Author: Dan Brown
First, a warning. I will give away key plot elements in this “review.” I will do this because the plot is one of the major flaws and I must reveal it in order to critique it. If you are wanting to read this book without knowing the outcome, don’t read my comments!
This is a bizarre book. It’s by the moron author of Davinci), but even more anti-Christian (specially anti-Catholic) than the other one. This book is basically a war between science and religion. An ancient pro-science cult has surfaced and has stolen some anti-mater from the CERN lab in Switzerland. As we all know, anti-mater explodes when it comes in contact with any regular matter, so this is effectively a tremendous weapon. The anti-matter is suspended inside the canister by magnetic force, but when the batteries run out (24 hours after the canister is disconnected from power), the anti-matter will drop, contact the canister, and explode. They hide this anti-matter in the Vatican so it will destroy the Catholic church. Robert Langdon, the symboligist from the other book, is brought in by CERN to help track down the ancient cult that did this, and he ends up (with a beautiful scientist partner) on a wild quest to stop the bomb. Okay, that’s the basic plot, and it’s not so bad. There are many nonsensical aspects to it (Why batteries that run out in exactly 24 hours? Why only have recharging stations at CERN? Why can’t the recharging station be moved or plugged into an AC outlet? Why and how does the canister have no metal? How the heck does the canister know, exactly, to the second how long the batteries will last? Does anything rechargable you own predict usage that accurately?), but those are typical Dan Brown idiotics, where he forces the plot to go where he wants to go and if that means forcing a square into a round hole he’ll damn well do it. But he does keep the action going, albeit with his trademark ploy of simply concealing information to build the suspense. (One feels extremely manipulated while reading a Dan Brown book.) The first half of the book has a distinctly anti-religious feel to it, with many unnecessary lectures on the superiority of science and the (obvious) fallacy of God. But in the second half, we meet the late Pope’s assistant, a man who seems quite amazing. He says all the right things, is spiritual yet modern and practical, and seems to have a logical balance between God and science (they are not contradictory). Unfortunately, just when I thought at Dan Brown book might have a redeeming character, the author pulls a fast one. As the story was wrapping up I expected a twist; Dan loves his twists — too bad he’s inept at pulling them off. This one was a doozy. All of a sudden we learn that this Catholic hero, the religious man who seemed so rational and likeable, is well, the insane guy behind the whole bomb plot. He’s responsible for all the murders and his stopping of the bomb was to make him a hero and get him elected Pope! This is a full 180-degree twist from the guy we knew, which is just ridiculous (I abhor unreliable narrators, especially omniscient ones), and his motives for his actions are obviously insane. Once again, Dan has succeeded in putting them blame on religion. In this case the whole anti-religion plot was fake, created by a religious guy to make science look bad! I don’t know; nothing makes much sense at this point. Again, Dan just forces a plot to go where he wants, whether or not it makes any sense. The bottom line is this artificial ending just ruins the book, ruins what was a remarkable character, and demonstrates that Brown knows absolutely zilch about realistic writing, human characterization, or reality.
Overall, this is a slightly better book than Davinci Code, but that’s not saying much. It doesn’t have as many factual flaws as that book and is not quite so arrogantly presented, but this book is much nastier toward God (versus the Catholic Church). Dan’s “solution” for the God vs. Science conflict is to conclude that God is Science and God is inside all of us… we are all gods. That doesn’t make sense on so many levels. First of all, why does an atheist scientist even care? Second of all, by reducing God to something — a mere technical fact — you’ve eliminated all Godliness from God. Why even have Him around then? I don’t understand the point of it. Either God is a supernatural being who created us and gives us a moral standard to live by, or there’s no point in having a god. In other words, if God is whatever we define, than we, effectively, are God. That’s hubris.
