Rating: 
Summary: The Magic Circle might be a history lesson, but not a novel.
Review: Like so many readers I purchased The Magic Circle based on the strength of Ms. Neville's brilliant first novel, The Eight. That was, of course, a mistake. The Magic Circle has many problems, beginning with the lack of a coherent and interesting plot. In its stead it seems as though Ms. Neville has written several disparate pieces of historical fiction, which sound suspiciously like lectures, interwoven with a weak and under-developed contemporary suspense. And if her lack of a story was not unfortunate enough, Ms. Neville's (many, many) characters are thinly drawn and completely uninteresting. There is no Mireille -- clever, beautiful and immortal; no Cat -- reluctant, heroic, and brilliant; no Talleyrand, no Solarin. Perhaps I was just tired by the end of the novel, but even it seemed to be a contrived and half-hearted attempt to interject some action and drama into the story ... and it didn't work. Overall, The Magic Circle lacks focus. It reads as several incomplete books combined, incoherently, into one. I had the feeling throughout that the book was the result of an impending deadline and that it was not really the novel Ms. Neville intended to write. My only question is: where was Ms. Neville's editor?
Rating:
Summary: Itsa notso great
Review: I read The Eight, and really liked it, but I didn't even finish this one.
Rating: 
Summary: A circle never ends
Review: I very much enjoyed this author's first novel, The Eight. With anticipation I picked up a copy of this one and found: the plot is almost non-existent, and long diatribes of Aryan-related metaphysical mumbo-jumbo stand in for it. The main character is by turns hideously stupid and smugly smart; the 'big surprise' is in fact neither very big nor terribly surprising. The title seems to herald a basic fact about the plot and about the way the story is told: one continues to run around in circles around the focal 'mystery', and never penetrates it.
I'd strongly recommend her first novel instead. This one? Check it out from the library some day when you're completely without reading material. Buy it used.
But don't spend your money on it.
Rating: 
Summary: Tesla, Jesus, Alexander the Great, and "Lucky" Heidler too!
Review: It has been much too long since this writer has read a novel that truly "was too good to put down". Neville is unrelenting in her pacing as the story moves gracefully between the early Christian era and just a few years ago. Ariel Behn is an amazing and amazingly real contemporary woman, grandly realized as are most of Neville's other characters, even the cameos from the likes of Nicola Tesla (one of the 20th Century's most intriguing men!), Jesus and his crew (most excellent portrayal of Mary Magdalene), and "Lucky" Heidler, later Hitler. There's everything in this big expansive novel from nuclear science to alchemical marriage and Native American totemism. Neville is also most appropriately discreet in her boudoir scenes in this age of explicitity and kinkiness, which for this reader, is most appreciated. If only she hadn't rushed the ending. Another 75-100 pages, while not overly increasing the "tome-iness" of an already large book, would likely have given time for a more satisfying conclusion. Or maybe there'll be a sequel. I'd love it. Don't believe the negative comments you may see about this book. If you enjoy a grand read that keeps you reading, this is not to be missed. A perfect October kind of book!
Rating: 
Summary: An exciting and through-provoking adventure.
Review: Katherine Neville's first novel, The Eight, was an international bestseller, a two-tiered story that mixed chess, the French Revolution, the oil embargo of the 1970s, and romance on the Mediterranean Sea. I couldn't put it down for days. Her second novel, A Calculated Risk, was a New York Times Notable Book. It was an engaging and fun romp through the world of banking and high finance and opera. Neville has become one of my favorite writers. The Magic Circle, her third novel, is Neville's most ambitious book yet. It is a story about the big picture and transformation; it is the story of an aeon -- a 2,000 year cycle -- that began at the rise of the Roman Empire and the birth of Christianity and that is approaching its completion right now. This book is about humankind's quest to harness the power of the earth and heavens for such a transformation. The heroine of The Magic Circle is Ariel Behn who calls herself a "girl nuke," and works as a nuclear security expert in Idaho. When we first meet her she is driving in treacherous snow conditions on her way back to Idaho from San Francisco where she left her brother's shrouded remains in a casket, blown apart by some unknown bomb while operating in an advisory capacity for the military. His death is as sudden as his disappearance from her life some years ago. Ariel soon learns that she's been bequeathed with precious family papers that her brother, Sam, had inherited from their grandmother. Why she has been given these documents and why everyone in her family wants them before she can uncover what they are is what Ariel must find out. But this wouldn't be a Katherine Neville novel without huge amounts of history and scien! ce, puzzles and etymology thrown in. As Ariel pursues the meaning of the manuscripts she uncovers the hard truths about her complex family and their role in major twentieth century events such as the Boer Wars in South Africa and World War II. Like Scheherazade, the story teller in One Thousand and One Nights, Neville weaves tales within tales, only this time they go backwards into history as we learn about ancient initiation and transformation rituals, runes, Uranus, power spots, who Jesus might have been, and what the Song of Solomon may actually mean. Neville's historical segments are delicious and compelling. The reader becomes a local observer of, for example, the last week of Jesus's life, seeing the events from Pontius Pilate and Joseph of Arimathea's view. The magic circle evokes a place to do ritual, to connect with our community, be it the neighborhood, our families, friends or the planet. It is for each of us to enter into the magic circle and transform. This book provokes questions and imaginings, and rereading. Neville delivers another tour de force, and leaves us wanting more. Writer and editor Beth Dora Reisberg writes book reviews and interviews of thinkers and writers on the leading edge. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Rating: 
Summary: A mystery that just... fizzles out
Review: The summary of the plot at the back of the book, drew me like a beacon. A family secret spanning eons, goes back to the time of Christ and his last days. A riddle that whomever should solve it, would have power over the world. A millennium book with historical mysteries. Just my thing!!! As the book progressed, it all went downhill. I admire what the author had set out to do, but unfortunatelly she never accomplished it. The protagonist's family is so mingled and confusing (they were even related to Hitler at some point) that it bordered on fantasy. The world is not THAT small! Lots of historical mysteries (even something to do with the Gordian knot, but never really explained), too much actually, since they confused the reader more than enlightened him/her. Everything builds to the big climax, which never arrives (at least I didn't see it) and if it did, it was very dull and severelly disappointing. The riddle, when finally deciphered, was a load of clap-trap. It would have been such a great book if the author didn't pile miles and miles of stuff on top of it, just to make it complex. (...)
