Katherine Neville

Fifteen years
ago I wrote a book called THE EIGHT. It is the story of a 200-year quest
for a jeweled chess set containing a secret of mysterious power that
almost destroyed Charlemagne. Though THE EIGHT is now called a cult
classic, the real mystery is how it ever got published in the first
place, because no one, including reviewers and publishers, could begin
to describe it when it first came out.

Part historical, part modern, part puzzle novel, and part swashbuckling
adventure story, THE EIGHT mingles mystery, fantasy, romance, science,
and science fiction, and continues to remain a book that defies easy
categorization. Over the years I have been compared to Alexandre Dumas,
Umberto Eco, and even Stephen Spielberg.

I'm credited by some with inventing a new genre, but actually it was
invented by Scheherazade. It seems to me, though, that this sense of
uniqueness is probably the biggest reason for THE EIGHT's success and
endurance ‹ it has sold millions of copies and is still in print
in 22 countries. Recently the book rebounded onto world bestseller lists
‹ in some nations for the second or third time. It will soon be
translated into 5 more languages ‹ Dutch, Russian, Greek, Norwegian,
and Thai.

Though it wasn't the first book I wrote, THE EIGHT was my first published
novel. When Ballantine bought it in 1988 along with A CALCULATED RISK,
THE EIGHT was only half-finished. Ballantine planned it to be the first
hardback fiction they had ever published, but because it was impossible
to compare with other books, they knew they had to be creative about
pulling together an audience who read a variety of genres. Everything
from jacket design to marketing and distribution was very hands-on,
a family operation.

When the time came for me to deliver the final pages, I told Robert
Byron Wyatt, Ballantine's Editor-in-Chief, that he could choose from
three possible endings revealing what becomes of the chess pieces. To
everyone's surprise, Bob (not a big mystery buff) chose the one that
opened the door to a sequel.

As far as I was concerned, however, the story was over. The secret
of the fabulous fictional Montglane chess set had been revealed. FINIS.
It was not until five years after the book was published that the idea
for the sequel hit me over the head ‹ literally. While in Switzerland
doing research at Carl Jung's Eranos Center, I took a wrong turn down
the darkened corridor of a local restaurant and fell headfirst down
a flight of stairs. I was a wreck of contusions and bruises.

The next day brought a 16-hour train ride to Prague, where I had to
keep pacing the length of the train to prevent my body from getting
any stiffer. That's when and how I conceived the sequel to THE EIGHT
and what will happen to the characters and the chess pieces more than
20 years later. (Anyone interested in a spellbinding account of how
I fell on my head can read more about it in I SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME:
THE WORST TRIPS OF THE GREAT WRITERS, edited by Roger Rapoport and Marguerita
Castanera, Book Passage Press, 1994).

Ten years later, I have nearly finished writing the sequel to THE EIGHT.

But since it takes me five years from the moment I sit down at my desk
and begin to actually work on the story and, from inception to completion,
even 20, this is par for the course. And surprisingly, no one, including
my agents, editors, publishers or even my readers, EVER asked me to
speed up the process, to write more quickly. Ballantine has changed
management, even ownership, three times since my first book was published,
and each group has been as supportive as the previous one about letting
me "do my own thing." This is not as unusual as it may seem.

Years ago, I had dinner with a publisher who asked whether I'd rather
be rich or immortal. "Does it have to be a choice?" I asked,
and he said that it did. I said, if it's either-or, I would choose immortality.
Many of the writers I most enjoy reading took a long, long time to write
their books, and those books are still in print today. Though it may
sound immodest, I hope people will still be reading what I wrote 50
or even 100 years from now.

The challenge of writing a sequel to THE EIGHT has not been to top
myself in writing another bestseller. I honestly never expected to write
bestsellers. The challenge for me has been to continue to write books
that are unique. While there's no 'formula' for that, I'm quite sure
about the process ‹ it takes time and an understanding group of
agents, editors, and publishers. Luckily, I have both.

© 2005 Katherine Neville

For twenty years, Katherine
Neville was an international consultant and computer executive.
THE EIGHT, her first novel, remains a bestseller in more than twenty
languages and was voted one of the top ten books of all time in Spain.
A CALCULATED RISK was also a NEW YORK TIMES Notable Book. Her third
novel, THE MAGIC CIRCLE, a USA TODAY bestseller, was among the top ten
books in France, Spain, and Australia. She lives in Washington D.C.
and Virginia.

[Editor's Note: This article first appeared in THE 3RD DEGREE, the
official newsletter of the Mystery Writers of America, 2004]