L for Leonardo Da Vinci

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

L is for Leonardo Da Vinci

"Langdon was talking in rapid bursts now. 'The Priory's membership has included some of history's most cultured individuals: men like Botticelli, Sir Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo.' He paused, his voice brimming now with academic zeal. 'And, Leonardo Da Vinci.'

Sophie stared. 'Da Vinci was in a secret society?'

'Da Vinci presided over the Priory between 1510 and 1519 as the brotherhood's Grand Master, which might help explain your grandfather's passion for Leonardo's work. The two men share a historical fraternal bond. And it all fits perfectly with their fascination for goddess iconology, paganism, feminine deities, and contempt for the Church. The Priory has a well-documented history of reverence for the sacred feminine.'"

- from The Da Vinci Code, chapter 23

A portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci, a key figure in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code

K for Katherine Solomon

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

K is for Katherine Solomon

"Katherine Solomon had been blessed with the resilient Mediterranean skin of her ancestry, and even at fifty years old she had a smooth olive complexion. She used almost no makeup and wore her thick black hair unstyled and down. Like her older brother, Peter, she had gray eyes and a slender, patrician elegance."

- from The Lost Symbol, chapter 5

A Mediterranean woman with olive skin and dark hair, similar to how Dan Brown describes Katherine Solomon's appearance in The Lost Symbol

J for Jacques Sauniere

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

J is for Jacques Sauniere

"In the centre of the light, like an insect under a microscope, the corpse of the curator lay naked on the parquet floor.

"You saw the photograph," Fache said, "so this should be of no surprise."

Langdon felt a deep chill as they approached the body. Before him was one of the strangest images he had ever seen.

The pallid corpse of Jacques Sauniere lay on the parquet floor exactly as it appeared in the photograph. As Langdon stood over the body and squinted in the harsh light, he reminded himself to his amazement that Sauniere had spent his last minutes of life arranging his own body in this strange fashion."

- from The Da Vinci Code, chapter 6

The self-arranged corpse of Jacques Sauniere in the novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

I for Illuminati

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

I is for Illuminati

""If you don't mind my asking, Robert, how did you get involved with the Illuminati?"

Langdon thought back. "Actually, it was money."

Vittoria looked disappointed. "Money? Consulting, you mean?"

Langdon laughed, realizing how it must have sounded. "No, money as in currency." He reached in his pants pocket and pulled out some money. He found a one-dollar bill. "I became fascinated with the cult when I first learned that U.S. currency is covered with Illuminati symbology.""

- from Angels and Demons, chapter 31

A U.S. one-dollar bill featuring the Illuminati pyramid and all-seeing eye

H for Hassassin

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

H is for Hassassin

"They were renowned not only for their brutal killings, but also for celebrating their slayings by plunging themselves into drug-induced stupors. Their drug of choice was a potent intoxicant they called hashish.

As their notoriety spread, these lethal men became known by a single word - Hassassin - literally, 'the followers of hashish.'

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

As the Hassassin stood there savoring his prize, he ignored the throb in his arm . . . 

Gazing down at his incapacitated prisoner, the Hassassin visualized what lay ahead. He ran a palm up beneath her shirt. Her breasts felt perfect beneath her bra. Yes, he smiled. You are more than worthy. Fighting the urge to take her right there, he closed the door and drove off into the night."

- from Angels and Demons, chapters 5 and 95

Hashish - not to be confused with chocolate!

G for Grail

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

G is for Grail

""The legend of the Holy Grail is a legend about royal blood. When Grail legend speaks of 'the chalice that held the blood of Christ' . . . it speaks, in fact, of Mary Magdalene - the female womb that carried Jesus' royal bloodline."

The words seemed to echo across the ballroom and back before they fully registered in Sophie's mind. Mary Magdalene carried the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ? "But how could Christ have a bloodline unless . . . ?" She paused and looked at Langdon.

Langdon smiled softly. "Unless they had a child."

Sophie stood transfixed.

"Behold," Teabing proclaimed, "the greatest cover-up in human history. Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ. She was the womb that bore the lineage, and the vine from which the sacred fruit sprang forth!"

- from The Da Vinci Code, chapter 58

Leonardo Da Vinci's painting, "The Last Supper" in which the figure to the left of Jesus looks feminine, and with Jesus, forms the chalice symbol, a downward pointing arrow (V), which many scholars have interpreted to be in fact, Mary Magdalene.

F for Fibonacci

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

F is for Fibonacci

1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21

"This is the Fibonacci sequence," she declared, nodding towards the piece of paper in Fache's hand. "A progression in which each term is equal to the sum of the two preceding terms."

Fache studied the numbers. Each term was indeed the sum of the two previous, and yet Fache could not imagine what the relevance of all this was to Sauniere's death.

"Mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci created this succession of numbers in the thirteenth century..."

E is for energy

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

E is for energy

""Within a matter of years, modern man will be forced to accept what is now unthinkable: our minds can generate energy capable of transforming physical matter . . . Particles react to our thoughts . . . which means our thoughts have the power to change the world."

