Angels & Demons
by Dan Brown · first published 2000
29% recommend43% neutral29% critical
Angels & Demons is a 2000 bestselling mystery-thriller novel written by American author Dan Brown and published by Pocket Books and then by Corgi Books. The novel introduces the character Robert Langdon, who recurs as the protagonist of Brown's subsequent novels. Angels & Demons shares many stylistic literary elements with its sequels, such as conspiracies of secret societies, a single-day time frame, and the Catholic Church. Ancient history, architecture, and symbology are also heavily referenced throughout the book.
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…that one wasn't, because if he'd consulted even a first year CS student they could've told him it's all wrong. That whole experience turned me off of Dan Brown books (even though I had previously read Angels and Demons and enjoyed it, knowing his research was so shit in areas I'm knowledgeable in makes it harder to read books about things I'm not because I know I will be coming away with wrong ideas stuck in my head)
on “The World According to Dan Brown” ↗…interesting relationships. You can start with Crime thrillers, Murder mysteries. Adding to the above list: Jeffery Archer and Dan Brown present some very interesting books in the form of "Kane and Abel" and "Angels and Demons". Another good book that you might find interesting is "Flatland - a romance of many dimensions" by Edwin Abbott.
on “Ask HN: How to transition from non-fiction to fiction reading?” ↗…before, Frank Herbert was a very late bloomer. A more modern (but less extreme) example would be Dan Brown: his first book, Digital Fortress was just barely good enough to get him a second book deal; Angels and Demons made the best-seller list, barely; he didn't achieve superstar chart-topping success until his fourth book, Da Vinci Code. He's now one of the top-selling authors in the world. As long as publishing…
on “Gore, Ex-Apple Engineers Team Up to Blow Up the Book” ↗…Fortress is probably the book with the most bullshit representation of computers and cryptography ever. Dan Brown goes out of his way to do as little research as possible on subjects he's talking about. In Angels and Demons, the Illuminati want to blow up Vatican using jars with antimatter they stole from CERN. Jesus Christ. The Da Vinci Code is similarly flawed. It baffles me how he manages to be so full of shit as to…
on “Ask HN: What novels or other fictional works have Linux in a significant role?” ↗If you read more than two Dan Brown books, honestly it's hard to not see this structure. I read The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, which were OK, but then reading Deception Point I could guess all the plot twists several chapters in advance. He's just very formulaic.
on “How I wrote and published my novel using only open source tools” ↗On the "Angels and Demons" ambigrams... The artist made such an impression to the book author, Dan Brown, that he (Brown) decided to name the protagonist after him. Here's John Langdon, artist: https://www.johnlangdon.net/ Having…
on “My Life in Ambigrammia” ↗…tricky enough mystery, and really shitty ones just accidentally reveal it, often by over-using tropes or having silly patterns like “it’s always the dark and brooding guy”. Ever read any Dan Brown? In Angels and Demons he gives it away on the first page with an anagram.
on “Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)” ↗