Independent
Just like The Da Vinci Code – but much better
Reviewed by Barry Forshaw
Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has become instant shorthand for those who consider it the last word in dumbed-down, crassly written fiction. But there is no denying the appeal of the globe-spanning, puzzle-based narrative, with strands reaching from ancient history to the modern world. Before The Code, Katherine Neville offered some ingenious sleight-of-hand in this style. Now she has followed up her debut novel, The Eight, with a blockbuster thriller that again pushes all the Brown buttons.The premise of The Fire is refreshingly original. A father is escorting his chess-prodigy daughter, Xie, to a remote Russian monastery to take part in a prestigious game. But before it can begin, Xie watches in horror as her father's brains are blown out. Xie (now Alexandra) survives. But, 30 years previously, her parents had distributed around the world the pieces of a fabulous chess set, burying with them an eldritch power.When Alexandra arrives at her mother's snowbound Rocky Mountain retreat, she finds that she must solve a puzzle to get into the deserted house (her mother is missing). It is the first of many puzzles in a danger-crammed, picaresque narrative involving the legendary chess set. All of this is dashed off by Neville with great verve. Still, if it were all the book had to offer, it would simply be trotting through the same territory as Brown, if written with more elegance and sophistication.Neville, however, has an ace up her sleeve. A parallel narrative sweeps the reader back to Albania in 1822, where a key piece of the chess set is in the possession of a ruler of the Ottoman Empire. He sends his daughter, Haidee, on a perilous mission to smuggle the priceless relic over the ocean and deliver it into the hands of the one man who can safeguard both the chess piece and the vulnerable Haidee. This man, she is told, is her real father. In a striking coup de théâtre, we learn that he is none other than George Gordon, Lord Byron. It is in this period narrative that The Fire's real fibre lies. Neville skilfully evokes this distant time and the character of Byron, and makes the reader cheerfully accept the preposterous plot into which she has shoehorned the poet. As a literary thriller, this is not quite in the upper echelons of the genre – but still comfortably several notches above Mr Brown.
Daily Express By Vanessa Berridge
NO ONE could accuse Katherine Neville of lacking ambition.Her latest novel is epic in conception, taking us through 1,200 years of history and featuring a multitude of characters, including real historical figures such as Shelley, Byron, Talleyrand and Ali Pasha. The epigrams which head each chapter underline the novel’s cultural breadth, with quotations from Greek drama, chess manuals, the Koran and other mystical works. The novel is complex, with so many strands and clues that it is difficult at times to keep them all in your head. But in essence it is a thriller, written with brio and a pace which never flags from its atmospheric opening scene in snowy and newly post-Soviet Russia.The story concerns the Montglane Service, a magnificent chess set created in the eighth century near Baghdad by Sufi mathematician and alchemist al-Jabir, and endowed with a deadly and powerful secret. After being hidden for centuries, the set re-emerges in an abbey in the Basque Pyrenees during the French Revolution and its pieces are scattered across the globe. This launches a potentially lethal game, which the novel’s two feisty young heroines are forced to play as they attempt to unravel the dangerous mystery. As Ali Pasha’s empire falls to the Turks in 1822, his supposed daughter Haidee smuggles the Black Queen out of Albania and searches through the Mediterranean for the one man who might be able to help her.Almost 200 years later, another young woman, Alexandra Solarin, is summoned from Washington DC by her estranged mother to a birthday party in Colorado. She finds her mother missing but a roaring fire newly laid and a game of chess arranged, fraught with meaning for her. Once potentially the youngest-ever grand master, this was the game she had lost 10 years earlier, a loss which, she believes, led to her father’s death. When her nemesis on that day, Vartan Azov, appears, Alexandra knows she is embroiled in a new mind game. Aided by a childhood friend, she criss-crosses America in a dramatic chase which culminates in a hazardous airborne trek across the frozen wastes of Alaska.The obvious comparison is with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. Neville’s novel is more pretentious and sprawling. But what it lacks in tightness of construction, it gains in the greater elegance of the writing. A rattling good read.
Publishers Weekly
Fans of Neville's debut, The Eight (1988), which long before there was a Da Vinci Code featured a complex historical setting, ciphers, conspiracies, puzzles and a hunt for an object that could change the course of the world, will welcome this stellar sequel. Alexandra Solarin, child chess prodigy now grown, finds herself immersed in the Game, searching for a legendary chess set, the Montglane Service, which when assembled spells out the formula for the secret of immortality. The quest for the set ranges from the harem of Ali Pasha in 19th-century Albania to present-day Baghdad and Washington, D.C., and involves such historic figures as Charlemagne, Isaac Newton, Lord Byron and Napoleon. Despite the staggering amount and quality of the research, nothing feels shoehorned or extraneous. The story's relentless pace is matched by characters both sympathetic and real. In the end, readers will be heartened to find signs pointing to the continuation of the Game in future novels.
