Sergei Lukyanenko's The Watch Tetralogy, Part 1.

The Night Watch ~ Sergei Lukyanenko.
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Horror. (I found very little horror in the novel myself however)
8/10

There's something about Russian Literature that just nabs me. I don't know what it is, but The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko did just that, from the very first page I was hooked. Perhaps it's the names, it's the culture, whatever the reason, just like Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy), I just couldn't put The Night Watch down. Lukyanenko's prose is engaging and fluent, and the concept of good and evil being so disempowered that they have to resort to a bureaucratic truce is, to say the least, intriguing. The Night Watch follows the path of Anton Gorodetsky, a fairly new member of the Night Watch, a collection of Light Ones who counter-balance the Day Watch, the dark ones who monitor the movements of Light Others during the day. This is another novel idea from Lukyanenko, as the Day Watch patrol during the daytime, making sure that no unauthorised Good is done (and if it is, they’re arrested and brought under trial before the Inquisition, a shady power that is left unrevealed in The Night Watch), while at night the Night Watch does the same, but for Dark Others.

The defining moment of an Other's life is their decision, when they choose to join either the Dark or Light side (though it seems some, like Vampires, have no choice in the matter). At some point during their life (or for a few, never) they will be discovered by one of the two sides, and initiated. After entering the ‘Twilight’ (An incorporeal realm in which Others can move about, and many of the rules of the human realm [time, some of the laws of physics, and the solidity of objects] do not apply there), the Other must make the choice between Dark and Light. It is purely up to them, and many references are made to the fact that if someone wakes up on the wrong side of the bed, and has a bad day before their choosing, may well choose the Dark side instead of the Light, though they may have a disposition towards the latter. Once they have chosen, they seem to be imprinted in a way so that they can’t change…the Light Others do good not because they feel it is right, but because it is part of their nature, and the same goes for Dark Others. Hence Dark Others doing Good actions and Light Others doing Evil actions…happens very rarely, as to do so would be against their nature. This also means that changing sides is improbable, if not impossible (at this stage it is, but who knows what Lukyanenko will add in the the sequels).

The Others are split into different races, magicians (or sorceresses), who are common in both sides (Dark Magicians and Light Mages), Vampires (who as far as I know are only Dark) and Shapeshifters (Shifter-Mages for Light, Shapeshifters for Dark), and though these in themselves are not original ideas, Lukyanenko makes these races his own, adding his own twists and characteristics, thus giving the races in his novel a new and fascinating facet.

Anton (or Antosha to close friends) is the main protagonist for the three different stories of The Night Watch, which range from saving potential Others from Vampires, halting the path of an Inferno (a dark curse placed upon someone that can grow to magnicifient proportions when the Dark Magician casting it is powerful, and can cause massive destructions when unleashed), finding an uninitiated Light One who believes he is the only Light Other in a world of Dark Others, and is hunting Dark Ones and killing them (therefore breaking the treaty), and then finally aiding a great sourceress in her attempts to change the world for the better.

For me, as interesting as each of these were, they were merely a side-dish on the main meal, which was the notion of the two sides having to co-operate (to some extent), so that they can exist (and in a certain sense, combat one another) without wreaking havoc across the world. Each side abides by the treaty whilst at the same time trying to undermine their opponents, and the prescient ability of powerful Others to foresee probable outcomes adds a new level of uncertainty as to whether everything that happened was merely a plan of one side, or whether the characters have free will and can determine the future by their actions. Lukyanenko also adds the less novel concept of these Others who live long beyond human life-span having great influence on the world (such as the Second World War and Communism within Russia, both failed attempts of the Light to get an upper hand), which rather echoes novels like Jonothan Stroud’s Bartimaeous trilogy, adding a zest of a different take on history into the novel.
Nevertheless, the idea of two powers too powerful/weak to take on each other directly trying to subvert one another and humans so that they become the dominant power is fascinating, as each attempts to eliminate Good/Evil (whichever applies) from the minds of the humans they are trying to protect/control.
Even by the end of The Night Watch, it seems as though this goal is unlikely, but who knows what Lukyanenko will reveal in the rest of the Watch Tetralogy; The Day Watch, The Twilight Watch and The Final Watch.

A gripping read, I picked it up at about 7:30 in the evening one night, and had finished it within 12 hours, so unable was I to put it down. This is almost a must-read for those interested in both fantasy and the concepts of good and evil controlled by bureaucracy/free will[amongst others] with a little subtle humour sprinkled here and there.

Next novel in sights: The Day Watch

Anonymous I