The Day Watch [Paperback]

I just finished reading Day Watch the sequel to Night Watch, with another installment on the way in English.

Night Watch: A Novel

For the unitiated:

The Watch Series focuses on the agencies of light and darkness (good and evil if you will, though the tags are not entirely appropriate for this series). The Night Watch are agents of light watching over the practitioners of the dark during their preferred hours. The Day Watch are agents of darkness watching over the practitioners of the light during their period of the day. Their goal is to make sure that neither side tips the scales of light and darkness in their own favor in their over-reaching struggle for the fate of the world.

The over-reaching fantasy mechanism is the existence of "The Twilight" is the magical realm parallel to our own which the "Others" have access to. Emotions and the spiritual essence of the world fuel the Twilight as light, or dark energies (happiness or grief respectively). An "Other's" ability to manipulate this emotional energy in the Twilight defines his or her ability as a light or dark magician. Various creatures of myth appear (werewolves and vampires) mostly as denizens of the darkness, but one can imagine there are an equal number of light creatures waiting in the wings that just don't get any page-time.

Overall Lukyanenko writes with a calm sensibility for the horror genre, these novels don't reek of the leather jacket cool of Shadow-Punk pop-culture much similar modern-day horror is riddled with. These novels have qualities similar to William Gibson's work in his seminal Sprawl series. Both share a touch of Raymond Chandler's gritty and personal story-telling mixed with a fully realized fantasy world of their own genres without a touch of sentimentality. Lukyanenko also brings a post-communism Russian feel to the stories that remind me slightly of the Salman Rushdie novels, in which the fantasy is a window into a culture re-inventing itself after political upheaval. Lukyanenko mostly avoids destroying the magical illusion with overly scientific explanations of how it all works, thus keeping much of the magic alive (Writers note: The trick isn't fun when you know how it works. This is what ultimately bogged down the vampire series by Anne Rice. JK Rowling in the Potter series does this best in the contemporary set, just letting the magic be magic following in the footsteps of Tolkien and Lewis).

Lukyanenko paints in shades of gray over the motivations and actions for both the light and darkness as they wage their battles over the fate of Moscow and ostensibly the rest of the world. The light represents order and obligation and darkness representing freedom and individuality. Where these qualities taken to extremes, allegiance to good and evil fades away into the background and the stories illustrate those distinctions as being more similar than different.

Day Watch:

Day Watch picks up after the events of Night Watch focusing more on the point of view of the Day Watch agents. The names and events from the first novel are heavily referenced in the second, which makes the novel very enjoyable as a sequel but possibly impenetrable to a reader whom has picked the second novel up without reading the first. As with Night Watch, Day Watch is separated into three novellas within the novel. Each novella works from one to another sequentially in time as pieces of intrigue leading up to the finale. The prose flows fairly easily enough, but there are times when the exposition goes on a bit too long detailing the characters motivations like a re-iterating villain from the Speed Racer cartoon.

The settings are beautifully described and really come alive (similar to the Harry Potter Series). The first story takes place at a youth camp Artek (I assume this is a famous camp from communist years), where a young dark witch has been sent to recover from a particularly pitched battle against the light. The witch recalls her own youth (though she is barely an adult herself) against that which she sees in the camp, through the alien eyes of a mere human (as she has lost her magical powers). This is a very personal story where she has to evaluate the value of her life dedicated to the forces of darkness (freedom and individuality), and whether that has compromised her freedom as an individual. The author clearly loves the places that he writes about and knows them well.

The second story takes place after the first, and is placed firmly in Moscow as a mysterious dark magician shows up with tremendous power and no memory. The story flips from the magicians point of view, to that of various agents of light and dark while the dark magician struggles for his purpose, and his entanglement in the politics of light and darkness. The gritty mystery unfolds while battles rage all around this stranger to Moscow who had attempted to mind his own business. A beloved character is lost to the light which will certainly disappoint fans of the series.

The final story ties all the threads together (same story telling mechanism as used in Night Watch) where all the pieces fall into place for both the light and darkness. The Chess metaphors are a over-used and heavy handed (we got it, people are being manipulated like chess pieces as part of a political intrigue.) but the story is still quite readable. This last story is told more from the point of view of the Night Watch agent Anton (the leading man of Night Watch), and the Day Watch really only gets 40% of the page time in this last piece. Day Watch and Night Watch agents are sent to the Tribunal's offices in Prague to argue respective cases regarding possible upsets to the balance between light and darkness. Not much else can be said without spoiling the endings of the previous stories so that's that.

In the end Lukyanenko really puts a lot of effort into rationalizing the actions of both sides as being neither good nor evil. Though he is clearly rooting for the side of the light. I kept coming back to find out what the next twist in the plot would be. This book is good reading of a refreshing author in the contemporary gothic horror genre. I would recommend any horror fan pick up both Night Watch followed by Day Watch. I didn't think that Day Watch stood on it's own without the support of its predecessor but is a very good read.

This was a very solid continuation of the story laid down in Night Watch. However, the angle is usually from the agents of Day Watch - the agency that the Dark Others serve in to police the Light Others.

Though it is divided into three parts like Night Watch, it does not follow a single character throughout. The first story follows Alisa Donnikova as she falls in love with a Light Other. The second story is told from the perspective of a mysterious Dark Other and involves the theft of the Fafnir Talon. The third story though lacks first person narrative and is split between Edgar, an agent of the Day Watch, and Anton from the Night Watch.

Though told from the 'opposite' perspective, the stories do have plenty of intertwining with the Night Watch which will reward those who read the first book. I had mistakenly thought that this was set chronologically behind Night Watch and also thought mistakenly that it would be a boring complicated love story. I was happily surprised with plenty of action and the twists and in-depth plotting characteristic of the first book.

I found this an engaging and enjoyable book, though it lacks the character developement of Night Watch by switching and even eliminating narrators. Perhaps my biggest regret is having to wait till June for the third installment (and a much more agonizing wait for the fourth one).

I definitely recommend this series, but I would NOT call it a horror, nor should you expect to be scared while reading it. The Night Watch series is clearly dark fantasy. Really enjoyed Day Watch - very happy to see Anton up front and center again. BUT, I'm still a bit unclear on WHY Anton? I feel like the author is holding back and big things are expected from him. He's incredibly intuitive, but I'd love to see him realize what I think is his full potential. I loved learning more about Edgar from the "other side". Curious to see the path he takes that was laid out for him at the end of the story. Gesar and Zabulon - ooh, the games those two play! And Igor and Alisa - loved it. I felt like I was back at sleepaway camp falling in love for the first time all over again. The author hit that nail directly on the head!! Highly recommend this book, and book 1!! It'll be sad to read book 3 and see it all end...

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