Angels & Demons
I still remember when I first read Angels & Demons way back in 2011. It was right before I headed off to college if I remember correctly.
That was such a fun break before joining college. My best friend and I would stay up late every night chatting about the latest books we were reading.
Anyway, Angels & Demons by Dan Brown — what an intense story.
It’s the first book featuring Robert Langdon, Dan Brown’s eccentric Harvard professor of symbology. This guy finds himself in the middle of complex mysteries that involve decoding symbols, art, religion, secret societies — you name it.
In Angels & Demons, Langdon teams up with Vittoria Vetra, a young scientist who helped create this wildly dangerous antimatter substance.
Some crazy Illuminati assassin manages to get a hold of it and plants a bomb somewhere in Vatican City.
Langdon is recruited to help find and disarm it by using his knowledge of this ancient, mysterious Illuminati society.
The ticking clock adds so much suspense as you read about Langdon racing from one Illuminati church to the next, finding branded cardinals and cryptic symbols that eventually lead him to the bomb’s location.
He and Vittoria have to translate the Path of Illumination to follow the clues. It kept me on the edge of my seat wondering if they’ll crack the codes and save the Vatican in time.
Angels & Demons is a rollercoaster from start to finish for me. It touches on so many themes related to religion versus science, ancient secret societies, papal history, Dante’s Inferno — even some crazy conspiracy theories about the Illuminati secretly controlling world events.
After reading the book, I went on to read the rest of the Robert Langdon series after that. The series includes these other four novels:
The Da Vinci Code — This one came out right after Angels and Demons in 2003. It follows Langdon as he solves a murder connected to the search for the Holy Grail and secrets of the Priory of Sion.
The Lost Symbol — Published in 2009, this sends Langdon on a quest through Washington D.C. and the world of Freemasonry’s clandestine history.
Inferno — In this 2013 thriller, Langdon deals with themes of bio-terrorism linked to insights from Dante’s Inferno.
Origin — The latest in the series from 2017 has Langdon exploring the intersection between religion and science in Spain.
With all the history, puzzles, science, and theories about secret societies, it’s no wonder I tore through these books. They definitely kept my brain engaged while delivering an adrenaline-filled adventure.
Even all these years later, I can still picture the vivid scenes, like when Langdon finally locates the antimatter bomb.
Dan Brown has a knack for writing a memorable, cinematic page-turner.
