The Eight started out promisingly enough, but degenerated to the point of ridiculousness. The book has been compared to Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, but in actuality The Eight comes nowhere near that fabulous book. As I read, I hoped that Katherine Neville was writing a parody, but I guess not.

Where to begin? Overly contrived plot with more holes than Swiss cheese; really, really bad writing style with an over-use of adjectives and past participles; laughable sex scenes; too much historical inaccuracy; too much historical name-dropping, so much so that this novel read like an issue of US magazine (Catherine the Great, Napoleon, Robespierre, Voltaire, and many, many other historical figures are thrown in, sometimes gratuitously); and too much foreshadowing, is in, "little did I know...". The characters were extremely one-dimensional, and I absolutely loathed the heroine, Cat Velis. The book started off well enough, but I found myself rolling my eyes the further I read. I'm all for reading historical thrillers, if the plot is enough to draw me in, but this one didn't do it for me, I'm afraid.

The good: excellent story.

The bad: poorly written. The clunky Thesaurus-driven prose can be tolerated, but not the wooden and puddle-shallow characters, the dreadful dialog and the absence of a driving and interesting narrative. And it's lonnnnnnng. Not recommended.

Somehow, THE EIGHT slipped below my radar when it first was published in 1988. I came upon a copy by chance last week, and I was overwhelmed by this novel: Totally engrossed.

Certainly, I would have enjoyed it more if I were a chess player but, even in my chess-related ignorance, I found THE EIGHT breathtaking.

Author Katherine Neville possesses an imagination which is beyond, well, imagination. She has crafted a story that--as the expression goes--bridges not merely centuries, but millennia, and continents as well.

Her attention to detail is staggering and her research must have taken her years.

The main theme of this novel is the "Montglane Service," a chess set with mystical powers. Over the centuries, fierce competition arises over every single chess piece, with bad guys chasing good guys and good guys chasing bad guys. Each piece individually is gorgeous, adorned with a fortune in gems, but the person who can re-assemble the whole set will possess a life-changing secret.

The plot swings between France during The Terror and modern New York City, with stops in 18th Century London and the Court of Catherine the Great, as well in almost-contemporary Algeria, presaging OPEC.

Every significant person of the 18th Century makes an appearance here, from Tallyrand and Robespierre to Napoleon, Catherine the Great to Rousseau, Bach, Boswell and Benjamin Frankin. In fact, this constant insertion of historical figures gets to be implausible and detracts from the overall excellence of the work.

The author's powers of description are impressive and she seems to have a mystical grasp of some of the scenes she writes, such as those set in the prisons of Revolutionary France and 18th Century Russia. Her descriptions of physical scenery, most specifically in Algeria, also are breathtaking.

Yet at the end of this novel, I still had no idea why her heroine was so special, or why she seemed so omnipotent in her knowledge as the novel progressed. Clearly, the heroine is the girl whom everyone wants, but why?

If it were not for these quibbles, THE EIGHT would be a five-star novel; the problems above hold it down to four. Still, I will be reading THE FIRE, its sequel.

Lots of action in this book, and adventure and history. I enjoyed the book and I am looking forward to reading the sequel.

Travelling back and forth through time, criss-crossing the globe in a frantic quest first to hide and then to retrieve pieces of a priceless and ominous chess set, laced with historical characters as diverse as Charlemagne, Casanova and Bach, sprinkled with arcane bits of chess lore, alchemy, music and physics, this book is one wild, page-turning adventure! Rarely before have I so willingly suspended disbelief in devouring a story, or been so anxious to find out what happened next! The characters are believable and diverse, and I'm reluctant to fact check much of the history lest reality be so much less interesting than fiction. I can give no higher praise!

I've tried not to give anything away in this review, because I think I enjoyed this book so much because I had no expectations, knowing nothing about it. All I can say is, if you like romances, historical novels, mysteries, adventures and yes, science fiction--run, do not walk, to the nearest bookstore or library and GET THIS BOOK!

I can't believe I missed this when it first came out!

The Eight is a one-of-a-kind novel. I've never read a book quite like it for drawing on so many genres and interestingly using so many references to history, the arts, culture, geography, mysticism, and religion. It's like watching a more culturally connected version of The Amazing Race television program.

At the same time, the new story combinations mostly work quite well. The queen is the most powerful chess piece, and it makes sense that women should dominate a novel about chess. So there's an integrity to the new mosaic that lends the plot an inner strength.

The book alternates between two story lines with different leading heroines, Mireille de Remy (an apprentice nun, or novice, during the French Revolution of 1789) and Catherine (Cat) Velis (a computer whiz working for an accounting firm in Manhattan in the early 1970s). Most times, the story line hits a cliff hanger just in time to shift back to the other story line. It's a good book structure for maintaining your interest.

Both heroines are drawn into the search for missing chess pieces and board from a set that was once owned by the Emperor Charlemagne, a set which physically represents an age-old secret that conveys some sort of astonishing benefit to the person who employs the secret. Naturally, there are opposing forces looking to find the clues and to grasp the secret for their own advantage. That competition is expressed in terms of chess moves and pieces.

No one, however, will ever accuse Ms. Neville of being a stylish writer in crafting sentences. Rather, she is a writer who evokes emotion in he readers by falling back on favorite techniques of thriller, romance, and mystery novelists to make her story compelling.

