Heroes, Hype, and History

Abstract

Katherine Neville’s The Magic Circle appeared in 1998, a decade after she had burst onto the publishing scene with her bestselling novel, The Eight. Indeed, much like The Eight, The Magic Circle is a puzzle narrative, but it differs from its predecessor in that its puzzle presages the birth of a new age. Reading it now, its post-9/11 audience might well be disconcerted in learning that the author sets the birthplace of the new age in Central Asia; conversely, its (1998) characters find the locale bizarre, and comment dubiously: “But if this age is to be a wave, tearing down walls and mingling cultures… I don’t see how it connects with this part of the world – especially Afghanistan, where Russia’s bloody but insignificant little war is unlikely to affect any culture but that one” (302). Perhaps no one was more surprised than Neville when, on September 11, 2001, her fictive prediction came true. Undoubtedly, as the Twin Towers fell, a new age did dawn, although not the one she had envisioned in The Magic Circle.