Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch series may already be familiar to English-language sci-fi fans. In 2004, these Russian bestsellers got two high-octane film adaptations directed by Timor Bekmambetov; the movies broke box office records in their home country and garnered a cult following in the US. The Night Watch books were brought stateside, but didn’t grab as much attention as they should have (I blame the covers) and the books eventually went out of print. I’m glad the series, beginning with Night Watch, is making a comeback, however, in a slick new package that is way more attuned to the series’ vibe.
The premise of the book may sound a bit tired—individuals known as “Others” are divided into Light and Dark magicians that square off in Moscow—but the way that Lukyanenko spins the material turns oft-used tropes and makes them into instantly readable and increasingly addictive books with every installment. Lukyanenko writes an engrossing urban fantasy with a spy thriller bent for those who like their protagonists hard-boiled and their plots seasoned with ethical dilemmas and political brinkmanship. In the first book of this series, he takes the reader on a long, dark subway ride of the soul—figuratively and literally.
The world of Night Watch is split between two rival organizations locked in a political stalemate: one monitors the forces of Darkness, and the other does likewise with the Light. Anton Gorodetsky is a disillusioned Light magician and agent of the Night Watch, who is barely clinging to his old idealism as he goes on his first field assignment. He’s on the hunt for vampires poaching humans without a license and encounters two Muscovites in unusual circumstances: Svetlana, woman with a curse upon her head strong enough to destroy the entire city if unleashed, and Egor, a boy with an undetermined magical destiny who nearly becomes vampire bait. Their destinies intertwine during three mini-arcs throughout the novel in ways that reveal the chess game antics that both organizations go through—and not always with the hope of safeguarding humanity in mind.
Anton is a modern-day Dostoyevsky protagonist, struggling in the post-Soviet drift while looking for purpose in his work that doesn’t involve being sucked into power plays. The Cold War analogy manifests itself in the entanglements and compromises that Anton makes in the line of duty (or, even more, the traps that he unwittingly plays a part in, no matter how much he struggles against them). I first read these books soon after I returned from living abroad in Moscow, so I admit I have a serious soft spot for all of the cultural references and the particular mindset that Anton has— well-meaning and likeable, often critical, but highly aware of personal stakes that motivate people to do what they have to in order to survive.
Light and Dark doesn’t equate to “Good” and “Evil” necessarily, but relate to how individuals use the power taken from the energy-sucking Twilight, a parallel dimension that exists simultaneously with ours. Much of the book is spent with characters arguing over the moral boundaries involved in fighting on one side versus the other: it’s a bit like flipping through an fantastical, philosophy-lite version of The Brothers Karamazov. None of the characters feel like metaphysical sock puppets, though, so these debates turn out to be quite enjoyable and up the tension when it comes to hunting down murderers and saving the destiny of humanity. I also appreciated the gender balance between characters, and the agency and importance female characters have in the story; my favorite is Olga, Anton’s centuries-old partner and a Great Sorceress.
Night Watch can easily be assumed to be a symbolic tale of the Russian Everyman in modern society, but that would cut short the fascinating world-building, darkly humorous plot points (including a gender-swap between Anton and a Olga in order to track down a serial killer), and intriguing character relationships. It is a spy thriller, a love story, and police procedural that goes down like a shot of Stolichnaya. The first volume’s ending is understated and abrupt, but it doesn’t detract from the book as a whole. The follow-up installments of the series will be coming out in short order: Day Watch will out in late January, Twilight Watch in March, and the newest book—previously unpublished before in the US—will pub in the second half of the year. For those looking for new reads in 2014, I highly recommend adding Night Watch to that list.
Night Watch is available December 31st from Harper Collins
Ay-leen the Peacemaker actually watched Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter because of Bekmambetov, though she does regret that. She works at Tor Books, runs the multicultural steampunk blog Beyond Victoriana, pens academic things, and tweets.
Not to nit-pick, but all four (including Last Watch) have been available through Hyperion since 2009.
They’re very enjoyable and well-plotted, though I’ve seen some criticism of the translation as being overly simplistic. I’d be interested in comparing the translation in these new versions to the old.
Agreed, these are very well worth reading (even for those, like me, quite ignorant about modern Russia). The world building and the characters are a really big draw, and I like the multi-story novel structure too.
I think they’ve remained in print in the UK in the last few years, since shortly after the films, so I was surprised to see they’d been harder to find in the US: that’s a shame! There’s also now actually five books in the series (and available in English translations): Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch, The Last Watch and The New Watch (released in the UK last May).
I loved Night Watch and Day Watch, both the books and the movies, but haven’t made it any futher in the book series. I remember there was talk of filming Twilight Watch, but going by my brief Google search, it doesn’t look like it ever came to fruition. Which is too bad.
@gbrell: I have the Hyperion prints. Don’t know what terrible covers the article is references, but I thought the Hyperion ones were pretty evocative.
Is this a new translation or just a new reprint of the previous translation?
I am curently holding a new copy of Last Watch. I love the Russianness of these books. The characters exhibit a certain Slavic fatalism that adds so much depth and emotion to their struggles. I also love that you can’t overlook any detail no matter how small, because it will factor into the climax of the plot somehow.
The trailer for Night Watch is one of my absolute favorite trailers of all time. Every now and again I’ll bring it up and watch it, and I can’t watch it just once. The first half is good, but the second half when the music changes, just kills me. I wish I was home right now so I could watch it again. (I considered buying the movie, but the non-inclusion of the trailer flattened that idea.)
Posting on an article from 3 years ago:
This series is a great read. The plot is carefully constructed, entertaining, and concise.
As an added bonus, we get to see a little bit of the Russian perspective on fantasy and morality.
While I agree with most of this article, I disagree that women are portrayed in a balanced manner. There are women who are stated as “powerful”, but the agents actively controlling events are male. Olga is the closest thing to a power player, and she is subservient to Gisar, even acting as his (literal) secretary on occasion.
The one female POV character (Alisa) is the protagonist of a great story, but is portrayed as violent, sadistic, selfish, moody, and a victim of both her emotions and being outsmarted by a more powerful/intelligent man (Zabulon).
I think an interesting path would have been to make Gisar a female character.