Conspiracy of Doves wrote:

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36228

Da Vinci Begets Angels

In the wake of the success of The Da Vinci Code, Sony has signed that
film's writer, Akiva Goldsman, to adapt author Dan Brown's first
religious thriller, Angels & Demons, a prequel, Variety reported. Code
has grossed $231.8 million worldwide in its first five days of release.

Development of Angels & Demons is still in the early stages, but the
studio is planning to reassemble the Da Vinci Code producing team of
Brian Grazer and John Calley for the project.

No deals are set yet for Code director Ron Howard or star Tom Hanks to
return, but both would have first crack at the project.

Code was the second of Brown's novels centering on Robert Langdon, a
Harvard professor who's an expert in religious symbols. Angels &
Demons, published in 2000, introduced the Langdon character. Langdon
tries to solve a murder and unravel a plot by an ancient group, the
Illuminati, to blow up the Vatican during a papal conclave.

More proof that Hollywood has become the arbiter of bad taste and
crappy story-telling. Angels and Demons has to be one of the worst
books I have ever read.

The hero of the story, Robert Langdon, is so obviously the Dan Brown
that Dan Brown wants to be. The whole book is peppered with phrases
about how dapper and raffish this seemingly mild-mannered academic is,
how his steely gaze pierces his bookish demeanour etc. ad nauseam.
Surprise surprise, the aging patriarch is adored by his students as he
bangs on about religious symbology and they lap up his baseless
assertions while prompting him with obvious and banal questions to
continue his crack-pot monologues.

Just as in the da Vinci code, this middle-aged bookworm teams up with a
devastatingly attractive, yet highly inteligent, exotic european chick
thirty years his junior. Sparks fly, meaningful looks are exchanged and
she is blown away by his experience and grizzled maturity.

The 'science' that appears in the story is laughable, I wish he had
just used 'magic' as a plot device rather than poorly understood and
just plain wrong physics. The plot revolves around the Illuminati who
have stolen some antimatter from hacky-sack playing hippy physicists at
CERN. He breathlessly asserts in the preface to the book that
antimatter is real, has been produced and will be the energy source of
the future, with no recourse to the inconvenient laws of conservation
of mass/energy that throw this particular violation of the laws of
thermodynamics out of the window. He flies around the globe in a CERN
developed hypersonic spaceplane (it has been kept secret for some
unmentioned reason) that burns slush-hydrogen and can conveniently
ferry him from America to Geneva to England and Rome in a couple of
hours. Obviously all small airfields have hydrogen refuelling
facilities already installed just in-case a secret privately-funded
spaceplane just happens to land.

The main protagonist, or rather the human tool of the main protagonist,
is an exotic looking ruthless assassin with strange personal
affectations and tastes. Once again the world (the catholic church) is
saved by the unique talents of the worlds leading (and no doubt only)
expert in religious symbology.

The da Vinci code is a slightly better rehashing of his first novel,
but only in the way that a cowpat is slightly less repellant than a dog
turd.

BTW. I consider myself an atheist and do not object to any works of
fiction based on other works of fiction - as long as they are any good.

Conspiracy of Doves wrote:

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=36228

Da Vinci Begets Angels

In the wake of the success of The Da Vinci Code, Sony has signed that
film's writer, Akiva Goldsman, to adapt author Dan Brown's first
religious thriller, Angels & Demons, a prequel, Variety reported. Code
has grossed $231.8 million worldwide in its first five days of release.

Development of Angels & Demons is still in the early stages, but the
studio is planning to reassemble the Da Vinci Code producing team of
Brian Grazer and John Calley for the project.

No deals are set yet for Code director Ron Howard or star Tom Hanks to
return, but both would have first crack at the project.

Code was the second of Brown's novels centering on Robert Langdon, a
Harvard professor who's an expert in religious symbols. Angels &
Demons, published in 2000, introduced the Langdon character. Langdon
tries to solve a murder and unravel a plot by an ancient group, the
Illuminati, to blow up the Vatican during a papal conclave.

More proof that Hollywood has become the arbiter of bad taste and
crappy story-telling. Angels and Demons has to be one of the worst
books I have ever read.