The Fire by Katherine Neville

This review refers to an Advance Reader's Edition and may not reflect the final published edition. Relevant plot points from this book and Katherine Neville's previous work, The Eight, are noted below, so be advised.

Katherine Neville's latest book, The Fire, continues the multi-layered saga of the worst-kept secret in history, the existence of the Montglane Service. Introduced in The Eight, this powerful chess set contains a formula known only to a few initiates - and every major historical figure since the French Revolution - who struggle in an epic Game to control it. However, in The Fire, we learn that everything we know is wrong and the Game is not so black and white.

Fans of The Eight may find comfortable familiarity in the pages of The Fire. Both are written in the same interlocking dual narrative with a continuous barrage of new enigmatic characters (frequently of historical note) contributing their minor expository piece in the form of a tale and disappearing. Coincidentally, this is the same familiarity found by those less appreciative of Neville's work. To call the book a page turner would be misleading - the density of new throw-away characters, overwrought symbology, and the ridiculous overuse of non-English bons mots forces one to keep moving at a death march pace.

Neville's attempt to crossover characters between the books results in some hilarious messes. We learn that Rosemary Livingston is El Marad's daughter - the five-year-old girl whom Cat Velis gifts with a chess piece, the white queen, in The Eight. The modern narrative takes place 30 years after those events, making Rosemary approximately 35. Her daughter, Sage, is Cat's daughter Alexandra's age, which is approximately 21. Did Rosemary give birth at age 14? It seems unlikely given the high-flying glamourous lifestyles of the Livingstons.

How does the over-arching plot fare? To use the vernacular: epic fail. The Fire actually destroys the few points of The Eight that had any value. If you are a die-hard Katherine Neville fan, you'll probably love this book despite what is written here. For those like myself who were teetering on the edge with The Eight, don't let The Fire burn you.

Many thanks to Ballantine Books, Random House, and the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program for the opportunity to review this book!

Originally posted @ LibraryThing on August 22nd, 2008.