Angels and Demons by Dan Brown

Same as most of readers, I read Angels & Demons by Dan Brown after reading The Da Vinci Code. And I can to answer the question- “How does Angels & Demons compare to The Da Vinci Code?”- very short: they’re very similar. If you enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, you should enjoy Angels & Demons.
Both stories follow the exploits of the character Robert Langdon, who is a Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University. While the Da Vinci Code has Langdon solving the murder of a curator at the Louvre, it turns into a mystery full of cryptic messages hidden in da Vinci’s works. In Angels and Demons Langdon has to stop the Illuminati from destroying the Vatican with a powerful antimatter explosive. Both books are obviously fictional works, but the fascination for organizations like the Illuminati, Masons, and the Knights Templar is widespread.
As the novel begins, Robert Langdon woke up in the middle of the night by a phone call from Maximilian Kohler, 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.” Since Langdon is an expert on the ancient secret society known as the Illuminati, he’s asked to help solve the murder.
The victim is Leonardo Vetra. Not only is he one of the world’s leading physicists, he’s a Catholic priest. He’s a priest who has adopted a daughter, Vittoria, who is as well a scientist at CERN. Vetra and his daughter were using the world’s largest particle accelerator to create antimatter, and then suspend the antimatter properly in canisters so that it doesn’t interact with matter. If a canister is removed from the electrical system which keeps the matter and antimatter separated, then backup batteries will serve the same purpose for 24 hours. When those 24 hours expire, the two will collide in an instantaneous explosion of unprecedented power.
Lenoardo Vetra 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. Langdon and Vittoria Petra are quickly sent off to Rome and Vatican City, to help find the canister and return it to CERN before it explodes at midnight.
Not only does the canister threaten to destroy Vatican City, but with the recent death of the Pope, the cardinals of the Catholic Church are all within the city for the conclave to choose the new pope. They are all about to be locked within the Sistine Chapel where, according to church law, they must remain until a new pope is chosen. They are awaiting the preferiti, the four cardinals from four different European countries who are the preferred candidates to become the new pope. While Langdon and Vittoria are trying to convince the captain of the Swiss Guard and the camerlengo, the Pope’s chamberlain who leads the church until the new pope is named, that the antimatter bomb is real, a phone call is received from a man who claims to be from the Illuminati. He has the four cardinals, which he will murder one by one, and then allow the bomb to destroy Vatican City, which houses not only the church hierarchy, but also its possessions and wealth. He has no demands; his only wish is the destruction of the Catholic Church in retribution for the church’s treatment of scientists and the Illuminati over the centuries.
Langdon and Vittoria Vetra digs through archives and ancient mysteries to find hints, which also desires an extensive background in art history and religious symbology. This makes Robert Langdon the expert through all this mysterious knowledge with his congenial and scholarly fashion, doing his best to educate without seeming superior with his own intelligence. Much like The Da Vinci Code, Langdon understands enough about each mystery to go in a search of the missing pieces necessary to solve each puzzle, which leads him to the next one. Vittoria is beautiful, tough, intelligent, and determined to avenge her father’s murder and keep the canister from exploding. The two of them are constantly one step behind the Illuminati, and once it’s clear that the Swiss Guard and Vatican City have been penetrated by the ancient society, they don’t know whom to trust. This leads them through churches, fountains, crypts, forgotten passages, secret passages, and catacombs. Death stalks them at every turn, in one form or another.
You can to be agree or absolutely disagree with Dan Brown ideas about religion history concepts, but everybody little be interesting in religion, science history, in history generally, must have to read this novel by Dan Brown. And I highly recommend you before and after reading this book to watch Dan Burstein’s Secrets of Angels, Demons & Masons and read a book Inside Angels & Demons: The Story Behind the International Bestseller by Dan Burstein and Arne de Keijzer that we’re talking about a fictional book. And one admonition more- in May 2009 was premiere of film Angels and Demons by Ron Howard, I highly recommend- before you will watch this film you must have to a read novel!

Enjoy!

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