It’s all Katherine Neville’s fault that I ever got involved in the old message board at the Art Bell website (long defunct, but we saved all of our posts from there and call it "The Weave", stored at Goddesschess) – all because of her book "The Eight," which I have read twice and now feel a hankering to read yet again, it’s that good of a story.
I don’t want to give too much away – I recommend you read it for yourselves, darlings – it’s a great read, on many levels. I was first struck by the fact that the main "heroes" in the story are two women! They are amply supported by male characters but – that’s the point – the men are helpful and romantic interests – but they are subsidiary, usually the role reserved for females in novels – except romance novels written mainly by and for female readers, but this ain’t no romance story. It’s a rip-roaring adventure with a mystery that grabs you by the throat right from the beginning of the story, and I sure as hell didn’t figure it out until the very end when it was like WOW – WHAT AN ENDING! And it revolves around a chess set – the mythic Charlemagne chess set, rumored to have been a gift to him from the powerful and learned Muslim ruler ar-Rashid. Fascinating stuff – lots of history and lots of adventure and action, more twists and turns and surprises than you can shake a stick at. Neville wrote a female character, Catherine "Cat" Velis, the equivalent of Indiana Jones.
It’s probably not going too far to say that Katherine Neville’s novel literally changed my life in ways I could not have foreseen when I first settled down to read the book. I should not have been surprised then, when I started to do research on Alisa Melekhina, that – sure as shooting – "The Eight" showed up!
At 15, Alisa is the youngest player in the upcoming U.S. Women’s Chess Championship, and I wanted to learn more about her. I learned that Alisa and her parents emigrated to this country when she was just a few months old; that Alisa is a dancer, a writer and published author as well as a chessplayer, and that she is an all around great young lady. And this is one of the things that showed up in my Google search:
It's part of a larger story about youthful "Chess Queens"
You can also read the full story here. And if you’re interested in learning more about Katherine Neville and her writing, check out her website.
Long live The Eight and good luck to Alisa in the upcoming Championship.
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