Angels & Demons: A Novel (Robert Langdon)

Gets better every time. Robert Langdon is so human and so interesting in his specialty, that he makes everything come alive. Dan Brown is amazing

This review is for the first four books of this series. Honestly, it almost doesn’t feel like a traditional series, because the books are very easy to read as standalones. I’m giving it four stars overall, rounded down from four and a half. I just couldn’t quite bring myself to round it up to five. These are famous books - they’ve been turned into major movies, so most people already have some idea of what they’re getting into. The author knows his stuff. That’s the simplest way to say it. Almost everything here is above average for the genre: the writing, the emotion, the tension, the realism, the world-building, the research, the atmosphere. In some places, it is considerably above average. The books are definitely long-winded, though. This is one of those series where even a minor character who might only matter for a couple chapters still gets a full backstory. You get to understand where they came from, why they believe what they believe, and what pushed them into their current role. Some readers may not like that. Personally, I enjoyed it. It gives the world a lot of texture, and it makes even small characters feel like they had lives before the plot grabbed them. One thing I also appreciated is how the books handle religion. These are obviously very religiously themed stories, but they don’t feel like the author is trying to convert you to one side or another. Characters believe different things. Some of them give passionate speeches. Some of them are deeply religious. Others are critical or skeptical. But I never felt the author stepping in to say, “This is the correct belief.” That is impressive, because a lot of books with this much religion simply cannot avoid that. The author’s own view usually starts leaking through. Here, after four books, I honestly do not know if the author is religious or not. That is a compliment. One chapter might have a religious character speaking with so much conviction that I think, okay, the author must believe this. Then the next chapter will hit that same belief system from the other side and point out problems so directly that I think, okay, maybe he doesn’t. The result is a series where different beliefs are allowed to exist on the page without one being treated as the obvious author-approved answer. The beliefs are pushed hard by the characters, but not in the usual preachy way. Mild spoilers after this point. One of the most interesting things about these books is also one of the most frustrating. The author constantly brings up real historical details, coincidences, symbols, locations, patterns, and theories that I either didn’t know or had barely heard of. The amount of research behind even a single page is staggering! There were moments where I could imagine the author physically going to a location, taking a thousand photos, talking to every tour guide, and digging through the kind of obscure details most people would never notice. A lot of the time, when I looked something up, it was accurate. Sometimes it was accurate in ways that were almost annoying because Google would give me less detail than the book until I started digging deeper. That is impressive. It makes the world feel rich and researched. But there is a double edge to that. The author is very good at blending real history with fictional invention. Almost too good. He will take three quarters of something real, then slide in one quarter of fiction for drama, and the result is so smooth that you often don’t know what is true and what is made up. That can be fun, but it can also be frustrating. For example, one book talks about the Fibonacci sequence and gives several examples from nature. The first few examples are real, and when I looked them up, I was impressed and wanted to learn more, so I kept reading, more and more interested.... and then the later examples turned out to be completely made up. That is a good example of the series as a whole. It blends fact and fiction so well that I found myself constantly looking things up, either being impressed that something was true or disappointed that something wasn’t. So, the research is incredible, but the blending can make it hard to know where the real world ends and the thriller invention begins. Now, for my three main issues. The first issue is the action writing. The action scenes are not bad, but the prose does not tighten up as much as I would like. This is not an action-heavy series in the usual sense, so when action does happen, I want it to feel sharp and immediate. Instead, the author often keeps writing in the same thoughtful, reflective rhythm. A character might be in the middle of a fight, getting beaten or chased or shot at, and suddenly he has a memory, a realization, or a two-paragraph thought process. I did adjust to it over time, because it happens often enough that it becomes part of the style. But as someone who reads a lot of action, I wasn’t a huge fan of it. I would rather those thoughts happen before or after the tense moment, not right in the middle of it. Even when the thoughts are interesting or emotionally relevant, they often can’t compete with the immediate danger of the scene. They pulled me out of moments that should have been faster and tighter. The second issue is the endings. This is probably my biggest personal disappointment. These books build and build and build through the first three quarters with incredible confidence. The world-building is huge. The backstories are layered. The themes are massive. The mysteries feel like they might change everything. You start to think, okay, if this is discovered, the world is never going to be the same. And then the ending is much smaller than what the buildup seems to promise. I understand why. You can’t completely change the world at the end of every book. You can’t overturn religion or history every single time. But the books are very good at hinting that they might. They make you believe that something enormous is coming. Even after seeing the pattern repeat, I still fell for it again in the next book, over and over again - that's how good the buildup is! I would start thinking, "okay, maybe this time it really is that big." Nope. The reveal would be interesting, yes, but not world-shattering by any means. It might be something like an ancient family line still existing in secret, or some hidden historical truth that matters, but not as much as the buildup made it feel like it would. The books aim your imagination toward the impossible, then land somewhere more grounded. Responsible storytelling or a letdown? That's up to you to decide. The third issue is continuity. Since these books are so easy to read as standalones, this will be a positive for some readers. If you just want to pick up the best-reviewed book or read whichever one sounds most interesting, you probably can. But for me, after four books, I wanted a little more carryover. Some pretty significant things happen in these stories. Even when the final reveals are more restrained than the buildup suggests, they are still big events. But the books close quickly after the climax, usually with an epilogue, and then the next book moves on. It may nod back to what happened before, but the world continues as usual. I would have liked to see more lingering consequences, more continuity, and more sense that the previous discoveries really changed the world or the characters in a lasting way. I also would have liked a little bit less of the "new attractive woman is in danger" every single book. It seems the protagonist, even though romance is heavily hinted at each book, can't simply stay in a relationship with a single one of these women without breaking up with them by the next book. Even with those issues, this is still a very strong series. The books are researched, confident, thoughtful, and gripping. The author is excellent at building mystery, layering history into fiction, and giving even small characters enough context to matter. I enjoyed the religious and historical themes more than I expected, because the books let different viewpoints breathe without forcing one final answer down the reader’s throat. But for me, the series is not quite five stars. The action scenes are too reflective, the endings underdeliver compared to the scale of the buildup, and the standalone nature means there is far less continuity than I personally wanted. But the overall craft is still well above average. Rating: 4.5 stars.

