The Night Watch (Watch, Book 1)
The Night Watch series has caused a sensation never before seen in Russia -- its popularity is frenzied and unprecedented, and driven by a truly great, epic story. In 2005 Fox Searchlight announced it had acquired the Russian film adaptation for an American release. Interest in the books here is now set to reach a fever pitch.Set in modern day Moscow, Night Watch is a world as elaborate and imaginative as Tolkien or the best Asimov. Living among us are the "Others," an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. A thousand-year treaty has maintained the balance of power, and the two sides coexist in an uneasy truce. But an ancient prophecy decrees that one supreme "Other" will rise up and tip the balance, plunging the world into a catastrophic war between the Dark and the Light. When a young boy with extraordinary powers emerges, fulfilling the first half of the prophecy, will the forces of the Light be able to keep the Dark from corrupting the boy and destroying the world?
An extraordinary translation from the Russian by noted translator Andrew Bromfield, this first English language edition of Night Watch is a chilling, engrossing read certain to reward those waiting in anticipation of its arrival. From Publishers Weekly From The Washington Post But what about the book -- just published in America -- at the center of this international vortex of spin-offs? The key to its wild popularity in Mother Russia may be the way Lukyanenko recasts Russia from a bankrupt, has-been world power to a place where the forces of Good and Evil will finish their long battle. Communism, you see, was just an experiment that went awry in a land where experiments can still take place. The Moscow of Night Watch may look gritty and grim, but within its murky new freedom anything might happen. "The potential of Europe and North America has already been exhausted," Lukyanenko writes. "Everything that was possible has already been tried there. . . . All those countries are already half asleep. A healthy retiree in shorts with a digital camera -- that's the prosperous countries of the West. We need to experiment with the young ones." But for Muggles who live outside that land of grand potential, say, in one of those exhausted, prosperous countries of the West, this fantasy novel's appeal will have to rest on its characters, its suspense and its themes. At the risk of being cursed by a Dark Magician, I have to say that's a long shot. Night Watch suffers from the pretentiousness and humorlessness that frequently weigh down stories that capitalize the words Good and Evil, as in "Evil has no need to bother with eliminating Good. It's far simpler to let Good fight against itself." I must remember this the next time my wife claims the car is making a funny noise. The story involves a race of super-humans called the "Others," who live and work alongside us, feeding off the negative or positive mental energy that ordinary human beings produce. They fade in and out of a gray fourth dimension known as the Twilight that overlays our natural world. These Others are born to regular human parents, but when each Other comes of age, he or she must choose to join the Light or the Dark side: "If you always put yourself and your own interests first, then your path leads through the Darkness. If you think about others, it leads toward the Light." If you've studied the Gospel According to George Lucas, you'll recognize the sappy metaphysics of Night Watch, but Lukyanenko lays on a heavy gloss of realpolitik: The forces of Light and Dark are locked in a thousand-year-old Cold War, bound by an ancient truce that keeps the world from being destroyed. Each side maintains a Watch to ensure that the opposite side is not violating the terms of the peace treaty by interfering illegally with the direction of human history. Large sections of the novel sound like Henry Kissinger channeling Obi-Wan Kenobi on the importance of maintaining this balance of power, even if innocent individuals must be sacrificed along the way. Anton, the narrator, is a low-level member of the Night Watch, the officers who keep track of the Dark Others. Like any good young hero, he's just an ordinary guy (with superpowers) who is told at the crucial moment: "Now you're our only hope." He's deeply conflicted about the nature of his work, he's frustrated by the wrong-headed orders that come down from on high, and, of course, he falls in love with the woman he's sent to protect. She's a beautiful doctor named Svetlana, who doesn't initially realize she's an Other with enormous magical power (which makes you wonder how good a doctor she is). The overarching plot of the novel concerns Anton's reluctant participation in Svetlana's recruitment, training and preparation for a dangerous interference in the Destiny of mankind: a little boy, whom both sides hope to claim as their Great One. In each of the novel's three sections, Anton struggles through a torturous crisis of faith that leads up to a climactic confrontation with the forces of Evil, only to realize in the final paragraphs that his boss, a Great Magician of the Light, has planned the whole thing as a decoy to distract everyone (including us) from some secret plan off-stage. The trick ending of the first section was fairly clever; the trick ending of the second section was a little annoying; and by the end of the third, I wanted to shove somebody's magic wand up the Dark Place. This is a shame because the novel contains some captivating scenes and all kinds of marvelous, inventive detail: The vampires' seduction of a teenage boy is bone-chilling; every time Lukyanenko described the Other-worldly Twilight, I felt lured into it; and the fantastical powers exercised by Anton and his colleagues range from delightful to awesome: changing the weather in the living room, transforming into animals, "remoralizing" whole blocks of people. But the clunky language of Night Watch in translation constantly shatters its magic: As a girl-vampire moves in for the kill, for instance, Anton says, "Things were looking really bad now." A few pages later, he tells us, "This was getting really interesting!" When he gets rescued by a passing car, he says, "Things like this just didn't happen! Heroes only got rescued by passing cars in cheap action movies." Say, there's an idea. Or maybe a TV show. Or a sequel. And a video game. Use the Force, Luk. Reviewed by Ron Charles Review Excellent spin on the old Light vs. Dark theme A different approach Dresden files meets harry potter.Product Details
