Hello lads and lasses, lets get back down to business! Firstly I have had a lovely holiday both in Scotland and then just enjoying some time off from everything to get some reading done along with a few changes to the site. I am also pleased to announce that on Friday the new history podcast series will officially launch! Right that is the news done for this post so lets get the ball rolling...

This is a Spoiler Free Review!

The Lost Symbol, By Dan Brown... Reviewed by me... Another Dan Brown!

    I am a big fan of the adventures of Robert Langdon, the main character  in the previous books “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons”. These previous two books I have found to be taking places in my list of favourite books of all time, so with a great deal of excitement I awaited the arrival of The Lost Symbol through my letterbox. When I finally arrived home after work one day to find a nice package from amazon on the table I set about reading it as soon as I could.

    The book is set in the now familiar style of Langdon’s adventures, fast paced, taking place in a short mount of time with various threads of story going on at the same time all intertwining in a complex yet perfectly fluid and understandable way. It really does immediately grab you and opens up questions that you really want to know the answers to which keeps you reading chapter after chapter, where you are continually being given more questions and wandering how on earth it is all going to fall into place. The style has not changed from the other two books, which is why this book is another fantastic read.

    The book has the usual themes of symbolism and hidden meanings in the things all around us that only the people in the know actually see the real meaning of. As I have said I won’t put any spoilers in here so I will not give examples as it will take away from the reading experience, what I can say without damaging the story however is that this time the main organisation that the action and symbolic theory revolves around is the Freemasons.

    The fact that the Freemasons are the people involved here does create a different type of story from the other two Langdon stories. Because the Freemasons are a real life genuinely active group that we can see evidence of in their lodges and may even know a few masons, the story is far less conspiracy based. What I mean by this is that whereas The Iluminati from Angels and Demons, and The priory of Sion from The Da Vinci Code are both groups from which our knowledge comes almost entirely from conspiracy theories without any solid evidence. This allows Dan Brown to write the first two books with the main groups being any kind of organisation doing any kind of activity that he wants them to, whereas the real life Freemasons are a much more difficult group to mould into your own creation due to the fact that they actually exist!

    It is likely that you are already aware that The Iluminati, Priory of Sion and Freemasons are surrounded by all manner of theories and I am no scholar of any of the groups so I can’t possibly cast judgement, but I am sure you can appreciate that of the three the Freemasons stick out like a sore thumb in regards to which are factual or not!

    Everything in the book is just what you would expect to find, fascinating little details in architecture explained to demonstrate what they may/may not actually secretly mean. Semi-futuristic technology used to build the story, a need for codes to be cracked and information discovered with dire consequences awaiting for failure to do this. This is another fantastic book from Dan Brown, the only thing I will say is that it is not as “eye opening” as the other two books as it is far less conspiracy based, this is not necessarily a bad thing as the story is beautifully written so that even if you think you know what is going to happen next, you probably don’t.

    All in all I recommend this book to pretty much everybody, if nothing else it will amaze you how one man can know so much about so many different things and then somehow write a story that connects them all in such a flawless way. You do not need to have read the previous two books to enjoy this one as each is a standalone story just featuring the same character.

Absolutely Brilliant.

If you are interested in buying this book or the others then please consider buying from amazon using the links below, that way you support this site by letting amazon know who put you onto them! Thank you for you support for this project.

Thanks for reading folks, there will be plenty more soon.

As always look after yourself and have fun,

dan