Origin is the fifth novel in Dan Brown's Robert Langdon series, first published worldwide in 2017. The story begins at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. Harvard symbology professor Robert Langdon is invited to an important presentation by Edmond Kirsch, a computer scientist and futurist who was his student twenty years earlier. Kirsch claims to have found the answers to two questions humanity has long asked: "Where do we come from? Where are we going?"—a discovery that could overturn the existing explanatory systems of religion and science. At the crucial moment of the presentation, a gunshot shatters the night; Kirsch falls on stage, and his research is in danger of being buried forever. To keep the discovery from vanishing with the murderer, Langdon and museum director Ambra Vidal flee from Bilbao to Barcelona. The Spanish royal family, church forces, an unidentified professional assassin, and local police all press upon them as pursuit and flight unfold in turn. With the help of "Winston," an artificial intelligence program left behind by Kirsch, the two decode clues hidden in Gaudí's architecture, modern art, and poetry, finally reaching the answer that has always been avoided. The novel continues Brown's signature method: city-walk density of knowledge, short chapters that build suspense, and art and architecture as carriers of codes; at the same time it places artificial intelligence, big data, and the origins of life within a suspense framework, making readers confront the old question of whether science and faith can coexist while racing through the plot. The Chinese edition, translated by Li Heqing and Li Liantao, runs about 425,000 characters.
如果你读过《达·芬奇密码》《天使与魔鬼》《地狱》，这本书会让你非常熟悉：一样的短章节、一样的章末钩子、一样的“边逃命边讲课”。不同的是，《本源》把丹·布朗惯用的宗教—艺术密码，替换成了人工智能与生命科学。埃德蒙·基尔希的发现、那套名为“温斯顿”的 AI 系统，都是 2017 年之后科技语境下的产物，也让这本书比前作更贴近当下争论。 故事舞台设在西班牙：毕尔巴鄂古根海姆博物馆、巴塞罗那的高迪建筑、王室与教会的权力结构，都被编织进解谜路线。读起来像一份带剧情的旅行指南，这是丹·布朗最擅长的部分。 需要提醒的是，这也是系列里争议较大的一本。中文版豆瓣评分约 7.1，不少读者认为谜底分量撑不起开场的宏大承诺，兰登本人的符号学专长也发挥有限。但作为一部“智性悬疑”的消遣读物，它的节奏依旧让人放不下，适合在一个周末连着读完。
People's Literature Publishing House publishes across classical literature, foreign literature, documentary writing and folk literature, with 492 titles in its catalogue. Representative books range from the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms to Lao She's Teahouse and Longxu Ditch in the Selected Works of Lao She, as well as translated foreign literature such as Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, Dante's Divine Comedy and Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels, alongside documentary and fictional works including Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and João Guimarães Rosa's The Devil to Pay in the Backlands. Its authors include Chinese writers such as Lao She, translators such as Shen Emeri and Li Wenjun, and foreign authors such as James Wood. Overall, the house has a strong record in editing classic works and translating foreign literature, with a publishing character that bridges Chinese and foreign writing and values textual quality.
没读过兰登系列，能直接看《本源》吗？
可以。本书是系列第五部，但故事独立，前作背景只在人物身份上略有呼应，不影响理解。读完若喜欢，再回头补《达·芬奇密码》《天使与魔鬼》《地狱》即可。
《本源》的中文版由谁翻译、哪家出版社出版？
简体中文版由李和庆、李连涛翻译，人民文学出版社（99 读书人）2018 年 5 月出版，平装版 ISBN 9787020138746，精装版 ISBN 9787020139873，约 484 页、42.5 万字。
这本书和《地狱》有什么关系？
同属罗伯特·兰登系列，《地狱》为第四部，《本源》为第五部。两者情节无直接延续，风格上《本源》比《地狱》更明快，议题从人口与病毒转向人工智能与生命起源。
为什么这本书评价两极？
争议主要集中在结局：开篇承诺“回答人类两大终极问题”，部分读者觉得谜底分量不足；同时兰登的符号学作用被削弱。但节奏、西班牙场景与议题讨论仍获不少好评，豆瓣评分约 7.1。
和丹·布朗其他作品相比，阅读门槛高吗？
不高。语言通俗、章节短小，涉及的科学与宗教内容都有情节内的解释。只需对人工智能、进化论有基本常识就能顺畅读完。
