The Elfin Blog

On the heels of Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code I picked up and read his other Robert Langdon adventure, Angels and Demons. One would think I had been Dan Browned out, and to a certain extent I was, but nonetheless I plowed through the book.

I found the book enjoyable, and anyone who liked The DaVinci Code will certainly have fun reading Angels and Demons. This book takes place about a year before the events of The DaVinci Code, where our hero, Professor Robert Langdon, is awakened in the middle of the night to aid in the surreptitious investigation of a scientist who has been apparently murdered by the ancient and presumably extinct group the Illuminati. With that, Landgon is off on a fast-paced adventure involving the Vatican, anti-matter, scientific proof of the existence of God, and the dangerous and elusive Illuminati.

While Dan Brown’s relatively simple and elementary writing style breaks some rules of “good” fiction, the man knows how to write a thriller and keep the reader engaged, and even though the writing in Demons is a little less polished than in The DaVinci Code, the adventure is no less enjoyable. The story is packed with vivid descriptions of the art and architecture of Rome and the Vatican, the Swiss Guard, and even underground passages beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. So, as long as you’re not looking for an adventure authored by the likes of Hegel, you should enjoy yourself in this wild ride around the Vatican.