Monster and Critics By Elizabeth de Jager
Twenty years ago, Katherine Neville's book, The Eight was published to great acclaim. It defied genre - it was a swashbuckling adventure, it had romance, the epic worldwide settings, intricate mysteries, strong female characters and sexy Russian chess masters.I have tried reading The Eight at least once every two years since I first picked it up in high school. If I had to choose a book that changed the way I saw authors and their skill, it would be The Eight. Because of The Eight, I learned to play chess (badly), my love for adventure and mystery novels were born, and importantly my obsession with quest novels- I can't get enough of them.The long wait for the sequel has been worth it. We are introduced, from the very first pages, to Alexandra, Cat and Sasha's daughter. Through Alexandra we take each step forwards to uncovering the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance. The Game has begun again - pieces of the mysterious and beautiful Montglane Service has reappeared, triggering the start of a new adventure for the various players.The author deftly describes far-flung places as if it is her habit to take weekend jaunts there. She pulls us effortlessly into the past and history comes to life as she uses real events to elaborate on her storyline.Ms. Neville has always excelled in drawing vibrant characters and in The Fire she reprises the roles of many of the characters from The Eight. Favourites are Lily Rad, Alexandra's one-time chess tutor and the other is Ladislaus Nim, Alexandra's uncle, enigmatic recluse and computer genius.Ms. Neville is also one of the best dialogue writers I've ever seen. The dialogue rolls and characters' stories are told in flashbacks that do not detract from the existing urgency in the novel - and that in itself is hard to do! (Read ANY book on writing and you will see that they warn aspiring writers about flashbacks/back stories - they slow the story down, they are boring and should be used sparingly, etc. etc. ) Ms. Neville flies in the face of all of this and comes out trumps.The action is relentless. Intermingled with chess analogies you are taught bits of history, alchemy, the occult, poetry, religion and cooking and you are never bored by any of the characters as they all manage to hold their piece of stage by being plotted and created with a deft hand. If you've not had the chance to read The Eight, but you would like to get stuck into The Fire, do so - although it would be an advantage to have read The Eight, The Fire is very much its own creature and stands alone very nicely. The Fire is a feast - it delves deep into mythology and legend and demands your attention - there are no skipping scenes here, because if you do, you will miss crucial information to help uncover the new players of The Game. The story is multi-layered and it a strong compelling read.
|
| PLUS AUTHOR QUOTATIONS:
—Elizabeth Kostova, New York Times bestselling author of The Historian
Katherine Neville has a remarkable ability to weave strands of history into one vivid tale. Readers who love culture, travel, and, of course, the detective work of research, will delight in this work.
—Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Charlemagne Pursuit
I've been waiting 20 years to find out what happened after The Eight. Katherine Neville answers that longing in a story that skillfully moves players around a global chessboard and expertly blends history, science, myth, and more. Katherine Neville is the undisputed queen of the international suspense genre—long may she live.
—James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Oracle
I've been waiting for this book for twenty years . . . and it still blew me away. Katherine Neville's long-anticipated book, The Fire, proves once again that she is the true grandmaster of international intrigue and historical mystery. From the palaces of a lost Arabia to the halls of Washington, D.C., here is a story that twines the past and future into a complex game, played across millennia yet resting on the shoulders of a young woman with a destiny like no other. Relentless, gripping, convoluted, and grand …this is a classic for the new millennium.
—Douglas Preston, New York Times bestselling author of The Monster of Florence
The Fire by Katherine Neville has got to be one of the best novels I've read this year, a masterpiece of riveting suspense, evocative history, exotic international settings, and beautifully crafted characters. The Fire is a compulsively readable novel for Da Vinci Code fans who want to graduate to a real writer, as brilliantly complex as a grand-master chess match. A bravura performance from a major talent, who keeps the excitement at a high pitch from beginning to end. I could not put this book down.
Interview with Celebrity Cafe
Katherine Neville's novels have sold millions of copies around the world. She weaves a line between historical descriptions and fantasy which have fans clamoring for her books and writings. In our interview Katherine gives a little behind the scenes view of her writing style and method.
DM) A lot of your novels deal with historical figures and other well known figures in fictitious settings. How historically accurate are some of these depictions?
KN) I try to be as historically accurate as possible. But there were still many mistakes in my first book (THE EIGHT, 1988) because I didn't yet know a key rule of writing historical fiction: Go to the horse's mouth. That is, instead of using histories or biographies, you should use direct sources such as memoirs, diaries, letters, and eyewitness reports. Luckily, everyone preserved such things during the French Revolution when THE EIGHT takes place. But my most recent book (THE MAGIC CIRCLE, 1998) begins in the last week in the life of Jesus, in locations all over the world. I thought I would be in trouble for direct historical sources but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that even the Roman legions and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem kept detailed records of daily events. So I was able to describe with great accuracy Pontius Pilate's dismissal and his return to Rome for trial for the massacre of Hebrew pilgrims on Mt Gerizim.
DM) How do the soldier's descriptions differ from the biblical ones?
