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September 19, 2005

Angels & Demons - Dan Brown

Angels & Demons - Dan Brown

When I started reading this novel, I almost did a double-take, confused if maybe I'd accidently packed "The Da Vinci Code" again by accident for my two week holiday in the sun. A bizarre murder by a religious nut; Robert Langdon being called in as a symbology expert; it's all so familiar. And yet, this was the original book in which our hero appears, to try and unravel an ancient trail of clues with only his encyclopaedic memory for codes, architecture and art history to help him. Well, there is of course a pretty foreign sidekick too, this one being Italian.

The book races along amiably, the plot being that an ancient cult of scientists called the Illuminati have stolen an anti-matter bomb that will destroy Vatican City at midnight. Robert Langdon only has hours to solve the clues to try and save four kidnapped cardinals. They will be killed, one every hour, and the oocation of the next murder will be obliquely signposted by something at the site of the previous one. During this time, the other important cardinals in the Catholic church are trying to elect a new Pope, unaware of the drama unfolding.

Does Langdon save the cardinals? Does the bomb explode? Do we learn a lot of history of Bernini's architecture we didn't really care about? The answers are no, yes and maybe, but not necessarily in that order.

This is perfect holiday fiction. Short chapters, multiple cliff-hangers, enough to make your brain work a little, but not too much. The appalling prose is still here unfortunately, the almost stupidly complex clues, and an unbelievable helicopter stunt too. But you will inevitably steam through it between your snorkelling and sunbathing, and be happy to come back for more next year. Come on Mr Brown, where is the third in this series?

Posted by se71 at September 19, 2005 03:51 PM

Comments

Your blog came up when I googled my recently purchased DVD recorder. (made by LG) I see you bought the same model some months ago. How did you get on with it? Do you find the fan noisy? Apart from the noisy fan, I think its good value and does the job. Hopr you are well.

Posted by: indublin [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 20, 2005 11:48 PM

I am really happy with the LG DVD-recorder, it does everything I wanted and more. I went on holiday and recorded hours of programs whilst I was away. I make backups of TV programs and watch them on my portable DVD player - and now transfer them to Memory Stick for watching on my PSP too.

I've never noticed the fan noise actually, but I have a PC with an open case in my living room too, so maybe that's drowning it out a bit, or I'm just used to it.

Hope you enjoy using it, and let me know if you need any help at all. Thanks for commenting.

Posted by: se71 [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 21, 2005 02:17 PM

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