Origin by Dan Brown
I am going to be controversial here and confess that I always enjoy a Dan Brown book and Origin was no exception. I can see why people don’t but there is no need to get pretentious about it. They are thrillers that are very much written to a formula but they usually have a lot of interesting stuff in them. This can prove boring to some (I’ve read the reviews) and fascinating to others.
His books follow a similar formula: Langdon gets involved in a murder, meets a hot woman but not shags them, is chased by a weird assassin with the hot lady through a historic European city with a ton of links to a famous historical person, plus some mentions of cutting edge technology and why religion sucks. What’s not to like? I am fascinated by technology and history the thriller aspect makes it even more fun to read.
In Origin, Langdon gets involved when he sees the murder of a friend who happens to be a computer genius who hates religion. He then teams up with a hot Spanish chick and they get chased around Barcelona while looking and running through lots of Gaudi architecture. There is a lot of talk about supercomputers and a few lectures on the origin of man and where humanity is going. All very much on formula and all things I am interested in. It also helps that I have been to Rome, Venice, Paris, Barcelona and so on. Plus I think religion is a bit daft but each to their own.
While a lot of stuff isn’t particularly accurate or shocking or likely, it was fun. If you liked the last few books you will like Origin. I definitely preferred it to Inferno. I suspect this review is largely pointless because, by book 5 of any series, you will probably already know if you will read it or not. In summary then – formulaic but I liked it.