She does a good job of keeping the various elements of the story in balance. For that reason, if you don't like one aspect of the story, you won't find yourself putting the book down in disgust. She'll distract you with another aspect of the story before that happens.

Ms. Neville has a prodigious imagination, and she employs it well to connect coincidences, historical figures, important world events, and facts into a new tapestry that seems for vivid for its antecedents in the real world.

Unfortunately, the book's ending isn't quite up to its premise. Ms. Neville has her characters doing things at the end that don't quite fit with the logical flow of her story. But it's only a minor disappointment in the end. The fun of getting to the end is too vivid for the reader to be ultimately disappointed in the experience.

The Eight is on a short list of my "comfort books", books that I know will reliably distract me when I need to be distracted. Is it great literature? Not even close. But it is an engaging, if totally implausible, story of an epic quest played out in two centuries, one in our time and the other at the time of the French Revolution, drawing all manner of historical figures into a plot centered around a chess set made for Charlemagne that hides a secret (which I won't reveal here) for which people over the centuries have killed and for which others have been willing to die. It is the sheer cleverness of the story and the pluck of the heroines in both centuries that make it work for me. The sequel, The Fire, was just released a couple of days ago and it's the first book I bought to test drive my brand new Kindle. Unfortunately, The Eight isn't available for Kindle, or that would have been my first download.

After acquiring Katherine Neville's new release THE FIRE, I figured that to fully enjoy her new novel, I should read international best-seller THE EIGHT. THE EIGHT is an epic novel written in 1988. It has a unique structure with two stories being told at the same time. The first begins in 1972 and revolves around Catherine Velis, a computer expert that is given a new assignment in Algeria. The second story begins in 1790 during the beginning of the French revolution. A young novice nun Mireille is given the assignment of protecting pieces of the Montglane Chess Service. At the center of both stories is the Montglane Chess Service. This jewel encrusted chess board and pieces dates back to the reign of King Charlemagne and purportedly holds tremendous power through the formulas inscribed on the pieces. The pieces have been sought after for centuries and many have died trying to find them.

This is a long book and requires a significant investment in time. Is it worth it? Definitely. The two stories alternate chapters and both tell a tale of a chase to find the Montglane Chess Service and a quest to unravel its mysteries. For me, the strength of the book is the historical tales of France. Many real historical figures are included (Napolean, Talleyrand) and Neville does a great job of allowing the reader to understand what it is like in 1790s France as well as 1970s Algeria. The book is full of mysteries and puzzles and I got lost trying to keep up but still was able to enjoy the novel. Neville's weak spot is characterization. In such a long novel, some characters receive a full treatment and some are just charicatures or afterthoughts.

The quest for the Monglane service is fascinating with its numerous twists and turns through history. Of course, this book is fiction and so I wondered if the climax of the book would be worthy of the build-up. There are many characters in the novel, both in the present and the 1790s that play rolls corresponding to the chess board (white king, black queen, etc.) I found the reason for this to not be compelling, a clumsy device to create suspense.

As I read the last few pages of the novel, I thought that the climax was indeed worthy of the build-up. It isn't ground breaking but a satisfying conclusion to a long journey. I can't wait to check out THE FIRE and see what happens next.

This book was recommended by a friend and I can only agree. This is a fantastic book. The story is very well thought thru. It has just the right amount of History, Chess, Country info, romance, thrill - you name it, its in it.
I like the heroine being a computer expert and if you have any interest in economics or finance, you will like some of the tidbits that are being presented (such as the OPEC etc).
I almost took up chess after finishing the book, I felt I understood quite some rules I would have otherwise never bothered with.
KN also decribes the countries traveled in such vivid colors, it makes you want to see it for yourself. All characters are well developed and I am curious to read the sequel.

I read this book (recommended by an engineer friend) in 1989....yes that's almost 20 years ago. I really enjoyed the intrigue, the plot, the splash of historical figures, the plot, the characters were fresh and unique oh and the plot is amazing. I noticed it on the Customer Service desk at a local bookstore and snatched it up quickly and whipped through the 600 pp in a few days. I knew the outcome, but had forgotten alot of the details. I enjoyed it all over again and kept waiting for the climactic ending. This book is very well written altho some of the physics went over my head in 89 and again in 08. lol

I have already gotten 3 other friends to purchase the book so we can have a discussion on it.

Just as good as it was in 89. Go for it. It's a wild thrill ride.

I first got the book because I was studying Charlemagne at college. However, i may say i am utterly disappointed by historical character portrayals. Catherine the Great and Robespierre accurately reflects their historical counterparts, but Danton, Marat, Benedict Arnold and even September Massacres are crudely portrayed.
Apart from this, it is a highly entertaining read--it is so much better than factually inaccurate books of Dan Brown and its various emulators. It is also better than Dirk Pitt Novels, which are its closest rivals in the genre.
I would have given the book a higher rating if not for two things. One, the narrative jumps a lot between historical and present-day, creating a lot of tension on the reader's part in keeping track of everything. I never liked that with any of my books. Two, the endings (both of the historical saga and the modern tale) are hurried, and a little ludicrous. I hope the sequel will expend the unfinished threads.