Langdon smiled softly.

"What my research has brought me to believe is this," Katherine said. "God is very real - a mental energy that pervades everything. And we, as human beings, have been created in that image -"

"I'm sorry?" Langdon interrupted. "Created in the image of . . . mental energy?"

"Exactly. Our physical bodies have evolved over the ages, but it was our minds that were created in the image of God. We've been reading the Bible too literally. We learn that God created us in his image, but it's not our physical bodies that resemble God, it's our minds.""

- from The Lost Symbol, chapter 133

D for Delta-One and Delta-Two

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

D is for Delta-One and Delta-Two

"Delta-One reentered the tent and addressed his two fellow soldiers. "Time for a flyby." 

Both men nodded. The taller of them, Delta-Two, opened a laptop computer and turned it on. Positioning himself in front of the screen, Delta-Two placed his hand a mechanical joystick and gave it a short jerk. A thousand meters away, hidden deep within the building, a surveillance robot the size of a mosquito received his transmission and sprang into life."

- from Deception Point, chapter 2

A small surveillance robot which can be used for espionage, as Dan Brown mentions in Deception Point

C for CERN

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

C is for CERN

The CERN building

"The world's largest scientific research facility - Switzerland's Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire (CERN) - recently succeeded in producing the first particles of antimatter. Antimatter is identical to physical matter except that it is composed of particles whose electric charges are opposite to those found in normal matter.

Antimatter is the most powerful energy source known to man. It releases energy with 100 per cent efficiency (nuclear fission is 1.5 per cent efficient). Antimatter creates no pollution or radiation, and a droplet could power New York City for a full day.

There is, however, one catch . . .

Antimatter is highly unstable. It ignites when it comes in contact with absolutely anything . . . even air. A single gram of antimatter contains the energy of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb - the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Until now, antimatter has been created only in very small amounts (a few atoms at a time). But CERN has now broken ground on its new Antiproton Decelerator - an advanced antimatter production facility that promises to create antimatter in much larger quantities."

- from Angels and Demons, FACT page

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN

Atoms are sent whizzing around underground tubes like this in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN

The tubes comprising the Large Hadron Collider lie 175 metres under the ground and have a circumference of 27km. It is located near Geneva under the Swiss-French border

B for Bernini

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

B is for Bernini

"The note indicated that the famous Bernini sculpture, The Ecstasy of St Teresa, shortly after its unveiling, had been moved from its original location inside the Vatican . . . Pope Urban VIII had rejected The Ecstasy of St Teresa as too sexually explicit for the Vatican. He had banished it to some obscure chapel across town."

- from Angels and Demons, chapter 84

Bernini's The Ecstasy of St Teresa

A for Ambigram

Posting the A-Z of Dan Brown's books through his words, characters, places and more. Welcome to the A-Z April 2015 challenge...

A is for Ambigram

The word 'Illuminati' in this ambigram can be read right-side up as well as upside down

"Although accounts of the Illuminati emblem were legendary in modern symbology, no academic had ever actually seen it. Ancient documents described the symbol as an ambigram - ambi meaning 'both' - signifying it was legible both ways. And although ambigrams were common in symbology - swastikas, yin yang, Jewish stars, simple crosses - the idea that a word could be crafted into an ambigram seemed utterly impossible. Modern symbologists had tried for years to forge the word 'Illuminati' into a perfectly symmetrical style, but they had failed miserably. Most academics had now decided the symbol's existence was a myth."

- from Angels and Demons, chapter 9

Another ambigram featuring the words 'earth', 'air', 'fire' and 'water'

Finally finished Inferno!

Just finished reading Dan Brown's "Inferno" (at long last!) after a stop-start adventure with his latest novel. Finished half of the book within the last week and it has got me back into reading again. (I always say that after finishing a Dan Brown novel)

The most stand-out thing for me was the 'villain' of the story, Bertrand Zobrist. He dies right at the start of the novel, but as the story goes deeper, he becomes less of a villain in my mind, and more of a hero, despite the somewhat controversial nature of his plans.

Basically Zobrist's theory says that in order to stop the uncontrollable growth of the human species and its destined extinction, there must be a huge cut to the population. Not seen as an act of killing, but rather an act of saving, Zobrist actually manages to carry out his plan successfully.

Yes, Robert Langdon and his 'accomplice', Sienna Brooks, run around Florence, Venice and Istanbul in vain, as Zobrist's plague was released to the world several days before the date they thought it would be poured out to the world.

Turns out that it wasn't a 'plague' after all, at least not one which kills. Bertrand Zobrist created a vector virus with his sharp intellect, which was way ahead of its time. This airborne virus was programmed to affect random people, roughly one-third of the world's population, making them sterile.

No-one would be killed, no-one would suffer, just 33% of the population would no longer be able to reproduce. Thus the population of humans would mercifully be lowered to a more sustainable number.

