Angels & Demons door Dan Brown

Writer: Dan Brown
Titel: Angels & Demons
Extra: Before THE DA VINCI CODE was broken, the world lay at the mercy of ANGELS AND DEMONS. Robert Langdon’s first adventure. Publishing-firm: POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Published in: 2000
A. - The genre of the book is thriller. - Information about the writer: According to the book; “Dan Brown is the bestselling author of Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons, Deception Point and The Da Vinci Code. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Philips Exeter Academy. He lives in New England with his wife.” More information about the writer and also about the books can be found at the webpage www.DanBrown.com. Here you can also find pictures from places and objects that are described in his books. B. The book begins with a prologue, in which immediately tension is being stirred up. The story begins with an event, in which two people take place. The reader knows nothing about the previous events, and why the two people are doing what they do. The two people are physicist Leonardo Vetra, and an intruder. Then the real story begins. The first head character is introduced, Robert Langdon. He is dreaming in his bed in Massachusetts when he is being awoken by the ring of his telephone. It’s 5:18 A.M. On the phone is Maximilian Kohler, a discrete particle physicist. He wants to see Robert immediately because of a murder in his lab, CERN.* Robert Langdon, who is a professor of religious iconology at Harvard University, doesn’t understand what he has to do with that until he gets a fax. On this fax the corpse is shown, with branded on the chest a single word, Illuminati. Now Robert has seen this, he decides to do what Kohler had asked, and he comes to C.E.R.N. Then there is a switch to two men. One is the killer of Leonardo Vetra, the other one is his opdrachtgever. Then you go back to Robert Langdon, who flies from Boston to Geneva in 1 hour, with a plane that goes Mach fifteen. Then there is again a switch to the killer, who tells his story about how he has met his task maker, and about some kind of brotherhood. Then we go back to Robert, who has landed in Geneva, and meets Maximilian Kohler. Kohler brings him to the body of the late Leonardo Vetra. While walking through CERN, Robert doesn’t know where to look. In the office of Leonardo Vetra there is a thick, white fog. This is to preserve the body. In the office Robert, after having examinate the body, tells about a secret brotherhood called the Illuminati. It appears to be a brotherhood set up by the brightest minds in the 1500’s. They had an ultra secret lair in Rome they called the Church of Illumination. Langdon then tells about the background of the group, and the symbols of it. Then we go to another character, a young guard, he notices something strange on the video monitors before him, he sees some kind of canister. Then we go back to Langdon. He is shown the study of Leonardo Vetra, and then Kohler and he go to await Vittoria Vetra, the daughter of Leonardo. The three of them then go to her and her father’s lab. There explains Vittoria about her work as a particle physicist. She tells that her father and she have created antimatter. There in the lab, they find out that a large canister of antimatter has been stolen. This is a big problem, because when antimatter comes in contact with matter, both dissolve. The canister contains a full quarter of a gram, which converts to almost five kilotons**, and once removed from its recharching platform at CERN, the canister would count down inexorably. When they’re back in the main atrium, Kohler gets a phone call, in which he is told where the canister is. He sends Vittoria and Robert of to that place, Vatican City. In between these chapters, another character is introduced. This man, Cardinal Mortati, is in St. Peter’s Cathedral. He oversees a sanctified event, called conclave. This is to elect a new pope. Through his eyes, you get to know that there are a lot of cardinals from all over the world, and that four cardinals are missing. These were not ordinary cardinals, but the chosen four, i preferiti. In Vatican City, Langdon and Vittoria are taken to the office of the Swiss Guard. There they meet Commander Olliveti, the person in charge there. Langdon and Vittoria can’t convince Olliveti to search for the missing canister, because he thinks that it isn’t dangerous. Then they try to speak with the late pope’s ‘chamberlain’, il camerlengo. In the Pope’s office, Langdon and Vittoria explain the whole situation. The camerlengo does take them serious. While they’re in the office, the hassasin (the killer of Leonardo) calls. He tells about the four missing cardinals, he tells that they are going to be killed in public. They we’re going to be killed at the markers of ‘The Path of Illumination’. Langdon goes to the archives of Vatican City to find the clue for the first marker. These markers are four sculptures that are a tribute to the four elements of science, Earth, Air, Fire and Water. In the archives they find a book which leads them to the