On top of this, the magic just seemed kind of…bland. I never got that in Night Watch– the magic is kind of abstract, in that the characters can pretty much do anything they need to with it, ranging from clouding men’s minds to fixing broken objects to flinging around the occasional fireball. While I don’t expect there to be stat blocks and spell lists in any given fantasy book I read, I still expect a book to give me at least some idea what the characters can and can’t do. We’re not told WHY vodka burns vampires, and it doesn’t even factor into the rest of the novel. The vodka thing illustrates another point about the novel, however the fact that the system of magic and monsters…doesn’t make much sense. Heck, in the first chapter Anton chases after some vampires and throws cheap vodka on them, which burns them like holy water. Seriously, it’s Anton Checkhov chugging borscht while wearing a fur hat levels of Russian. There’s probably a bunch of other cultural cues I’m missing, but the biggest impression I got from the book was how Russian everything is.
It kind of reminded me of old spy movies, all grey skies, long overcoats, and clandestine meetings. There’s a definite Cold War mentality that hangs over the novel. Given how the book was written in 1998, I’m guessing that we can blame the Night Watch for Putin coming to power. The first is about Anton’s first field mission (and how it goes horribly wrong), the second is about Anton being framed for murder (well, magic-murder), and the third is about a plot to rewrite the course of history.
The book’s divided up into three parts- three independent novellas, really. The book’s central character is Anton, a middle-ranking analyst in the Night Watch who naturally gets caught up in the various conspiracies. The forces of the Light make up the Night Watch (because they chase after the beasties at night), and they’re policed themselves whenever the sun comes up, and the Day Watch gets to be in charge. Now, the gimmick is, there’s a detente between the Light and the Dark, to the point where the two sides police each other. The premise is fairly simple there are ‘Dark Ones’ and ‘Light Ones,’ hiding their powers from humanity and plotting against each other. This didn’t stop them from shelving it under the Horror section at the used bookstore, though…but what can you do. Just not messy enough to be proper horror, I guess. Oh sure, there’s the occasional vampire or demon, but the book’s more in the vein of Urban Fantasy than anything. Night Watch is kind of throwing my October Horror schtick off, because it’s not really a horror novel. My dad once told me a joke about Russian literature: “Ivan looked out the window, and a thousand thoughts went through his head. Book Review: Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch
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