I absolutely loved how this book covers so many different feelings and emotions when it comes to religion. It is a must read!

I had been very impressed by DIGITAL FORTESS, Dan Brown's first novel, and found his treatment of a complex subject matter both knowledgeable and compelling. I had then missed the publication of ANGELS AND DEMONS, but felt that he had overplayed his hand in his third novel DECEPTION POINT, which started with an interesting premise but wandered into unnecessary complexity and violence and ultimately complete implausibilty. With the publication of THE DA VINCI CODE, upon learning that Robert Langdon is the central character in both DA VINCI and ANGELS, I decided to first read ANGELS in order to keep the stories in sequence. This is a mesmerizing page turner as long as you accept the author's central technological premises concerning scientific achievements in the near future. Robert Langdon, a professor of iconography and religious symbology at Harvard, is awakened by a telephone call from Maximilian Kohler, head of a prestigious European scientific institute. One of Kohler's fellow scientists has been murdered and an ancient symbol burned into his chest. Langdon feels compelled to investigate, and soon finds himself in the midst of a plot involving not only the death of Leonardo Vetra, a priest who is the world's leading antimatter researcher, but of the revival of a centuries old vendetta by a secret society, The Illuminati, against the Catholic Church. Langdon is forced by circumstances and the nature of the threat to join forces with Vittoria Vetra, Leonardo's adopted daughter, in an attempt to uncover the Illumunati's secret and halt not only several additional murders which have been threatened but the destruction of The Vatican itself. Incredibly, the entire story takes place within a time span of just over twelve hours, which adds to the compelling nature of the action. The book is typical Dan Brown, meticulously researched (despite the complaints of a few reviewers about some details), with lots of interesting information about a variety of subjects related to religion, the Vatican, art, science and morality. It is a well constructed story, with several plot twists and enough misdirection to make it extremely difficult to anticipate the conclusion. (I doubt that the outcome was as expected by those critical reviewers who didn't finish the book after identifying their choice for the "obvious villian". I also did not feel that the story was at all anti- Catholic, in fact the author met with the Pope and was helped by the Vatican during his research efforts.) While there are several gruesome scenes, they are integral to the context of the story and the violence is usually minimized and only briefly described. The real bonus of reading this story is the wonderfully well articulated discussion of the tension between science and religious faith, which forms the heart of the story. The last section of the book has a particularly insightful monologue in this regard, but the subject infuses the whole discussion woven into the plot concerning the historical conflict between the Illuminati and the Church. For instance, early in the book Vittoria challenges Langdon's evasion concerning his apparent lack of a belief in God with the observation "I did not ask if you believe what man says about God. I asked if you believed in God. There is a difference." In addition, the book is almost worth reading just for the ambigrams (words or phrases which read the same right side up or upside down) which Dan Brown had created. These are truly works of art and their design is incredibly clever and beautiful. Finally, if you are familiar with Philips Exeter Academy, the author's alma mater, you will also have the fun of recognizing the source of the names of several of the characters referenced in the book.

