The Night Watch

I picked up The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko because we'd seen the movie. To be honest, I didn't enjoy the movie. I had a hard time putting my finger on what I didn't like about it. Sometimes with a dubbed movie (it's in Russian) I find the words distract me from the images and I lose the connection. There was alot to look at in the movie and I guess I just felt like it was missing something. I knew that it had been based on a book and felt that it had probably made a much better book than it had a movie. I was right.

The first thing I discovered was that the book was actually three books. The first is the basic plot of the movie (the movie changes the action in quite a few ways) and the second two books continue the story of the protagonist, Anton, as he gets both deeper and further from his role as a Night Watchman. Since it's told in first person perspective I felt the reader got more insight into the motivation of the character. Being able to see through his eyes and hear his thoughts both introduced the world, and his place in it, as well as letting the reader understand why he was doing things the way he was.

The world is probably the most interesting thing about the novel. There are two factions, the Light and the Dark, that are locked in a war in which neither side can really win. They've long since realised this and have signed a Treaty that strives to maintain a balance between Good and Evil. Those of the Light, like Anton, patrol the night and make sure that the Dark maintain the Treaty. During the day the Day Watch, made up of Dark Others, make sure that the Light follows the Treaty. I found it interesting that the Light, the Good, would have to be monitored by the Dark.

There's magic in the world but most of it is not the over the top fantasy magic as the Others have to share the same world as the humans do. The Others are born that way, no one can learn to be a magician and they have different levels of power. Sometimes their power never manifests. At the moment they become an Other, by entering the Twilight, they then make the choice to be Light or Dark. It's they way they feel at the time that determines if they will be good and try to help humanity, or be evil and simply look after themselves.

Set in contemporary Russia the book is well written, engaging and not entirely formulaic. Of course, it is Good vs Evil but Good doesn't always win in the way one might expect it to. I'm glad that I purchased the sequel The Day Watch at the same time. It was a bit of a gamble because I wasn't sure I was going to like the first one. Now I'm pretty sure I'm going to kep an eye out for the final book in the trilogy The Twilight Watch. I'm going to give this one a 4 out of 5.