Thursday, July 11, 2013

Dan Brown's Inferno

Inferno's a book written in characteristic Dan Brown style. Still it's slightly different and will be one of my personal Dan Brown favorites. It features Robert Langdon again, trying to solve a world wide biological warfare crisis out of the city of Florence.

The clues this time are derived from Dante's painting Inferno. The story starts where Robert Langdon wakes out of sleep with amnesia and unaware of what happened in last two days and how he landed in Florence.

The story progresses at a thrilling pace and goes through various Florence monuments while trying to solve the puzzle clue by clue. The story also deals with the concept of how to define evil. It discusses, how perception of "What's evil" can change on the basis of a person's perspective and even if something seems a valid solution, is it still ethical ?

The story breaks new ground where it explores, whether in future, it will be ethical to carry out genetic modification of human beings to enhance them. The climax deals with two interesting themes, one of Robert Langdon discovering that he has been subjected to a created scenario by others which seemed perfectly real to him. It's like he had been through a virtual reality scenario and how he finds it difficult to come to terms with it.

The other unexpected ending is how the biological change might have already happened, and how humans should deal it. Overall, it's a quite interesting read and certainly recommended.

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