Inferno

A Novel

By: Dan Brown

Narrated by: Paul Michael

Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

#1 WORLDWIDE BESTSELLER • Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon awakens in an Italian hospital, disoriented and with no recollection of the past thirty-six hours, including the origin of the macabre object hidden in his belongings.

“One hell of a good read.... As close as a book can come to a summertime cinematic blockbuster.” —USA Today

“A diverting thriller.” —Entertainment Weekly

With a relentless female assassin trailing them through Florence, he and his resourceful doctor, Sienna Brooks, are forced to flee.

Embarking on a harrowing journey, they must unravel a series of codes, which are the work of a brilliant scientist whose obsession with the end of the world is matched only by his passion for one of the most influential masterpieces ever written, Dante Alighieri's The Inferno.

Dan Brown has raised the bar yet again, combining classical Italian art, history, and literature with cutting-edge science in this captivating thriller.

©2013 Dan Brown (P)2013 Random House Audio

Best Langdon in the Series

My favorite Langdon book! Action packed and always keeping you on your toes! Dan Brown is brilliant. I love all the art and the history.

Really Enjoy - Unexpected Ending

I would recommend this book. Was well read and written. I was surprised by the ending.

More of the same, but the ending..... meh

Dan Brown is definitely a guilty pleasure; I'm an art teacher and I like to travel, so while Brown's writing is mediocre at best and his character development is essentially nonexistent, I will happily revisit Angels and the DaVinci Code. However. This one...... eh. I'm visiting Florence and thought I'd give this one another shot after getting bored with it my first attempt after just a few chapters. Getting the inside scoop on places I've now seen is really fun, and I liked about 85% of this book. Then came then ending. I am fine with the way the climax worked out and the events, but the way the last few chapters were written was so incredibly corny, patronizing, Robert-Langdon-is-the-savior-of-beautiful-young-women. I think Sienna is the worst developed and least convincing "brilliant and beautiful female sidekick" from Brown to date. The very end literally made me cringe. Absolutely awful wrap up. The first 95ish chapters were very entertaining, though 😅

Loved this story!!!

Dan Brown is one of my favorite authors. First time hearing the story and it was just as thrilling as reading it!! Excellent voice!

I liked it

I enjoyed this book. It kept me interested until the end. I’m not a big reader. I judge a book on whether I enjoyed the story and it kept my attention. This book did both. Worth a read.

Good read!

I love the historical information you can glean from Dan Brown’s novels. Robert Langdon is an unassuming hero!!

Six stars all around, if Audible let me!

I downloaded Dan Brown's latest book as it was released, around 3:30 am, (FWIW, I'm not a bum, I have a spinal injury) and Immediately became absorbed in an utterly fascinating tale! The story is interesting, fast and fierce. I found the reader perfect for the parts and he did everything to bring me in farther. I do not want to spoil the book for any of you so I will only say, if you liked his other works then you will probably like or love "Inferno." I say this because they are very much the same type of books but at the same time very different. I wish all series writers could write that way. I hope you enjoy it as I have.
May God Bless!

I Guess Dan Brown Never Read “Children of Men”...

…or “Jurassic Park,” or “Brave New World”…

I’m sure there are plenty of readers who give this book 5 stars because the ideas in the story energized them, and plenty who give it 1 star because they were horrified. I’m giving it 3 stars because I was neither energized nor horrified. The writing was just “meh,” also known as classic Dan Brown – his characters spend a lot of time “recalling when…” or “remembering the first time…” You can almost hear the dream sequence music cue in, and then we’re in for a long, explanatory bit of prose that acts like speed bumps to the plot. He awkwardly hides exposition within dialog and too often follows with a sometimes interesting history lesson on art, on Florence, on Dante Alighieri… but this is supposed to be a race to stop a madman from releasing a deadly plague! Right? I don’t want to give anything away, but let’s just say our characters have the time for a lesson or two. His show vs. tell skills could do with more exercise. That is, we know his Hero finds the female protagonist attractive because he says she’s “quite attractive.” We know she’s supposed to be very smart because our Hero finds information saying she’s very smart, though, throughout the story, Brown doesn’t have her behave like a very smart person -- she’s clever but not always intelligent. All in all, this is a tepid tale with some awkward contrivances, a strange twist and a flaccid ending, but if you’re interested in the transhumanist movement, Italian Renaissance and art, or Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy, then there is plenty in Inferno for you to enjoy.

Without giving too much away, here’s one point Brown doesn’t make in his arguments: Brown’s “mad doctor” character argues that after the black plague Europe enjoyed a renaissance reflected in the art, music and literature of the time, and makes the leap that the one-to-one correlation is related to the decrease in the population. Professor Langdon, our Hero, as an Art History professor, should have made the counter argument that the Renaissance didn’t simply come about because of a decrease in the population, but as a direct result of and an antidote to the suffering during the plague times. In other words, humanity doesn’t need to be mollycoddled by some guy who thinks he knows better than everyone else. Population wise, we’ve made our bed, so to speak, and there may be great suffering in the future, but think of the art and leaps of science we’ll make on the other side of it. Humans are at their best when given a challenge. Brown’s “mad doctor” wants to take that away without even considering that his Brave New World could usher in a malaise of thought and imagination, and accomplish the opposite of his goal by halting our evolution.

Typical Dan Brown

I happen to like Dan Brown. I feel like I learn something about art and history and symbolism with every book. This book is mostly set in Italy and will give you a glimpse into Dante's Inferno.

If you liked The Lost Symbol and the Da Vinci Code, then you'll like this one.

Blaaaah

This book is 90% history lesson, 5% running in circles and 5% story. One review had said it perfectly - Dan went through a lot of trouble to describe everything to the last detail! I like the history, but not to much where it takes over the book. He wrote a book just to write a book