I actually guessed that this would be the outcome when Sienn Brooks announced that what he did was more dangerous than a plague. So I felt quite chuffed when in the next few chapters it was revealed exactly as I thought! :)

And so it turns out that the 'good guys' eventually listened to and embraced somewhat Bertrand Zobrist's ideas and that this culling of the population wasn't such a bad thing after all.

There is a fine line between 'good' and 'bad' and sometimes 'bad' is portrayed as 'bad' simply because we don't quite understand it yet. A very interesting read based on a very real problem we are encountering in our world today.

Teaser Tuesday from Dan Brown's Inferno

This is a weekly event hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

I am currently making my way through Dan Brown's recent novel "Inferno" after a lengthy hiatus from reading. 

I'm back into the swing of it again and enjoying it a lot. Here's a snippet I'm sharing with you today:

"Every time Zobrist glances over at me, his green eyes ignite a wholly unexpected feeling inside me . . . the deep pull of sexual attraction. As the night wears on, the group slowly thins as the guests excuse themselves to get back to reality. By midnight, I am seated all alone with Bertrand Zobrist."

The Baptistry of San Giovani - A Layer Cake?

In Chapter 53 of Dan Brown's latest novel, "Inferno", Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks find themselves at The Baptistry of San Giovani in Florence.

Brown describes it like this:

"Adorned in the same polychromatic facing stones and striped pilasters as the cathedral, the baptistry distinguished itself from the larger building by its striking shape - a perfect octagon. Resembling a layer cake, some had claimed, the eight-sided structure consisted of three distinct tiers that ascended to a shallow white roof."

Here is a picture of the Baptistry of San Giovani:

And here's a layer cake:

And this is a traditional Sarawak layer cake:

I say that is quite an accurate comparison!

The Baptistry of San Giovani - The Gates of Paradise

In connection with Teaser Tuesday over at Miz B's blog, here's my snippet:


In Dan Brown's "Inferno" we read from the end of chapter 53:

"Crafted of gilded bronze and over fifteen feet tall, the doors had taken Lorenzo Ghiberti more than twenty years to complete. They were adorned with ten intricate panels of delicate biblical figures of such quality that Giorgio Vasari had called the doors "undeniably perfect in every way and . . . the finest masterpiece ever created."

It had been Michelangelo, however, whose gushing testimonial had provided the doors with a nickname that endured even today. Michelangelo had proclaimed them so beautiful as to be fit for use . . . as the Gates of Paradise."

This is The Baptistry of San Giovani, which Brown described in the above passage:

It's located next to the more famous Il Duomo, in the heart of Florence, Italy:

And here are the "Gates of Paradise", the doors of The Baptistry of San Giovani:

I must admit, they are stunningly impressive!

Beginning a sentence with "because"

I have excitedly begun the adventure of reading through Dan Brown's new novel, Inferno. 

Immediately I have noticed within the first 80 pages a similar layout to Dan Brown's most famous novel, "The Da Vinci Code."

Langdon meets a girl, he's in trouble, they are running away from police, trying to piece together some clues. It seems Brown is going back to the successful layout of his greatest work. And that's fine with me.

When I was at school, my English teachers always taught me never to begin a good English sentence with the word "because." So I've avoided it ever since. It was therefore surprising somewhat when I came across this line on page 28 of Inferno:

"Because the walls were nothing but metal screens, Langdon found himself watching the inside of the elevator shaft slide rhythmically past them."

Shock horror! Dan Brown wrote a sentence starting with "because!" Is he purposely writing wrong English? Or is English grammar more flexible nowadays?

Amazonia by James Rollins

I've started collecting some James Rollins books. I read "The Judas Strain" some time ago and really enjoyed it, one reason being because it is in the same style as Dan Brown.

"Amazonia" is another James Rollins novel, the second of his works I have begun reading. I'm 100 pages in and it's riveting. I would say it's definitely a page-turner!

The scene is set in the Amazon jungle in Brazil where an American agent has been lost for 4 years. He suddenly turns up in a small village with 2 arms, and dies a short time later. Turns out 4 years ago he only entered the jungle with ONE arm!

Dan Brown's new novel is "Inferno"

So Dan Brown has completed his new novel which will be entitled "Inferno". 

Inferno is due for release in USA and Canada on 14th May, 2013. It is another Robert Langdon thriller. I'm not sure how much longer we'll have to wait for it here in Malaysia.

Learn about Inferno at Brown's website

I had been wondering when this announcement would be made ever since I finished reading his last novel, The Lost Symbol.

The Lost Symbol came in for mixed reviews, so who's excited for Inferno?

Teaser Tuesday (Nov 13th, 2012)

It's Teaser Tuesday time again and today I'm sharing a few sentences from Dan Brown's "Angels and Demons".

 Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

"Vittoria had not had time to change from her shorts and sleeveless top, and her tawny legs were now goose-bumped in the cold of the plane. Instinctively Langdon removed his jacket and offered it to her."

Have you read Angels and Demons? What are your teasers?