Customer Reviews

The Fire: A Novel

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(29)
2 star:		(28)
1 star:		(31)

 

 

As a sequel to the spectacularly awesome 20-year-old book, "The Eight," I was sure I was going to love this book. "The Eight" was so well written. It was challenging and fun and intriguing and deep. I was on the edge of my seat and lost quite a bit of sleep trying to finish it. I was so impressed with Ms. Neville's writing skill that I was certain I'd love anything else she'd written.

Wrong. I'm so incredibly disappointed. The style of "The Fire" was so different that it seemed like it was written by a completely different author. I just couldn't believe it was written by the same woman. It was complicated and convoluted rather than refreshingly complex. The prose at many points was trite, whereas "The Eight" was stylish and significant.

I wasn't excited about the plot until about 250 pages into the book. That's a long time to be plodding through. I felt particularly mired down early in the book during a chapter filled to the brim with Arab names of people and places. I had a really difficult time figuring out what was going on with the story because I couldn't pronounce the names or keep them straight. There were plenty of Arab names in "The Eight," too, so I guess they weren't all crammed in there like a history lesson since I didn't stumble at all in the first book.

There were two things in particular that really bugged me about this book. The first was the overuse of clichés while trying to be clever about it. If you read this book, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about after you read, "As Key would say," followed by a cliché like Practice Makes Perfect for the tenth (or twentieth) time. The second was the lack of real tension or danger. The characters kept saying they were scared to death, but I couldn't reason why. In contrast, I doubt the characters ever said this in "The Eight," although they clearly were in peril during most of the book.

It pains me to say this because it's obvious the author worked very, very hard on this book, but I just can't recommend "The Fire." I hope you'll go back and read "The Eight" instead because it's really worth reading.

I started re-reading The Eight as soon as I found out that I was going to get an advance reader's copy of The Fire. It was as good as I remembered.

The Fire, on the other hand, was like a knight on a chessboard. It moved two forward then one sideways, then two to the right and one back. I didn't find it cohesive. Characters appeared and left abruptly, plot lines started up then petered out.

It picks up many years after Cat Velis and Alexander Solarian ended The Game and got married. Their 12-year old daughter Alexandra is a chess wizard. Something goes terribly wrong in Russia when she and her father go there for a match, and it turns out that The Game has started up again.

The action was very improbable. Alexandra is estranged from her mother but gets invited to her house in Colorado, solves some very strange and esoteric clues, and all of a sudden her aunt and opponent-to-be from the never-started or finished match in Russia show up. Nokomis Key, a childhood friend, is coincidentally available to fly everybody all over the place to meet people who spout obscure clues and hint at things never explained. Then we're back in Washington DC, with a lot of early American history thrown in to explain the interesting nature of the city's layout and a strange dinner party that just seems put there to describe the meal and exclaim over who was invited. But the food sounded wonderful.

We also meet some extremely surprising characters. There is the obligatory second time period plot and it all gets convoluted and nothing ever seems to resolve to my satisfaction.

There are wonderful historical facts and events explained in ways that tie the entire world together in a satisfying way from a purely intellectual viewpoint. But eventually even those interesting gems and speculations are lost in the overly-complicated plot.

Alas, I could never really care for the characters, and I wasn't really willing to try to untwist the Black and White twists that this book kept throwing at me.

I'm sorry to say that I found this book to be an utter disappointment. The Eight was amazing, so if you haven't read it - do, but then resist the temptation for more and don't read The Fire. It's too bad that Katherine Neville didn't go with her initial gut reaction that "the way for [The Eight] to remain unique was not to make it into a sequel..." because I really feel like she slapped something together to sell books to everyone who loved The Eight. I would have liked this book much better if there had been a depth to character development that there was in The Eight, and plot development, and denouement equal to that of The Eight. Someone mentioned cider and roller skates - it was really ridiculous. And then it just ends. Like she just got up from her desk one day and said, "okay, I'm tired of this, let's wrap it up." then wrote two more pages and called it done. It's really too bad, because with more time and attention it could have been great.

