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The chess set is said to influence those who possess it, for either good or evil. The path taken by these characters mirrors that of the historical group, but feels complementary rather than repetitive. They, too, meet with many others who help or hinder them on their quest. I'm not sure I've ever read a book that makes me as jealous as a writer as this one does.The writing itself is excellent as well. The modern story contains fewer tie-ins to real events, although much of the action takes place in Algeria around the time of the first OPEC oil embargo.
Neville breaks a number of "rules" of writing, including changing points of view in the middle or end of a section and doing a lot of telling of backstory. And that usually works fine. Neville mostly takes a more literary approach of showing you the emotions with dialogue and situations where they become obvious. We meet all kinds of famous people who have a role to play in the quest, including the poet William Blake, revolutionary Maximilian Robespierre, and Catherine the Great of Russia.
Neville's descriptions of the period feel as authentic as the best historical fiction, but she never gets so bogged down in historical details that the pace suffers. Both seek the same thing, the pieces of an ancient chess set dating to the time of Charlemagne. Another thing she really does well is to make her characters' emotions seem real. I read fifty of 'em a year, and this is in my opinion the bestThe book follows two groups of characters, one in the late 18th century and one in the 1970's. I can't stress enough how great Neville is at weaving so many threads into a story you can't put down. Best of all, Neville never forces them into roles that don't match their history, seamlessly incorporating a mystical Blake and a soon-to-be emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, among others.The modern group of characters also revolves around two women, Cat Velis, an IT analyst and Lily Rad, a chess grand-master.
However, I simply don't have any to mention for "The Eight." I imagine some people who really like thrillers with violence in every chapter (and I like those myself a lot of the time) wouldn't care for the book. But that honestly makes no difference at all. This book is my favorite thriller of all time. But that just makes the book better. She doesn't overdo either of these, and she seems to know just when and how to do it without taking the reader out of the story.
Most thrillers either gloss over emotions for most characters, or tell you very directly what the character is feeling.
After such an incredible journey, it almost seems logical for the end to approach a cliche.
It really is a "thriller," not an action novel.
Soon, both groups of characters realize that they are caught up in an ancient quest for knowledge and power.The first group of characters is anchored by two former nuns in France during the Revolution.
Imagine a book like the Da Vinci Code where the historical pieces came to life as a thriller in their own right and the writing was clearer, without as much superficial melodrama.
You get the real sense of a single story, even though it spans multiple centuries.The very end of the book is, if not predictable, at least not unique.
I enjoyed it.
But as with the rest of the writing, her touch is light enough that it doesn't feel literary, it just feels real.Normally, I try to mention at least something about the negatives in the books I review.
That book would be "The Eight."
I look forward to reading the sequel, The Fire. I have read this book several times and still love it. I wish I had my original copy, so I purchased a new copy today so I can read it once again. Frankly, I read one of the reviews that said they didn't understand the book. I don't think it's that complicated.
The writer peppers the pages with references to marginally interesting trivia, such as the name of top-end sherry or the makings of a dinner full of Jewish delicacies, but ultimately the storyline depends too much on historical "shockers", many of which have been used in other, better-known books and movies. I wish I had better things to say about this book, but I have to agree with the reviewer who said that she wished she hadn't spent so much time reading it. The plot is predictable but basing it on chess could have been clever - except that it comes off as contrived. I still would have plowed through except for the writer's tendency to write in a way that, I imagine, makes sense to the author but to few readers. For example, I theoretically understand what she means when she writes of one character not to be "confused by reason or logic", but this isn't the kind of book where I want to spend time puzzling over why that phrase is included.
Neville's debut novel focuses on the search for the mysterious Montglane Service, a chess set given to Charlamagne which supposedly contains a formula that could bring about great destruction if it falls into the wrong hands. Catherine Velis soon finds herself a piece in a larger Game, a chess game featuring real people, who are determined to protect the Montglane Service by keeping its pieces from falling into the wrong hands.The novel is a multi-layered novel that will likely remind readers of both Dan Brown's Angels and Demons as well as the DaVinci Code as well as number puzzles of Umberto Eco. The Eight juxtaposes the search for this chess set by Catherine Velis, a mathematician and computer expert who also has a penchant for music in the 1970s with both digging up of this chess set from the Montglane Abbey where it had been hidden for hundreds of years and the dispersal of its pieces and their subsequent rehiding. The book goes back and forth between time periods (1970s and 1700s), drawing in historical figures such as Talleyrand, Napoleon, Rousseau, Voltaire, Casanova, and Catherine the Great during the earlier time periods. Some of the coincidences of the novel seem a bit too contrived, but Neville does an excellent job of interlaying history into a novel filled with complex twists and surprises. She also manages to weave some of the more interesting aspects of the history of chess into the novel as well while using specific chess strategies and moves to drive the novel.Overall it was a pretty interesting read.
I'm reading The Eight for the third time. Each time I read it I find something new and different to think about. The way the author combines a suspenseful story with historical figures is amazing. As soon as I finish The Eight, I'm on to the sequel
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