I'm an avid Master-level chess player, and I recently finished an
excellent novel which included chess as a major theme in it by Arturo
Perez-Reverte, "The Flanders Panel". Last year, I also read a good one
by Walter Tevis, "The Queens Gambit". I've heard "The Royal Game" by
Zwieg is good, but haven't read it yet.

What I'm looking for are other fiction books out there with chess as a
major or underlying theme as part of the story. Make the list a good
one, and give me a mini-review of the book if possible.

Thanks!

I loved the Queen's Gambit, and that book got my son envolved in the
game as well. What a great book. I've found several of these types of
novels for you, and I hope you find the answer as interesting as I
did. The CS Monitor review is on a new novel.

The Chess King, Novel, August, 1975, Hung-Fan Publishing Company; and
1983, Kwang-Si People's Pub. Co., China. English version published by
ASIAPAC Books Ltd, Singapore, 1986.

Links for further reading referances:

The Chess King
http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~chang/novels.html

CRANIA -- Listing of several Chess related novels
http://www.crania.com/issue3/lemotjuste.html

Book Recommendations -- Chess Fiction for Fun
http://www.metrowestchess.org/study_group/Reviews/Books/Book_Review_Fiction_List.htm

CS Monitor Book Review -- The Emperor of Ocean Park
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0613/p15s01-bogn.html

Google Search 
+chess +fiction +novel

I hope this answers your question for you. 

webadept-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by checkmater-ga on 11 Jul 2002 22:50 PDT

I feel the list is a bit light, and none have reviews of the books. I
would like a little more than just a quick google search.

Hi there,

Samuel Beckett's 'Murphy' has a wonderful chess game in it in which
both players try to lose. The game is reproduced in full.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802150373/qid=1024048942/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-1460349-2566308

There is also a very good chess-related story called 'The Courter' in
Salman Rushdie's 'East, West'.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679757899/qid=1024048979/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-1460349-2566308

I'll try and come up with some more if I can,

grimace

I would also recommend The Luneburg Variation by Paolo Maurensig. 
Well-written, "tight" like Flanders Panel, but more to the point . . .
and more chess, too.

You could also try a very nice book called "Amphitryon" by Ignacio
Padilla, a very interesting identity thriller which evolves around a
series of chess games and name exchanges. It won the "Premio Primavera
de Novela 2000", a prestigious editorial prize in Spain, and has been
translated to English and German (the original is in spanish). The
author, mexican by birth, now lives in London.

Here's a great chess book link: http://members.tripod.com/Jakob_Jackal/CHESSBK.HTM 

I would specifically recommend The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov.