Ok, follow up to a recent post about bad authors.    I had wrote about how The Lost Symbol was insulting to the average person’s intelligence, especially putting Neotics at the forefront of the book (with nothing to back it up) but a recent viewing of the Angels and Demons film got my blood boiling again.

Quickly, Langdon is summoned to the Vatican to help find 4 captured cardinals who are up to be the new pope.  He follows “clues”, which have next to no basis in reality or are complete fabrications and after letting 3 die, he saves the last one.  Oh, there’s an anti-matter bomb with a battery too.  Can’t forget that!

Anyhoot, the carmelengo (secretary) flies into the sky with a helicopter and the bomb, then parachutes down while the bomb explodes above him.  Let me say that early in the book, the bomb is compared to a nuclear device.  You know, the ones that won WW2?  That destroyed entire towns and poisoned the genetic pool for 3 generations?  And those were weak ones.  So ya, the bomb explodes a few hundred feet above him and everybody lives.  Then Langdon watches a tape showing that the secretary was the bad guy and then the secretary sets himself on fire.

So, let’s get this straight.  Langdon saved 1 life and let 3 people die, then he watched a tape to see who the bad guy was.  Oh and the entire thing takes place in Vatican City, which has the square mileage of a typical shopping mall.  So really, why did Langdon do anything again if the entire plot of the movie is re-written in the last 2 chapters?

Dan Brown writes good stories filled with half-truths, lies and exaggerations – but all stories need those.  I won’t deny his ability in that regard.  What he is absolutely not, is an author.  Sort of like saying Britney Spears is a good singer.

Here’s some neato stuff from CERN in regards to anti-matter and Angels and Demons.  2 billion years to create enough anti matter to make a bomb like the one at Hiroshima.