If you read, The Eight, you are going to be tempted to read The Fire. RESIST. It is beyond bad. It is simply awful. Many others here have eloquently captured the salient points: the prose which is sophomoric and trite in the extreme (if I read the protagonist exclaim: "...and THEN, I knew..." one more time...it appears that she never really does) the laborious "plot twists" that take so long to get nowhere - that it didn't matter as you had already stopped caring. I finished this novel out of mere stubbornness and a sick fascination: just how bad could it be? What IS the meaning? Sadly, is appears that the only goal was to capture our hard earned money. Unlike the wonderful prequel to this book (GET IT! if you haven't!) there is no one in this novel that you will truly care about, there are too many sub plots that are built up, only to be dropped then closed chapters later, like an after thought. It leaves many major characters unresolved and the focus (ha, ha for those who have read this) appears more on cross word puzzles and quotes and the desire to weave in historical figures - than story line and prose. I can only presume that the folks who liked this book never read The Eight. My suggestion: if you really liked The Eight and want more - read it again. I find it VERY hard to believe that the same author wrote this. Much must have happened in the intervening 20 years, and none of it benefited this story line. STAY AWAY FROM THIS BOOK.

Katherine Neville has once again disappointed me, and this is the last time.

I read "The Eight" years ago, and loved it. Looking back, it was groundbreaking in its use of both contemporary and historical threads to weave its tale, and combining this with its metaphysical aspects, it was indeed a heady brew.

Unfortunately her next two novels were pedestrian at best, and I came to believe that the magic of "The Eight" was not to be recaptured.

When I saw this sequel on sale, I put aside my reservations and jumped at the chance to once again immerse myself in the world I so fondly remember from her maiden novel.

Alas, you cannot go home again- at least Katherine Neville cannot. This book is just atrocious. Starting with her main character, who juxtaposes the qualities of a chess genius with a simpleton, and who fails to incite any interest or care on the part of the reader, this story is a horrible amalgamation of lame characters [even those who had seemed fascinating all those years ago], indecipherable plot twists, no real action or suspense other than an absurd ending which involves roller skates and cider jugs, and a Secret which is revealed in the last two pages, and which winds up being more a hackneyed cliche than an Earth shattering [and reforming] Ultimate Truth [or Original Direction to use the novel's own terminology].

I have reluctantly realized that Ms. Neville is not a very good writer, and that "The Eight" was one of those serendipitous occurrences, a true Black Swan, which is unexplainable, and, unfortunately, unrepeatable. It took her decades to attempt to recreate her success- now we know she shouldn't have tried.

Katherine Neville wrote one of my all time favorite books - The Eight. When I heard that after 20 years she was writing a sequel to The Eight, I was thrilled. The Eight has quite a following in itself to this day - been a bestseller for 20 years, printed in more than 30 languages over the world, and countless reprints here in the States. Not many books have that kind of pedigree.
Dealing with a magnificent chess service that was given to Charlemagne that had the means to make people in its possession want to obtain power, it also has the means to creating an elixir for immortality. What if this power landed in the wrong hands? For centuries, there has been a literal human chess game happening - vying for power.
The book is amazing and there is a dual story back and forth from the (then) present to around the French Revolution. Combines action, romance, history, chess strategy that makes an unforgettable book.
Now comes The Fire. Its actions take place exactly 30 years after The Eight, both present and after the French Revolution. Main characters' (Cat Velis and Alexander Solarin) daughter, Alexandra 'Xie' is at the forefront. The Eight's beloved characters (Lily Rad, Ladislaus Nim) are also featured as well as the colorful historical characters - Talleyrand, Lord Byron, etc.
The plotting of creating a new game of living chess is handled brilliantly by Ms. Neville. In spite of its length, it is a fast, exciting read.
The Fire has enough backstory that I think those who have not read The Eight will be able to join in on the ride. Although, I did reread The Eight to refresh my memory to better enjoy this new book. Indeed, people will probably go out and read The Eight simply because it is such a wonderful premise they'll want to be in the atmosphere of this story more.
I am always awed when I read a well planned, beautifully written book that is exquisitely plotted. Ms. Neville loves her characters and respects the story. It comes through brilliantly in The Fire, as it did in The Eight.
Fans of historical fiction, The French Revolution, chess, adventure novels, romance should tear into this book.
It is definitely worth the wait.
And after 20 years' time, that time melts and places you in the action and another exciting read by Katherine Neville.
It is something an author always wishes to have - a legacy to be remembered by with words of beauty - that people will want to read and reread.

