I'm not big on fiction that's too "scholarly." I read nonfiction to be informed, fiction to be entertained, but he's the exception to that rule. His plots are so outrageous they make me forget the novels read like textbooks at times. Okay, his characters are a bit too shallow, but if you're looking for a great, fast-paced story, here it is.
I read this one after The DaVinci Code, and I think it's a much better book than DaVinci.
NOTE: to the reviewer who commented that Brown had not explained how the camerlengo was so crazy after being raised by someone as sane as the Pope, I would suggest that his background spoke for itself. Nothing about his life was normal. He was born to two people who wanted a child but didn't want to have sex to get one (right there, he was cursed by genetics). His father never acknowledged him as his son--the papacy meant more to him than his own child. Even when his mother was alive, he didn't appear to have ever had a normal childhood. Then he saw her killed by a terrorist bombing. Psychologically, you just don't walk away from that sort of thing unscathed. I'll suggest that he was a sort of split personality--trying to live up to his beloved mother's wishes, but struggling with his resentment toward the same. No wonder he was as nutty as a bag of trail mix.
www.myspace.com/raven0805
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