Editorial Reviews
Starred Review. Set in contemporary Moscow, Lukyanenko's fantastic American debut—the first in a series about an epic struggle between good and evil—charts the adventures of a race of supernaturally gifted Others, who serve either the Light or Dark Side. The Others slip in and out of an eerie parallel world where they coexist in an uneasy peace that a terrible revolution may soon disrupt. Philosophical Anton Gorodetsky, an earnest Night Watch agent, falls in love with 24-year-old Svetlana Nazarova, a troubled young doctor under a Dark Magician's curse. While Anton endeavors to undo the curse, he discovers Egor, a gifted boy unwilling to choose between his Light or Dark abilities. As humankind's fate hangs in the balance, Anton is forced to re-examine his allegiance, and Svetlana is drawn deeper into the exotic, vivid universe of dueling magicians, shape-shifters, witches and vampires. Potent as a shot of vodka, this compelling urban fantasy was adapted to a Russian blockbuster movie in 2004. (July)
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Brace yourself for Harry Potter in Gorky Park. Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch is the beginning of a sprawling fantasy series set in modern-day Moscow about a young man and his owl, who belong to a magical police force that protects humanity from "vampires, werewolves, incubuses and succubuses, active witches, all sorts of troublesome riffraff from the lower levels." The first volume (Nochnoi Dozor) appeared in Russia in 1998, and so far the trilogy has sold more than 3 million copies abroad. Director Timur Bekmambetov originally planned a television series based on the books but instead produced a lush, violent and baffling movie (with lots of product placement) that was hailed as post-Soviet Russia's first blockbuster. Fox Searchlight released it in the United States this spring with enough magic to trick fantasy-thriller fans into seeing a movie with subtitles (the DVD, dubbed in English, went on sale this summer), and two more installments are already headed our way. Till then, you can play the "Night Watch" video game from CDV Software ($39.99). Action figures at McDonald's can't be far behind.
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.
“Night Watch is an epic of extraordinary power.”
—Quentin Tarantino
“Star Wars meets the Vampires in Moscow . . . it bursts with a sick, carnivorous glee in its fiendish games.”
—The New York Times
“The Night Watch is inventive, sardonic and imbued with a surprising sense that, for this author and his audience, much of this stuff is new-minted.” —The Independent (UK)
A “sceptical, intelligent thriller.”–Telegraph (UK)
“Fascinating. . . . [The] excellent translation by Andrew Bromfield keeps the pace moving. . . . One of the most original and readable supernatural fictions in some time.”–Scotland on Sunday
“Brace yourself for Harry Potter in Gorky Park. . . . The novel contains some captivating scenes and all kinds of marvelous, inventive detail: The vampires’ seduction of a teenage boy is bone-chilling; every time Lukyanenko described the Other-worldly Twilight, I felt lured into it; and the fantastical powers exercised by Anton and his colleagues range from delightful to awesome.”– Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World
“Lukyanenko is great at rolling out new concepts for the reader to savour.”–The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
“[As] potent as a shot of vodka. . . . [A] compelling urban fantasy.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This modern day mythical fantasy is Anne Rice on an epic scale, a hugely imagined world. A chiller thriller from cold of Russia, this one's been selling like hot cakes around the world.” —Sunday SportCustomer Reviews
There is a twilight world that exists beside the one we know, populated with magicians, sorcerers, enchantresses, werewolves, and vampires. This is the world of human beings who have discovered they have magical abilities that set them apart as "Others." Upon discovery of their powers, these Others must swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. Agents of the Night Watch (Light others who oversee the nocturnal activities of the Dark Others) and Day Watch (Dark Others who keep watch over the day) work to uphold a treaty, which precariously maintains equilibrium between the Dark and the Light. But now, after a thousand years, the time has come that has been spoken of in an ancient prophecy, that a supreme Other will emerge and threaten the balance of power. When mediocre magician and Night Watch member Anton meets a cursed young woman who is an uninitiated Other, he finds himself at the very center of the struggle, with the fate of the world in his hands.
The characters are well-written and engaging, the story fast-paced and intelligent. And yes, as noted by one reviewer, the concepts (ie, the dichotomy between the Dark and the Light) in this book have been covered before. Of course they have--it is part of the definition of high fantasy. What is particularly compelling is the arbitrariness by which an initiate chooses between the Dark and the Light--the choice can be based on something as trivial as one's mood at the time of initiation. It also makes one question just where the line between "good" and "evil" actually lies. Beyond that, the possibility of a world existing right beside our own is always intriguing--it's one of the things that makes stories like Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia so appealing--the possibility of stepping outside the mundane into an exciting adventure. Which is exactly what the Night Watch is.
This is an original fantasy novel. The war between light and darkness finds a very different approach in this book. I highly recommend it for those who are bored of the same type of vampire stories and are looking for something new.
Dresden files meets harry potter, sums up the style of this book. A book about wizard & vampires.
The writing and the story are very good. However I didn't like the characters much. And being unsympathetic to the lead characters made the book a disappointment, as everything else about it is very good.
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