The book is A Riddle, Wrapped in a mystery, inside an Enigma
The Fire by Katherine Neville is simply dreadful. The novel is simply a Riddle, Wrapped in a mystery, inside an Enigma. I have no idea what this book is about. My wife read it first and simply gave up halfway through. I plowed through and tried to skim the final 200 pages in a desperate attempt to finish it-sadly I finally gave up. In 50+ years of reading this is only the third book I could not finish. How in the world Ms. Neville could write such a terrific tour de force as The Eight and then turn out this tripe is simply beyond me. This book is simply bad. There is no redeeming value of this book except as a doorstop.
I Do not recommend it. Save your money. I will read no more books by Ms. Neville.

How do I detest this book, let me count the ways: I find global conspiracy theories that stretch back into "deep antiquity" absurd, I cringe at our narrator, Xie's, Sarah Palinesque commentary throughout the book - "durn tootin'" sprinkled with pretentious French whenever Ms Neville gets the chance--By the way, Ms Neville, the word "posse" does not come from French but from Latin, does not take an acute accent over the final "e" and is not italicised. But what truly "got my dander up," as Alexandra or Xie would say, is the inclusion of great authors about whom Ms Neville clearly knows next to nothing. It's all rather like reading the Bobbsy twins meet Shelley, Byron, Nietzsche and Plotinus - Plotinus, can you believe it? - and come to the conclusion that, "Gee, these guys are pretty smart! Why don't we put them in our worldwide conspiracy book?" Reading this drivel was, for me, the literary equivalent of listening to fingers being scratched down a chalkboard for hour upon hour. Oh, and there's some silly stuff about chess, and chessboards, and numerology, and pyramids and sundry things of "deep antiquity."


Some people like this sort of thing though. Some people think Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code is "deep." This book is for you! Happy reading on the astral plane of your choice!

For all others, there's something that Xie says about her mother in the early goings here that applies to the author: "Why had she used this hackneyed pseudo-millennial ruse to grab my attention?" p.41 in the ARC. Perhaps it's because that's all this book amounts to, "a hackneyed pseudo-millennial ruse."

I am sure most people who loved The Eight have been looking forward to this book since the moment they heard it was going to be published. After reading it, I wish I was still waiting, if only to be presented with something that lives up to it's predecessor.
This book was an utter waste of time, with a plot that builds up to the last minute only to let the reader down. I felt like I was being led down a very dull path with too much detail and too little story. There were no flashes of brilliance and most of the main characters (Vartan, Alexandra, Key) came across as pretentious morons. None of the characters seemed to know what was quite going on, and the entire plot seems like a pointless exercise with an almost non-existent climax.

I'm a huge fan of The Eight by Ms. Neville. It's definitely one of my five favorite books of all time. If not for some stylistic and tonal shortcomings (minor in my opinion), it would be at the very top as my undisputed favorite novel. I love the plot, the characters, the settings. (About four months ago at my local B&N, I was browsing a center-aisle table display titled "Fiction Classics" and I was pleasantly shocked to find a stack of The Eight there, sitting between George Orwell and Margaret Atwood.)

Therefore, I awaited the publication of The Fire with great anticipation. And like many on this forum, I am quite disappointed.

