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I don't get it...

...why did Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code create such controversy yet Angels and Demons didn't?

I'm currently reading the latter, and have read the former several times. Personally I think Angels and Demons is the better written of the two, following a formula that I would assume runs through all of his novels. Book starts with a horrible murder, Robert Langdon is woken up at an ungodly hour by someone he doesn't know to help solve the mystery that has religious connotations. Theories regarding religions are offered with some not so far fetched ideas yadda yadda yadda...

What I don't understand is that both novels challenge traditional thinking regarding Catholic beliefs yet The Da Vinci Code divided the world and elicited a response from the Catholic Church, and Angels and Demons hasn't. It makes you wonder why. Is it because it is the more believable of the two? Is it because some of Dan's theories hit a little too close to the truth? Whilst I'm not a religious person in any way, shape or form, I have an enormous respect for all religions, and at times envy peoples ability to have faith. Maybe that clouds my ability to see this clearly. But can anyone explain why one book had such an affect and the other didn't?

Personally I think it has as much to do with religion as it does sexism. The Da Vinci Code suggested (amongst other things) that women had been a little hard done by with thanks to the Catholic Church. That the patriarchal basis of Catholicism was engineered by men with power and knowledge to suit their own needs. So on the one hand you have women reading this book and thinking hey, maybe he has a point. Then you have the men who read it who are maybe just a tad concerned that their power and control may have been contrived rather than being the natural order of things. From someone who isn't religious, I see the theory that science and God are interrelated as talked about in Angels and Demons as interesting and thought provoking as those offered in The Da Vinci Code, hence my inability to understand the stark differences in reactions from those reading the books, the churches and the world in general. Can anyone help me out here cos frankly I don't have a clue!

At the end of the day, there is also this, and I know many have said it before me, and plenty will say it after me. Both novels, are just that. NOVELS. Works of fiction. A bunch of words brought together to tell a story with thanks to one man's imagination.

Love him or hate him, you have to admire Dan Brown's success in generating discussion about this most dividing of topics. I just wish I could understand why it was one book and not another that did so....