KN) There is no mention of Pilate's massacre of Hebrews in the Bible. Indeed, after the initial washing of his hands in the Bible, Pilate's reputation is whitewashed better than Tom Sawyer's fence by many subsequent biblical writers. However, in historical fact, he was definitely not Mr. Nice Guy. The Roman archives do contain reports of his dismissal and subsequent trial by his peers in Rome. There's another very interesting take on Pilate's persona in Bulgakov's Russian classic, THE MASTER AND MARGARITA.
DM) Did your research affect your spirituality?
KN) Definitely. I was already a student of Sufi and alchemy from early times. I studied Islam while living in North Africa
 in the early 70s, and Buddhism even before that. In fact, I'm invited to speak at the Sufi Symposium this coming December in Istanbul, Ankara and Konya, the week of the dervish dances, which should be really fascinating. I had long understood the importance to each individual of connecting the spiritual and material aspects of our lives. Even Socrates speaks of it. But I think what changed, as a result of writing The Magic Circle, in my attitude toward spirituality, is that I began to realize the extent of the schism we are experiencing in modern times--how much we need to connect these two aspects of ourselves and our reality--as earlier, more agrarian societies were able to do. In ancient times, you were consecrated to the service of a specific god even before you were born, and then trained from the age of six in what you were expected to do. Your religion followed you from the cradle to the grave, and all aspects of society helped support you through the difficulties of making each transition in work, marriage--even beyond the grave. We were connected to the cycles of nature, not just the rigors of science, technology, and survival. Thinking about how we can improve in those aspects has definitely helped me, as a former scientist, to adjust to the new millennium and, hopefully, to help others do so too, through my writing.
DM) Some of your readers have been described as almost a cult following. To what do you attribute this strong passion?
KN) I actually have a very interesting relationship with my readers. I've met thousands of them and heard from tens of thousands. A number of these have become close friends, because we have so much in common, starting with our way of viewing life and the world. And there are some readers in different parts of the world who supply fascinating tidbits of little-known esoterica to help with my research for future books. So this represents a real bonding with my work. If I had to pick the one thing my readers all have in common, it would be curiosity. They are curious about life, about history, about deeper meanings. And they are all a little too intelligent and probing to be described as a cult following. Unless you believe there can be a cult of independent thinkers!
DM) Do your fans suggestions help mold your decisions on what to write?
KN) Luckily, I've never had any of my fans suggest what I ought to write. I can't imagine how anyone could attempt to write books like mine, or any books for that matter, based on other people's suggestions. To the contrary, my readers, almost universally, encourage me just to keep on doing what I'm doing. The most often-heard plea from my fans is not to let publishers, scholars, reviewers, or anybody else make me change what I do, because it is unique. Young people, especially, tell me they have read my books over and over, and still found layers they hadn't discovered earlier.That's the greatest support any writer could ask for: that your readers really appreciate all the effort you have expended to make something meaningful but still entertaining.
DM) Of your three novels, which do you feel most accurately brought across the message you were trying to write?
KN) Believe it or not, I've never been asked that question. It's really an important one, though. And though I love all my books--as one loves his children--in completely different ways, when you ask about which one most accurately brings across my MESSAGE, I would have to state without hesitation, THE MAGIC CIRCLE. MAGIC CIRCLE was not the first book I thought up, but it was the first book I tried to write as a whole book, back in the 1970s, when I was working at a nuclear site in Idaho, like my heroine Ariel Behn. I was working around forms of energy --solar, geothermal, hydropower, nuclear--and I saw transformation of matter into energy daily. For a long time I had worked around engineers and physicists, and I started thinking of all the research I had done on alchemy and transformation. All my books, including A CALCULATED RISK, 1992, deal with the relationships between spirit and matter. But how that relationship affects our personal and societal transformation--that was the kernel of the idea of THE MAGIC CIRCLE.
DM) Why do you feel that your first novel hit your message most accurately as compared to your others since then? Is there something innately more "honest" in one's first novel?
KN) THE MAGIC CIRCLE was not actually my first novel; it was the first book I tried to write, however, I failed. It took me three tries--that is, two earlier finished books, and almost twenty years from conception--just to be able to put it down on paper. So I would have to say, in answer to your question, that it took a lot of honing of skills, plus a lot of muscle to get to the point where I could produce what I saw the way I saw it in my mind. When I finished writing MAGIC CIRCLE, I didn't even read it--until months later, when we began the actual edit: I just sent it off to the publisher and told my friends: I will never be afraid of anything again.
DM) Did you ever think of writing a sequel to it?
KN) I think constantly about writing sequels to all my books. I definitely think of them as a continuum, like the Comedie Humaine or the Rougon Macquart. Maybe one day I'll write an all-in-one sequel that will wrap everything up in a tidy bundle. But I doubt it. Life, like fiction, just keeps on happening! DM) A lot of your novels deal with historical figures and other well known figures in fictitious settings. How historically accurate are some of these depictions?
Article Author:
Dominick A. Miserandino
click here to see the online version.
|