The development and use of suspense and intrigue in The Fire seemed lacking to me. One of the cardinal rules of writing is "Show, don't tell." Yet I felt Neville was trying to drive the plot and action by telling us that danger was present, telling us that the future of the world was at stake - while both the tone and the actual events in the book often undermined that message. Contrast that with the plot and development of The Eight, where the suspense and mystery were built up over time. In The Fire, we are clearly told in the first twenty pages that Very Big Things are happening, Everyone is In Grave Danger, etc. Whereas in The Eight, the stakes nicely build through the entire book. The first third or so of The Eight, there is certainly action and mystery to draw us in, but we aren't really sure how big the stakes are and what the characters are trying to accomplish...at first Cat is just trying to decipher strange events at a chess tournament and then puzzling over why she is sent on a goofy mission to Algeria and why everyone is talking about these old chess pieces.

I believe that Ms. Neville is active in the International Thriller Writers organization, and in networking with other thriller/mystery writers and promoting the genre. And one of the rules of contemporary thriller writing seems to be - hook the reader and establish the high stakes immediately. Maybe Ms. Neville took this current conventional mindset a little too rigidly when writing The Fire, whereas as a rookie novelist, she wrote The Eight with more unusual plotting that resulted in a cult classic.

And is this the same author that wrote the ending to The Eight? In my opinion, The Eight has one of the best plot resolutions and endings ever written. It seems rare for any thriller or plot-driven novel, even a high-quality one, not to suffer a bit of letdown or a forced feeling when the author finally has to tie everything together and come to the last page. But The Eight was one of the rare thrillers / adventures where the ending lived up to and even exceeded the high expectations I had built up through my reading. The first time I read The Eight, the hair on my arms actually stood on end during the last 15 pages or so. I'm not exaggerating. That is the only time in my life a book has ever had that effect on me. In contrast, the ending in The Fire is so anticlimactic, I felt like checking to see if someone had cut the last 50 pages from the binding of my book.

Although some criticized the characters in The Eight as being a little clichéd at times, I loved them. I loved the spunk and attitude of Cat, the hate-her-then-love-her spectacle of Lily Rad, the sassiness yet innocence of Valentine, the uncertain nature and internal conflicts of Talleyrand, the mystery of Solarin, and the sheer determination and strength of Mireille.

I think the characters in The Fire pale in comparison. Xie's character seems a shadow of her mother. (I wish Cat was much more present in The Fire). Lily is almost a cardboard cutout in this book. Other returning and new characters provide minor interest.

What did I like about The Fire? Lengthy descriptions of cooking and food usually bore me in fiction, but I was fascinated by the descriptions of world-class open-hearth cooking (I think that's how you'd describe it) and by Xie's apprenticeship as a chef. As usual, Neville does a good job with the settings. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of floatplaning along the Aleutian Islands and across the Bering Sea in miserable conditions, as well as the Washington D.C. settings. D.C. seems underrepresented in fiction for a world city. I appreciated that rather than locate her D.C. episodes in obvious settings such as the Capitol Mall, the monuments, etc., she gave us a tour of lesser known locales such as the back alleys of Georgetown, the C&O Canal, the Key Bridge, Dumbarton Oaks, etc.

I was also interested by some of the plot twists and surprises later in the book. Not the biggest surprise which occurs about halfway or two-thirds through (hopefully those who've read will understand what I'm talking about) which I was neutral on, but the pretty major twist about Cat's view on the Game and the roles of the teams. This was an intriguing theme that I wish had been developed more.

I hesitate in writing this review, because I will always be grateful to Katherine Neville for creating something so wonderful as The Eight. I feel guilty in criticizing her, when twenty years ago she created the best storytelling I've ever had the pleasure of reading. But I want to let readers know who have perhaps come upon The Fire without reading The Eight, they are nothing alike in quality. Thank you thank you thank you Katherine Neville for the earlier work - it still far outweighs whatever disappointment I felt from The Fire.