Angels and Demons

By: Dan Brown

Narrated by: Richard Poe

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

An ancient secret brotherhood. A devastating new weapon of destruction. An unthinkable target...

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization - the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on earth...the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.

©2003 Dan Brown (P)2003 Simon & Schuster Inc. All Rights Reserved. AUDIOWORKS is an imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.

Critic reviews

"A reading experience you will never forget. Dan Brown has created another frantic-paced thriller that rivals the best works of Clancy and Cussler." (Book Browser Reviews)
"Brown's tale is laced with twists and shocks that keep the reader wired right up to the last revelation" (Publishers Weekly)

Simply too preposterous to enjoy

I enjoyed the DaVinci Code, which while a fictional story at least had only limited portions of it that required you to suspend your critical judgment and allow implausible time-lines and character actions to become real in the story. In this book, there is simply too much of that. After maybe a hour of ridiculously impossible story line action, I felt the author was insulting my intelligence and lost interest.

angels and demons

much better than Da Vinci Code

Disappointing

Not a very believeable story.

Very Good

Worth Reading

Pure Trash

One of the more overly dramatic works I've seen. Every sentence is hyped to the max. Had to stop listening after 2 hours.

I checked one star but none is more accurate

The author's ludicrous, contrived plot might have survived with some decent writing. However, the author's style is that of a 13 year-old on his first writing attempt inspired by his favorite TV show.
I cannot truly recommend it based on the whole plot, since I could only make it a quarter of the way through.
Finally, the author shows his amateurish credentials when he refers to hatha yoga as an ancient Buddhist art..... Anyone with access to a dictionary or browser could have found out in 30 seconds that it is a Hindu practice. What a hack!

Beyond absurd...

I finished Angels & Demons some days ago and am still wondering how on Earth it made the best seller list. I suppose the appeal is the "exotic" setting of Italy and and all the "inside information" on Catholicism. It's so thin, it's hard to know where to begin. There's an RC priest who's been working -- with his daughter (no explanation) -- for a private institution run by a Goldfinger-type (why are they always bald men in wheelchairs?). The priest ends up dead at the very beginning, the daughter spends the entire book in a pair of shorts, even on a trip to the Vatican. Another priest has fathered a child with a nun by means of In Vitro fertilization, thus celebrating God's miracle of life without breaking their vows. Right. The broader plot generally makes some sense up until the end. But then? I've listened to the ending three times and it pulls the rug out from under the whole book. The story smacks of "Man From U.N.C.L.E." or "The Avengers". My advice is don't bother.

One of the worst books I have ever read

Sometimes I thought I was listening to a comedy. The plot was utterly predictable and laughable. The dialogue was incredibly cheesey. It's like Brown is writing on a 7th grade level.