Day Watch (2000)

Read and reviewed in 2007.

In this, the 2nd book of the Others' series, we are again treated to three separate, yet intertwining stories: first, the young Dark witch Alisa loses her powers in a struggle over an illegally practicing Dark witch and is sent to Artek (the most elite of the camps for the Young Pioneers during the Soviet era) to regain her strength. There she falls in love with another of the camp leaders ... *edit* and I've been told I left in a spoiler here - sorry! *end edit* In the second story, a Finnish group of the Dark Ones called the Brothers of Regin steal the mystical Talon of Fafnir and attempt to bring it to Moscow. Vitaly Rogoza, an Other who seems to have lost his memory and is gradually gaining it back, along with stronger and stronger powers, gets in the line of several murders, causing the Light Others to attack him. There is not much more I can tell about this story without completely ruining it - you will simply have to read it for yourself. In the third story, we are treated to a gathering of the Inquisition to determine the guilt or lack thereof regarding these events.

This story is told more from the point of view of the Dark Ones, which is very interesting in that it seems to show that most of the scheming and problems are caused by the Light Ones, because of their misunderstanding of the ultimate goals of the Dark Ones, and their refusal to even try to understand. The Dark Ones are shown to only wish to live their own lives in freedom and do as they wish as long as they don't infringe on others' freedoms - which is very similar to the witches' creed "An it harm none, do as thy will." The Light Ones, however, believe that everything the Dark Ones do is a direct attempt to "start something" and/or as lies. It is truly a tragic situation.

The addition of many references to Russian pop culture means that there will be little bits and pieces here and there that people who aren't familiar with Russian modern culture might find a bit abstruse; however, this does not lessen the enjoyment of this very well-done book. I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys thought-provoking works, epic stories about the struggle of Light vs. Dark, paranormal alternate history stories, or just a good book. ( )

The translator of The Day Watch is the same as the one for The Night Watch, and I believe the same applies. The language barrier isn't as bad as it could be. I do wonder if I'd find the twists and turns of the book more... predictable in its original language -- I keep wondering if I'm missing hints, or something. You can predict right off the bat that Sergei Lukyanenko won't do what you expect him to, but how exactly he's going to twist it, I'm still not up to following.

There's something very compulsive about reading these books. I did take a while over The Day Watch, admittedly -- I could've finished reading it weeks ago. But once I'd picked it up, it was hard to put down. I've meant to do a lot of other things today, but I kept telling myself 'just ten more pages'. It's not hard to read and get absorbed in, and not hard to get caught up in trying to figure out the twist (because you know there is one).

I almost hope that one day he'll do the expected plotline, but it won't be expected because we're all expecting his twists and turns.

I didn't find that The Day Watch hung together as a book as well as The Night Watch did. It's the changing points of view. The Night Watch was held together quite well by the continuing presence (and point of view) of Anton, but Alisa and Vitaly are both out of the game by the end of their sections. They're also difficult to sympathise with -- Anton isn't exactly a saint, either, and sometimes I wanted to kick him, but at least he's on the side of the Light... The book did a better job of making me sympathise with Alisa, Vitaly and Edgar than I expected, but they didn't win me over entirely, by any stretch of the imagination. It spent rather more time in third person than with an individual character, unlike The Night Watch, and I suspect that was because of the storytelling difficulties with the chosen side.

This book certainly didn't keep me as well-entertained and as pleased as The Night Watch did, so it drops another star, to three stars. Which is still pretty good -- in fact, if I weren't comparing it to The Night Watch, it might still qualify for four stars. ( )

I like the basic premise of these books (this review covers both Night Watch and Day Watch), that the supernatural world has created rules and organizations (the two "watches" of the titles) to channel the conflict between the forces of light and darkness. As translated, both books envelop the magic, vampires, werewolves, etc., in a kind of gritty reality that enhances the believability of this environment. ( )

A great galloping read; like the Night Watch, this consists of 3 novella-length stories, intertwined with shared characters and an overall story-arc. It's all very neatly tied together and extremely readble. More! ( )

see http://www.sfsite.com/03a/dw267.htm ( )