Rating:
Summary: Fun, yet complicated
Review: 'The magic circle' has all elements that make me get interested in a book: historic happenings and characters, ancient relics, world domination, etc. Besides, I'd previously read Neville's 'The eight', a very good book. So, my expectations with 'The magic circle' were high. The story revolves around Ariel Behn and her heritage, a bunch of historic documents and manuscripts that have a powerful meaning; it seems many people know what those documents mean, but Ariel herself has been left in the dark by her family, and she doesn't know nothing about them. The plot is about Ariel disclosing the documents' meaning, while revealing to the reader the many complicated connections between her large and chaotic family (I suggest the reader make notes on the Behn family, otherwise he will be going back on the text to remember who is someone's mother, father, cousin, brother, sister, etc.) and another, historical plot, involving Jesus Christ, roman emperors, and Adolf Hitler.
The book is good enough, and achieved what I expected. But, in the end, I felt the complicated plot was not entirely well developed. I was left with the feeling that something was missing. I mean, the book doesn't end well. It simply stops. Neville could have used another hundred pages to give the reader a more satisfatory conclusion to the lots of interesting historical facts, information and relations depicted in the story. Otherwise, I have to compliment Katherine Neville, because this book was clearly difficult to write, and her research must have been painfully difficult to provide the accuracy this book clearly has. Grade 8.2/10
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Summary: A Taut Thriller, with a heroine
Review: I got this book through Bookcrossing.com and it sounded interesting. When I began reading it, I found myself engrossed in a tale that deftly combined the past & the present, New Age, New World and Old World, Christianity and paganism, pretty much all things that you wwould not think could go together. Now that I have read Dan Brown's work, I can see similarities between Angels & Demons, for example, and The Magic Circle. If you liked DaVinci Code, Angels & Demons or Deception Point, you will like The Magic Circle. Read it and share it with someone today!
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Summary: After 'The Eight,' this was a disappointment
Review: Okay, I read "The Eight," by this author, and I have to say, it was one of my favourite books, hands down, ever. "The Magic Circle," really really really fell short of that. Now, granted, I listened to it abridged on four audiocassettes, but it just didn't... flow.
Basically, the tale is thus: Ariel Behn, daughter of a really complex family structure, inherits something when her half-blood cousin (maybe) is killed, and that something might get her killed. So when her gypsy/german/rom/aryan/aboriginal/you-name-it various half-incest-inbred-orphan relatives come out of the woodwork to try and stop her / lie to her / mislead her / confuse her / rob her / seduce her, she's left confused.
So is the reader. By the third time you find out that the people she thought were her grandparents aren't, or that her lover is actually the half-brother of her cousin's uncle, who raped his maid before forcing her to marry him... yadda yadda yadda. It gets old, fast. And the notion of the various texts and manuscripts that Ariel is researching that might lead to some astounding knowledge just don't get enough play-time. In "The Eight," it was the pieces of the chess set, and the rich history, that was interesting. In "The Magic Circle," it just didn't work, and the manuscripts are never quite explained at all. The weaving between the past - set in 32 AD during the last week of the life of Christ, and the present - 1989, during the confusion of Gorbechev's Russia, don't mesh, mix, or really interconnect the way the various time periods did in "The Eight."
If you like multi-generational family (melo)dramas, it might be your thing, but for me, this just fell a little flat.
'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: It was almost good
Review: Neville missed the mark on this one. As a fan of The Eight and Calculated Risk, I expected her pattern of weaving in and out of history, mysticism, and adventure. Somehow, in this one, I got lost. Underneath all the layers she hints at a fascinating story that intrigues and wets the appetite. I found myself becoming more and more frustrated as the real meat of the story was set aside without enough follow through in favor of piecemeal action that felt shallow and directionless
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