About this title: The quest for a mystical chess service that once belonged to Charlemagne--a venture spanning two centuries and three continents--continues in this long-anticipated sequel to "The Eight."
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: New. AUDIOBOOK. NOT A BOOK! Please order accordingly! Abridged. All Audiobooks are in the original factory sealed shrinkwrap box! Box may show signs of dents, etc. All CD's Are guaranteed to play! Audio CD, New, 2008, read more
Description: Good. 2009-Paperback----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: Used-Like New. LIKE NEW-Looks almost new, tight and solid, has very light shelfwear. Very clean with no markings or writing. Hardcover. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: New in new dust jacket. First Edition, First Print. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 451 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. 2008-Paperback-Cover shows minor shelf wear. ---Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Edition: First edition.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: New in new dust jacket. First Edition, First Print. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 451 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. 0345500679 The covers of the book and the dust jacket have a little shelf wear. This is a sequel to The Eight about a mystical chess set. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: Very Good. As issued no jacket. Trade Paperback. Advance Reading Copy in very good condition. Remainder mark on top and bottom edges. Very nice book. read more
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Clean tight copy, 1st 46 page edges are cut/jammed near top, 2 inches down (only the edges) else an over all clean sound reading copy inside & out. 445 p. Audience: General/trade. Softcover Uncorrected Proof, NO illustrations read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Date Published: 2008-10-14
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: Very good. in Very good. jacket. The Fire: A Novel. Hardcover with dust jacket. Pages are clean and free from markings and/or highlighting, with tight binding. Very nice dust jacket with minimal edgewear and one small tear at base of spine. 15548. read more
Edition: First Edition Advance Reading Copy (ARC)
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: 445 [+2] pages. CONDITION: Very Good+ condition (Fine is our highest grade, then Very Good). Advance Reading Copy ("Firster than a First Edition"). read more
Edition: Advanced Reading Copy (ARC)
Binding: S Trade Paperback
Publisher: Ballantine Books, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780345500670ISBN:0345500679
Description: New. Absolutely brand new and unread, lovely cover, perfect spine, a really sweet copy! ! ! You'll cartwheel with joy when this book gets to you! ! ! Note-Trade paperback, advance reader copy. read more
"Just hearing the comments of my friend while she went trough everything in The fire made me realize I would love this book and couldn't wait to read it. She was so nice to pass it to me and let me go through all the emotions too! I didn't go running but my heartbeat went faster anyway, twice ...when reding it and when trying to put my thoughts and emotions in words the next day.
The fire is divided in two periods of time, with a difference of almost two hundred years. In the middle of everything there is the Montglane chess set that makes us go through time, history and The Game.
Everything Alexandra knew and believed changes together with her whole live when her mother invites her for her birthday party. While this might be the most common thing to do for other people, it is the most unexpected thing Alexandra's mother would do. Alexandra wonders why and soon wishes that she wasn't the person finding it out... while her world changes dramatically and in fast move."
"I wanted to enjoy this novel but instead was uninterested in the plot and the characters. This is the follow up to the well received "The Eight" but in this case the characters were stereotypes. Picture a room full of chess champions that still can have an interesting conversation on anything else but chess. The protagonist was hard to believe. Striving to become the youngest chess grandmaster before reaching age 12, then later while at the Cullinary Institute being recruted by the CIA. Is this a mix of CIA's or what? The alternating chapters giving background in ancient Persia and modern times could work in some instances but in this case, the story was slow moving anyway and this added to the dullness of the story. The plot was also unbelievable. It has been said that this story has some similarity with Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" with its puzzles and riddle solving but a chess set that has such powers that the person possessing it could have vast powers was too beyond belief."
"I have very mixed feelings about this, it's the sequel to The Eight. It's the kind of sequel where you very much have to have read the first book, it wouldn't stand alone very well at all. Now, I almost always like a sequel AT LEAST in the sense that I like to know what happens to everyone after. Sometimes I have heard people, when talking about a favorite book, claim that it's better NOT to know, that a sequel would only ruin things. That, my friends, is the talk of crazy people. So on the one hand, I was glad to catch up with the characters from The Eight again, although I was also a little disappointed that for them, overall, life after the events of The Eight was ... well, mostly a bummer.
To set the stage, The Eight is about the hunt for a mysterious ancient chess set, told in two stories: one search taking place around the time of the French Revolution, and the other in the 1970s. The Fire is the next generation of chess set seekers.
One of the things I liked the best about The Eight is that it was a good mix between adventure (which I found very suspenseful and engaging) and the rather new age-y story about the significance of the chess set (which I was not overly interested in, but whatever). In The Fire, the scales have tipped in favor of the mystical, and the adventure took a backseat. I was half-way though the book when I realized the characters hadn't even GONE anywhere yet, and then they ended up going to Washington D.C., which is where my class went on its 8th grade field trip so it doesn't seem to me to be an overly exotic destination. And because I am a nitpicky annoying person, I was also peeved that there were a few places where the plot turned on points that seem to be contradictory to the parameters set up in the first book about how the chess game worked.
Despite all of that, I found myself liking the ultimate resolution of the fate of the centuries old chess game. Odd that I wasn't overly impressed by how the author got the characters to that point, though.
Grade: Meh Recommended: If you are a big fan of The Eight you will probably find this hard to resist. 2008/41"
"I'll begin by saying that I loved Katherine Neville's three previous books -- I even read them multiple times. "The Eight" is my favorite of her books and I read it every year or so. "The Fire" is not a terrible book. It started off great and I was hooked. Like the previous novel, the use of present and historic perspectives was captivating... But somehow most of the characters never developed enough for me to love them. There were a few characters in the past that showed great potential but they were discarded for other characters. The historic story isn't really a narrative, but more a set of disconnected vignettes. The characters in the present story were also generally not around enough to get to know and unfortunately Xie was almost entirely a puzzle solver and not a person."
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