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Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780345500670
ISBN number: 0345500679
Label: Ballantine Books
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 464
Printing Date: October 14, 2008
Publishing house: Ballantine Books
Release Date: October 14, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 1321
Studio: Ballantine Books
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Product Description:
Katherine Neville’s groundbreaking novel, The Eight, dazzled audiences more than twenty years ago and set the literary stage for the epic thriller. A quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne, it spans two centuries and three continents, and intertwines historic and modern plots, archaeological treasure hunts, esoteric riddles, and puzzles encrypted with clues from the ancient past. Now the electrifying global adventure continues, in Neville’s long anticipated sequel: THE FIRE
2003, Colorado: Alexandra Solarin is summoned home to her family’s ancestral Rocky Mountain hideaway for her mother’s birthday. Thirty years ago, her parents, Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin, believed that they had scattered the pieces of the Montglane Service around the world, burying with them the secrets of the power that comes with possessing it. But Alexandra arrives to find that her mother is missing and that a series of strategically placed clues, followed swiftly by the unexpected arrival of a mysterious assortment of houseguests, indicates that something sinister is afoot.
When she inadvertently discovers from her aunt, the chess grandmaster Lily Rad, that the most powerful piece of Charlemagne’s service has suddenly resurfaced and the Game has begun again, Alexandra is swept into a journey that takes her from Colorado to the Russian wilderness and at last into the heart of her own hometown: Washington D.C.
1822, Albania: Thirty years after the French Revolution, when the chess service was unearthed, all of Europe hovers on the brink of the War of Greek Independence. Ali Pasha, the most powerful ruler in the Ottoman Empire, has angered the sultan and is about to be attacked by Turkish forces. Now he sends the only person he can rely upon–his young daughter, Haidee–on a dangerous mission to smuggle a valuable relic out of Albania, through the mountains and over the sea, to the hands of the one man who might be able to save it.
Haidee’s journey from Albania to Morocco to Rome to Greece, and into the very heart of the Game, will result in revelations about the powerful chess set and its history that will lead at last to the spot where the service was very first created more than one thousand years before: Baghdad.
Blending exquisite prose and captivating history with nonstop suspense, Neville again weaves an unforgettable story of peril, action, and intrigue.
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Rated by buyers -
It is a game of power, played on several levels at once. On one level, serious chess played with fabulous bejeweled pieces; on another, chess played by and with real people, grey and white kings and queens. Unimaginable power is the prize.
Like the game, Katherine Neville's latest novel, "The Fire," reads on several levels at once. On one level, the reader finds a basic, scifi story, interwoven with chess moves. On another, historical and modern periods are storytelling devices, each with its own story to relate.
The novel starts with a prodigy, a bang, and a murder, but the pacing drags somewhat after that. Due to its complexity, I found the novel at times exciting, at times tedious in its back and forth design, and at times just tiresome. I never felt the characters come to life, but I did enjoy the opportunity to learn a little more about periods in history I knew little about.
A historical tour de force, an exciting concept, but neither as entertaining in execution nor as engaging as I prefer.
Three stars!
Rated by buyers 
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Those who enjoyed Neville's very first book, The Eight, will adore its sequel, The Fire, which although it revisits some of the characters and themes of that groundbreaking thriller, also manages to explore new and exciting territory. For those of you who haven't yet read either novel, and don't believe that a story revolving around a chess service could be all that entertaining, get ready to have that belief shattered--a gifted storyteller, Neville is a thriller writer's thriller writer; there's a reason The Eight is so revered, and it's time you discovered why.
Rated by buyers -
Katherine Neville's long-awaited sequel to The Eight, The Fire was released on my 44th birthday. I finished it before my happy day had ended, and immediately began re-reading it. I loved it, but I can't say it was as exciting as its prequel. But it provided a thoughtful and mature ending to what could have become an interminable series of stories about lost chess pieces and thugs in turbans. The Montglane Service, it turns out, is only a curse if its owner falls into the proffered web of wrong-thinking about the nature of power and human relationships. By demonstrating, quite literally, what never-ending warfare looks like, with conquest as the only goal, the true lesson of chess is the importance of never, ever losing balance, on the international level right on down to the personal. The game of Chess represents human failure. It was never meant to be seen or treated as a formula for true victory or success. This is the cosmic joke finally revealed in Neville's conclusion. Immortality represents a destruction of balance and has devastating consequences for the mystic who falls for its temptation. A great and satisfying read, I highly recommend it. In today's violent times, filled with international conflict, Neville's theme is highly appropriate. It holds an unmistakable ring of... truth.
Rated by buyers 
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For those who read The Eight, this ISN'T it. True to formula, the Fire offers the same formula of historical and current facts, but unlike The Eight, it doesn't seem to come together. While there are some moments that may seem worth reading (though there are precious few), most of the novel doesn't make any sense at all. There is no character development, even with the main character, and most action seems to be Deus Ex Machina, meaning the action is forced. I don't even know why it's titled "The Fire" except for obscure references to the charcoal burners and a certain volcanic region in Russia.
Please pass this novel up. Ms. Neville seems to have a hit in the Eight (which I truly enjoyed) and duds in her other novels.
Rated by buyers 
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I decided that it's been so long since I read The Eight that I wanted to re-read it and then read The Fire -- so that review will be entered later. But The Eight is living up to my memories of it -- a delicious, epic read, romantic and fascinating! My five star review is based on the hope that The Fire is as wonderful as The Eight.
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