I thought this book was excellent. Normally, I can guess what the ending could be but with book I couldn’t. Highly recommend it

"Angels & Demons" is a very good suspense thriller set primarily in The Vatican City. The novel is the second novel by Dan Brown, the first being "Digital Fortress". This is the first of the "Robert Langdon" series. It is a medium length, fast paced novel that is written in modern conversational English and is mostly an easy read. The chapters are mostly short and the novel can be read in intervals during work breaks, etc., without losing the flow of the story. I liked it very much. Although somewhat similar in format to "Digital Fortress" this novel marks a distinct improvement and the story line is completely independent of "Digital Fortress". There is little or no gratuitous vulgar language in this novel, another distinct improvement over "Digital Fortress". "Angels & Demons" is dedicated specifically to Dan Brown's mother and I cannot help but wonder if this elevated the author's lexicon to a level more consistent with good literature. The first novel was dedicated to both of his parents. The novel is primarily set in Vatican City and is a mystery thriller. The story requires detective work of a more academic nature than the average violent street felony. Although I am a retired detective and I read a good bit, I would not have been able to work though this case on my own, in the time allotted in the novel, without Robert Langdon's expertise. I really enjoyed the academic aspect of this novel and this was my favorite part of the novel. I did parallel reading and learned a good deal. This novel features yet another semi omniscient uber villain who cannot resist spewing background information to his victims. Personally I last encountered this in "The Lincoln Letter", another academic mystery novel. I never encountered villains of this nature in my professional career and I have concluded that this is a literary device to shorten and simplify the story. I preferred this novel over "The Lincoln Letter". In summary, I really enjoyed this novel. It is a distinct improvement over the author's first novel. The two stories stand alone and a reader can skip the first novel without missing anything in this second novel. Although very academic it is still a relatively easy read and I prefer it to other mystery novels by contemporary American male authors such as James Patterson and Dean Koontz. I mean no disrespect to them, I just liked this novel better. Thank You...

Page turner and easy to read

Angels & Demons is a gripping, high-energy thriller that pulls you in from the very first chapter. Dan Brown blends art, history, science, and religion into a mystery that unravels at breakneck speed. The chase through Rome’s iconic landmarks adds a cinematic feel, and the plot twists keep you guessing right up until the end. It’s engaging, smart, and exciting — perfect for anyone who enjoys suspenseful stories with layers of intrigue.

This history provides a travel through the ancient times and quite a non-stop action. I really liked the development of the Camerlengo's role during the novel.

The copy I received was damaged and there were water stains on the cover. Slightly disappointed with the copy I received.

Perfetto

It's a good read.

Great novel. Factual basis and intriguing storyline.