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To write a novel in and of itself is hard enough, but a thriller with so many details to intertwine with each other in such a smooth fashion amazes me. But other than that, the book is one of my favorites.
It was way better than any of Dan Brown's novels.plus it was written like 15 years earlier. I'm surprised this book hasn't received more publicity.
This book was one of the best I've read in a very long time. This is contributed to Neville's writing style of switching between time periods, and trying to include so many details for everything to fit.
However, during the first few chapters, I felt like there was a lot of memorization of names involved. Even sometimes later in the book, I was asking myself who a specific character was when there name came up again.
Anybody can tell she put a lot of time into writing this work of art. It is like she methodically incorporated the strategy of chess of which she writes about into her writing.the Bobby Fischer of historical fiction.
:)Because it has several different settings of times, places, and characters--it makes it easy to set it down and come back to it. The plot is well laid out and the author balances and develops a really large cast of characters--which is not easy to do. I have greatly enjoyed this fun and wonderful fiction. It has taken me about a week and a half to read it in hour segments. I do not play chess, but found this thread to be fascinating, nevertheless. This is not literary fiction--but it is a much better read than most of the paperbacks on the best seller racks. I think it would be a good book to take on vacation or to the beach--it is absorbing without being a cliff hanger. :)
quick and easy. makes me want to much more shopping fron amazon. great work. :)
One chronicling a French nun named Mirelle, who is charged with keeping the mystical Montgalane Chess Service away from those who use it for evil. Tragically, Ms. Once I got in the novel I discovered that I was in for two separate stories. He told me of the plot and it was one that stayed with me until I finally came across this book this year and decided to purchase it. The idea of this novel has long intrigued me. Unfortunately, the goal of the game is to find all the pieces and bring them home safely so it is more a global game of capture the flag than chess. Catherine Velis is almost too sarcastic to be lovable and some many times I contemplated abandoning her story to read about Mireille who was far more compelling. However, the rich history does not fully gloss over the novels many flaws, foremost of which are the poorly developed characters.
Her story is also laced with shoddy writing, redundant story lines, and overused metaphors. Through out the book I was treated to a rich montage of history, from the French Revolution until the Rise of OPEC Ms. A friend of mine had this novel about ten years ago. Neville's writing style is a borderline tragedy. Two hundred years later Catherine Velis becomes an unwilling pawn in a scheme to recover the missing pieces. Neville spared no expense in incorporating some of history's greatest figures into this story. Perhaps the most atrocious story line involves the fact that every character is some how a piece in a global game of Chess for the Montgalane Service. In the end, "The eight" left me feeling under whelmed, there was so much potential in this story but it just did not deliver.
At the beginning, it seemed to be a great idea in a a great setting, both spatial and time. stop writing about so ego-suffering, unprecedented-charming, center-of-the-world heroes, that save the unioverse while every 5 pages are wondering why they should do so. almost half of the puzzle is sloved in the last page.not to mention naive inconsistencies like how, for example a Rolls-Royce' color can chip under the deseret sun while the two passenger ladies just wander in their panama hats.
I will try ti be as gentle as possible but it is evident that the author somehow got bored after page 450 and decied to just end a book that would never end. Really good.PS. but then.
or the James Bond escape of an inexperienced girl from a heavily guarded world leaders convention.Just gave two stars for the French revolution years narrative. throwing us into the worst ending that could possibly exist.writing a book that was taking 100 pages to solve each piece of the mystery and then. all by magic.
For gods shake. Mercy to us.
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