{"id":493,"date":"2017-06-14T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T22:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=493"},"modified":"2017-09-10T16:18:04","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T22:18:04","slug":"book-angels-and-demons-2000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/14\/book-angels-and-demons-2000\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Angels and Demons (2000)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1388890411l\/8617708.jpg\" alt=\"Angels and Demons\" width=\"318\" height=\"361\" \/>Angels and Demons<br \/>\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2000<br \/>\nAuthor: Dan Brown<br \/>\nLength: 416 minutes \/ 6.93 hours<\/p>\n<p>While <em>Angels and Demons<\/em> is not nearly as popular as its sequel, the famous (if not infamous) <em><a href=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/21\/book-the-da-vinci-code-2003\/\">The Da Vinci Code<\/a><\/em>, the elements which led to its successor\u2019s success are certainly all contained within this first book in the Robert Langdon series. Of course, just because you have the materials to build a nice house doesn\u2019t mean that it magically becomes a mansion. Despite containing many of the elements that made <em>The Da Vinci Code<\/em> so good, <em>Angels and Demons<\/em> feels a little underdeveloped in quite a few areas.<\/p>\n<p>First, the protagonist, Robert Langdon, is supposed to feel like an \u201cIndiana Jones\u201d-type character, but with a specialty like symbology as his background, I just can\u2019t buy the action-hero transformation of this everyday academic. Add to this the almost repetitive nature of his \u201cdiscoveries\u201d wherein he makes an assessment, then goes to the location of the assessment only to find that he didn\u2019t think of it in the right way and thus requiring the whole plot to shift gears as he rushes to the new location. He eventually had better predictions, but by then it felt repetitive.<\/p>\n<p>Secondly, the whole \u201ctreasure hunt\u201d to find the antimatter (of which I feel CERN is a more recognizable name than it was back in 2000) seemed to take a back burner to the parallel plot of the pope\u2019s death and finding his replacement. It is hard to focus on both plotlines, especially since both of them had pretty predictable endings. Finally, the romance aspect of this novel seemed quite forced, even to the point where the final scene of the book felt like it was ripped out of a James Bond story. Wherein a modicum of charm from the male protagonist makes his female counterpart swoon with undying affection that wasn\u2019t in any part of the prior plot.<\/p>\n<p>A rough start to the Robert Langdon series, I give <em>Angels and Demons<\/em> 2.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<h1><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Angels and Demons Year: 2000 Author: Dan Brown Length: 416 minutes \/ 6.93 hours While Angels and Demons is not nearly as popular as its sequel, the famous (if not infamous) The Da Vinci Code, the elements which led to its successor\u2019s success are certainly all contained within this first book in the Robert Langdon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,54],"tags":[40,639,55,638,8,640,641],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-5-stars","category-book","tag-40","tag-angels-and-demons","tag-book","tag-dan-brown","tag-review","tag-robert-langdon","tag-the-da-vinci-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":734,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}