Because Ideas Matter...
The faculty and staff of Butler University's College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences presents
Recommended Readings
The Fire
by Katherine Neville, Ballantine Books, 2008
Reviewed by Judith Morrel
The Fire, the sequel to Katherine Neville's
The Eight, has been a long time coming, and it's worth the wait. It
has been 20 years since the publication of The Eight, a long,
intricately plotted novel about an ancient chess set. Fortunately
for us, it is not necessary to have read The Eight in order to
enjoy The Fire, although I would recommend reading it as well. In
these novels Neville uses both the playing of the game of chess and
the powers ascribed to the various chess pieces as metaphors for
complex human interactions and the complicated roles played by her
characters. In both The Eight and The Fire, Neville jumps back and
forth in time and place with fascinating historical information; in
the sequel, which is not as long as its predecessor, the modern
protagonists are in the subsequent generation from those of The
Eight. The pieces of the Montglane chess service, once owned by
Charlemagne and originally created over 1000 years ago in Baghdad,
have been scattered over the world and buried for years but some
have begun to reappear. The principal characters in the novel, as
well as others, would like to own the entire set, not only for its
beauty and historical value, but also for a rumored secret formula
which can be revealed by it. The complex plot will keep you
entertained as you try to figure out who's who, who's good and
who's bad!
- Judith Morrel is associate professor of Mathematics at Butler
University.