Pantheon. When Langdon and Vittoria are in the Pantheon, they can’t find one of the missing cardinals. Few moments later, they notice that they are in the wrong church, and have to go to Santa Maria del Popolo. Once Langdon, Vittoria and Olliveti are there, they find the cardinal, already dead, with on his chest the word Earth. In the church they search for another clue to the next marker. They find it, and notice that it’s at St. Peters Square. When they arrive at the square, Langdon is the first one to find the second cardinal, but he couldn’t be saved any more, he had the word air on his chest. Langdon goes again to the archives, and finds the next marker, a sculpture in Santa Maria della Vittoria. But he is locked in the room because someone had just killed power. When he finally escapes, and gets to the church with Vittoria and Olliveti, the third cardinal is still alive and hangs in the church. Beneath him is a fire, and the word fire is also branded on his chest. The hassasin is still in the church. He kills Olliveti, tries to kill Langdon and takes Vittoria with him. Langdon can escape from the fire, and finds the last mark, at Piazza Navona. Here he meets with the hassasin, who puts the fourth and last cardinal in the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Langdon finds himself in another battle with the killer, but can escape once again and at the fountain he finds the last mark which points to Castel Sant’ Angelo, the Church of Illumination. There he finds Vittoria and the hassasin, and they fight again. This time, Langdon and Vittoria can kill the hassasin, and they go off to St. Peter’s Cathedral to find the canister. The camerlengo knows suddenly where it is, but when they have it, it’s too late to bring it to CERN. The camerlengo and Robert then go into a chopper, and fly as high as they can. They let the chopper go higher, and they both jump out of it. Langdon survives, and on the ground he and Vittoria discover the truth about the whole situation. It appears that the camerlengo has been the task maker for the hassasin, and that he has set up the whole plan. The camerlengo, once he finds out that the truth has come out, burns himself on top of St. Peters Cathedral. After all these events, we go to a new day, later. A new pope is elected, and Robert and Vittoria have survived all the horror, and enjoy a vacation in Rome. *CERN stands for Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, and is the worlds largest scientific research facility. It stands in Geneva, Switzerland. **A kiloton is equal to 1.000 metric tons of TNT. C. Robert Langdon: professor of religious iconology at Harvard University. He has written three books on symbology. Has a Victorian home. His house looks more like an anthropology museum than a home. He is forty yeas old, and has an “erudite” appeal. Wisps of grey in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school and college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool. Langdon’s friends had always viewed him as a bit of an enigma-a man caught between centuries. On weekends he could be seen lounging on the quad in blue jeans, discussing computer graphics or religious history with students; other times he could be spotted in his Harris Tweed and paisley vest, photographed in the pages of upscale art magazines at museum openings where he had been asked to lecture. Although a though teacher and strict disciplinarian, Langdon was the first to embrace what he hailed as the “lost art of good clean fun” He relished recreation with an infectious fanaticism that had earned him a fraternal acceptance among his students. His campus nickname-“The Dolphin”- was a reference both to his affable nature and his legendary ability to dive into a pool and outmanoeuvre the entire opposing squad in a water polo match. Maximilian Kohler: director general of CERN. Known behind his back as König-King. It was a title more of fear than reverence for the figure who ruled over his dominion from a wheelchair throne. Although few knew him personally, the horrific story of how he had been crippled was lore at CERN, and there were few there who blamed him for his bitterness…nor for his sworn dedication to pure science. He was a man who kept his distance. He has an almost computerized voice. He is a bit sick, and has dead grey eyes. Vittoria Vetra: (adopted) daughter of the murdered Leonardo Vetra. She was doing biological research in the Balearic Sea. She is a Bio Entanglement Physicist. She studies the interconnectivity of life systems. Her word ties closely with her father’s work in particle physics. She looked nothing like a bookish physicist. Lithe and graceful, she was tall with chestnut skin and long black hair. Her face is Italian, not overly beautiful, but possessing full, earthy features that even at twenty yards seemed to exude a raw sensuality. She has a slender torso and small breasts. She’s a strict vegetarian and CERN’s resident guru of Hatha yoga. - The theme of the book is thriller, it is very exciting, and has a lot of cliff hangers. It also contains a bit of horror, those are the scenes with the murders.