Book Review: Origin, by Dan Brown

This is the fifth Robert Langdon thriller by Dan Brown, and I will rank it in the top two of the five along with The Da Vinci Code (which was the first book of his that I read - and I've read all of his books).  When I heard it was being published this year I was anxiously awaiting it.  While the last two books, The Solomon Key and Inferno, weren't quite as good as The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons (or even Digital Fortress, which isn't a Robert Langdon thriller), I enjoyed the story elements, and I really like Brown's writing style.  As with the other Langdon novels, the subject matter sounded very interesting to me.  In fact, my reaction to the description of the story was stronger than for any of his other books - the premise has earth-shattering ramifications.

Edmond Kirsch, a tech billionaire and former student of Robert's, is about to announce a startling breakthrough that will change *everything* by providing answers to two questions that human beings have been asking for centuries:  Where do we come from? and Where are we going?

Robert is invited to a global presentation at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, which Edmond plans to broadcast live to the world over the Internet.  Naturally, the announcement is very controversial, chaos ensues at the event, and Langdon finds himself on a desperate quest to find the password needed to complete the broadcast of the presentation to he world, or the information may be lost forever.  Langdon's companion in this adventure is Ambra Vidal, a museum director who helped Kirsch plan the event.  Working behind the scenes is an enemy who is intent on preventing this information from being revealed to the world, putting Langdon and Vidal in danger.

I thought that Origin was a great read, every bit as gripping as The Da Vinci Code.  But there are some major differences in the action of the stories.  The Da Vinci Code starts off with a murder, and then guides Langdon through a maze of mysterious symbols and puzzles that Langdon needs to decipher, leading him to numerous physical locations before reaching the conclusion.  Origin spends the first 100 pages or so working up to Edmond's presentation, after which the real quest begins, and the number of symbols and puzzles is significantly smaller in this story.  But, as with Brown's other novels, Origin is an onion, and there are many layers.  The story keeps the reader engaged with fascinating information - even during the 100 pages that lead-up to the presentation, where there is very little action.  Of course, to the reader, everything is not always as it seems, and Brown will keep the reader guessing until the very end.

Unlike the other Langdon novels, Origin is much more focused on technology, and is very reminiscent of Brown's first book, Digital Fortress.  Edmond made his fortune by creating several gadgets that we learn more about as the story progresses - so the story is filled with gadgets from the very beginning.  Central to the story is a rather impressive piece of technology which aids Langdon and Vidal on their quest.

In the end, when Edmond's revelation is finally revealed, it was not what I would have expected.  In fact, I had no idea what to expect.  But I will say that Kirsch's presentation is very thought-provoking, and it ends the story in a great way.  The plots twists and turns continue right up until the end, which was very satisfying.  If you enjoyed the other Langdon thrillers, you should enjoy this one.

Once again, I'm always interested in hearing from others.  Whether you've read the book, or my review aided in your decision to read it, I'd like to hear from you.  Feel free to leave a comment.

Book Review: Heart of Stone, by Leo Romero

I have fallen behind in my posts - this is the first one in a while.  Hopefully I can continue a regular cadence after this.

I have to say, I don't really read a lot of urban fantasy.  The main one I read is The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, and there hasn't been a new book since May of 2014.  Since the first book of his Cinder Spires series was published in 2015, my expectation that it will be another year or two before the next volume, Peace Talks (book #16), will appear.  I've been getting antsy and frustrated, and have been seeking similar works of fantasy to scratch that itch (and, no, The Aeronaut's Windlass did not scratch the same itch - I liked it, but it is very different).

While trying to find something to scratch this itch, I came across a book for the Amazon Kindle called Black Spark, which is the first book in a series called Dark Magic Enforcer.  It sounded neat, so I checked it out.  It was very heard to get into, but somewhere around the halfway point it started to get pretty good  While I do intend to check out book 2 at some point, it didn't quite reduce the itch.  You can find my review here on my blog.

Then, I came across Libriomancer, by Jim C. Hines - see review here on my blog.  This is the first book in the Magic Ex Libris series, and was most excellent!  I highly recommend it, and I will definitely be reading the next three books in the series - I've heard from Mr. Hines that no other volumes are currently planned, but wouldn't object to doing another.  I also highly recommend his book Goblin Quest (review here), and while it isn't Urban Fantasy, it is an interesting twist on the standard fantasy dungeon crawl type of story - a very interesting twist.

Now, why all this preamble?  And what does any of this have to do with Heart of Stone, a book by a completely different author?  Well, it turns out that Libriomancer is a very original story, and it makes references to many other stories.  At one point in Libriomancer, the protagonist utilizes a magical item from an urban fantasy novel called Heart of Stone.  It sounded pretty cool, so I went searching for it on Amazon.  There are many books that have Heart of Stone in the title (many of them mysteries or romance novels), but I came across this one, and it looked very much like Urban Fantasy.  But, the story didn't sound like one that would include the magical item which was referenced.  It turns out, the book Heart of Stone was created specifically for the story line of Libriomancer - it doesn't actually exist!  So, I came across this book by accident.

Anyway, the ratings for Heart of Stone were high enough, and the story sounded interesting, and I got a sale price on Amazon, so I decided to take a chance on it.  The style of the story very much reminds me of The Dresden Files - the major difference being that the protagonist of the story, Gabriel Stone, is half-human and half-angel.  Like Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, he uses some magic, a magic imbued shotgun, and a magical sword - namely Excalibur from the King Arthur legend.  He also has a very interesting deck of cards - kind of a variation of the Deck of Many Things from Advanced Dungeons and Dragons - and he's an expert poker player who loves to gamble (something that the Big Guy above kind of frowns on - he's half-angel, remember).

For me, I found the story line followed a formula similar to The Dresden Files novels:  things start off strange, something bad happens, an attempt is made to enlist aid and things get worse, the protagonist recovers and makes some progress, things get bad again, and then really bad stuff happens - in this case the end of the world is imminent.

I thought this was a great read, there were several surprises, and Gabriel shows he is not an all powerful hero by screwing up a few times.  Oh, did I mention that he can be kind of a wise-ass as well?  Yeah, kind of like Harry Dresden (he comes up with some funny names for some of his opponents).  Of course, the fact that he's half-angel and does things that can get him into major trouble with the Head Honcho of Heaven makes him a bit different.  I'm not usually a fan of books which contain religious elements such as this, but there are exceptions.  The Didymus Contingency by Jeremy Robinson leaps immediately to mind - see my review here.  In this story, aside from the angels and demons, it is all on the periphery.  The author did a good job of keeping my interested, and I really wanted to see how things would turn out, and I will definitely be checking out book 2 at some point - it is already in my queue, but may take me some time to get there.

So, if you also feel like there is a major void in your life caused by the lack of a new Dresden book, and you are looking for some salve to heal your wounds, check this one out.  I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.

As always, I'm interested in hearing from those who read my reviews, especially if you have read the book yourself, or if my review gave you a desire to read it.  Please leave a comment.