Origin Book Review: Dan Brown Sent Robert Langdon to Fight God With a Supercomputer

Rating: ★★★★★

"Origin" Book Review:

Of course I loved this book. It's about a rogue AI, and I love a rogue AI. LOL. Origin is Dan Brown doing what Dan Brown does best: taking a genuinely interesting intellectual question and building a page turning sprint around it. This time the question is the big one — where do we come from, and where are we going? — and the sprint takes Robert Langdon through the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, the Royal Palace of Madrid, and Gaudí's Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

The setup is pure Brown. Edmond Kirsch, a tech billionaire and former student of Langdon's, claims to have made a discovery that will render every religion on Earth obsolete. He unveils his presentation at a private event at the Guggenheim, and before he can reveal the answer, he's assassinated on live stream. Langdon and Ambra Vidal, the museum director and fiancée of the future king of Spain, go on the run to find where Kirsch stored his presentation so they can release it to the world.

Brown's formula hasn't changed much since The Da Vinci Code, and if you've read four of these novels, you know the rhythms: short chapters ending on cliffhangers, a shadowy antagonist working from the margins, a beautiful brilliant woman running alongside Langdon, and real art and architecture described with genuine enthusiasm. The architecture sections are actually the book's greatest strength. Brown's passion for Gaudí's work in particular feels personal, and his descriptions of the Sagrada Família make you want to book a flight to Barcelona.

The intellectual payload — Kirsch's actual discovery — involves artificial intelligence and origin-of-life science, and Brown handles it with more nuance than I expected. He's not arguing that science disproves God. He's arguing that the question itself has shifted. The AI character Winston, Kirsch's personal assistant program, is the most interesting character in the novel, which may or may not be intentional.

Paul Michael narrates with the same polished urgency he's brought to the series for years. He makes the exposition go down smooth.

Four stars. The most fun you can have learning about Gaudí while someone is trying to kill Robert Langdon.

If You Liked Origin, Try:

• Digital Fortress by Dan Brown — Brown's earlier techno-thriller about encryption and the NSA. Rougher around the edges but similarly propulsive.

• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown — Langdon in Washington, D.C., with Freemasonry and noetic science. If you want more of the formula, this delivers.

• Recursion by Blake Crouch — A tech thriller that takes the "science as existential crisis" premise further and darker than Brown goes here.

From Luke Stoffel's Bookshelf

If you enjoyed this book review, check out The Seven Dimensions and Boy Refracted — a story about a rogue AI told through fractured perspectives, like holding a prism up to a life and watching the same person split into every version of themselves they've ever been.

Learn More: The Seven Dimensions

How to Win One Million Dollars and Shit Glitter by Luke Stoffel