Last Watch

This book is a late follow up to the "Watch" trilogy and if you haven't read those books you might want to skip this review, because I'm going to refer to it and hence there will be spoilers.

The Last Watch picks up on Moscow's Nightwatch several years after the closing events of The Twilight Watch. It's a new millenium, Anton Gorodetsky, principle protagonist of the trilogy, is using an mp3 player on his mobile phone instead of a mini-disc player, his stupendously magically talented daughter is no longer a baby and can get into even more trouble than the average toddler but apart from that, not a lot has changed; the equilibrium is being upheld, Geser and Zabulon are scheming, humans are oblivious.

Then Gorodetsky is sent to Scotland on show more a mission that is too routine to require intervention from a Higher Magician from the Russian Nightwatch - so it can't be routine, really, can it? No - it's deadly and shrouded in mystery...here we go again!

So what is the fourth outing like? It's just as intriguing and gripping and fast paced and full of weird action and incident as the previous three but it isn't as good as the best of Anton's previous adventures. Why not? I hear you cry!

1. Because Anton has been through his crisis; in the earlier books Gorodetsky was terribly uncertain about the morality of his actions and his superiors' actions and of the whole Treaty that binds the Light and the Dark to a truce for the benefit of normal humans who would be caught in the grotesquely destructive magical cross-fire if open warfare prevailed. He started as a piece in the games Geser and Zabulon played and knowing it - but not the stakes or even the rules most of the time. Now he's understood it all, come to terms with it and made his decision, regarding his loyalties, long term. So a key aspect of Anton's first person voice has disappeared almost entirely. He rarely asks moral questions in this book, which is a shame - it's what I liked best about him; the few times he does, this book is at it's best. He is also now an experienced field agent and a Higher Magician - this means he is much more confident, not only in a fight but in the investigative and intellectual challenges the mystery presents him with. This is of course a natural progression but again makes Anton slightly less interesting than he was.

2. Scotland isn't Russia. For me a great deal of the appeal of the Watch Trilogy was it's modern Russian setting which was unfamiliar and therefore interesting, especially coming from a Russian. This of course disappears when the protagonist goes to places that are fairly familiar to me. The middle section of the book, which takes place in central Asia (and also contains Anton's moral soul-searching episode) is by far the stand-out segment of the book.

3. Familiarity. The world Lukyanenko created and it's ramifications were fairly thoroughly explored in the preceding three volumes - leaving little new to excite the imagination (which is a high proportion of the fun of fantasy and SF literature). The author does find one thing to more fully explore, however and the book's plot centres on it. Unfortunately, Lukyanenko's techniques for disguising things are also a bit familiar by now and I was able to figure out some of the mysteries of the plot far too early. Somehow the final revelation of the one unexplained mystery haning over from the original trilogy largely underwhelmed, too.

That's the bad news, but let me re-iterate that this is a fast, fun book and people who read the ealier books should like it - just don't expect it to be as good as the previous ones.

I think that Lukyanenko should leave the Watches to mind their own business now, unless he can come up with an exceptional plot and a different primary protagonist. Also, he should agitate to get some of his other books translated into English, 'cos I want to read 'em! show less

A sequel to the Night Watch trilogy, still following Anton, this time as he's sent off to Edinburgh to investigate a possible vampire attack in a dungeon attraction. The stakes are raised when he realises that the legacy of the ancient Other Merlin is being sought. The interesting twist is that Merlin started off as a Light Other and then turned Dark due to his actions. The structure of the Twilight, the levels below/beside the real world, is expanded upon, and Anton gets to work with both Light and Dark Others to try and save the world from the Last Watch.

I love this world - the atmosphere, the characters, the story. As in the past books, this is a story told in three different parts that all come together at the end.

The first story has Anton traveling to Edinburgh to help the Night Watch of that city find a murderer. The second story has Anton and another agent going to Uzbekistan to find someone who once knew the Great Merlin. The third story is set back in Edinburgh, with Anton being blackmailed to access the great spell of Merlin on the Seventh level of the Twilight.

As always, the stories ramble a bit, although this stays closer to the topic (Merlin's Greatest Spell), but come together at the end. More knowledge about the Twilight is shown and Anton is conflicted between his duty to show more the Watch vs the duty of his family.

Even though Anton gets more and more powerful in each book, it doesn't affect the series. The mystery is not dependent on Anton's power, but his ability to solve a mystery. And that is the second thing I like about these books - there isn't a good vs evil, although the story might be framed that way. show less

This and the first book in the series were my favorite. The latter for all the philosophical right/wrong thoughts framed so perfectly in the story, and this one because the style was so different from the rest. Not that I didn't enjoy them (I devoured them!), but it was a nice change of pace. It took itself less seriously- making a couple references to the movies, included a few legendary figures as characters, and just kind of went "all out"; battles involving human military, exploring more levels of the Twilight with much more depth, an ultimate goal trying to be achieved... It was fun, I enjoyed it a lot.

I was a bit hesitant to read this book after reading negative reviews on various fan siges. It's a fun and engaging read, though it's not nearly as good as the first three. Lukyanenko keeps describing things as being "like something out of an action movie" or how Anton "acts like a character in a typical spy movie." We all know these books were made into movies, we really don't need to be reminded- not to mention that "you know how it looked in the movie? yeah, it looked kind of like that" is a lazy substitute for actual description.

The final book in the Nightwatch Series! I think this one is my favorite. Anton is just much more interesting with a wife and daughter. In this installment, Anton is set against a mysterious alliance of three others. Know as the last watch, a Light One, a Dark One, and a member of the Inquisition have joined forces to obtain an artifact made by Merlin himself. No one knows exactly what the artifact is or how to find it, but the Last Watch will surely use it for evil. Fun, exciting, and ultimately satisfying, this is a fitting close to the series.

Pros: great characters, interesting mystery, some new spells and creatures

Cons:

Three years after the events of The Twilight Watch Anton Gorodetsky is sent to Scotland to help investigate the murder of the human son of a potential Russian other, by what appears to have been a vampire. It’s quickly apparent that more’s going on than murder, and that whoever’s behind the murder isn’t afraid to use humans as canon fodder.

This book refers fairly often to the events in the previous books in the series, so if you haven’t read them if a while, a quick skim is in order.

As with the previous books this one is separated into three sections. It was cool seeing Anton work in different locales and dealing with new members of the watches. show more He’s an interesting character and the supporting cast grows a bit in this book while bringing back several characters from the previous books.

The mystery surrounding the hole in the twilight and Merlin’s spell kept me guessing even as other new spells were explained and used, and some new creatures - specifically different types of golems - show up. The book also had some Others using more technology with their magic, which was cool to see.

I enjoyed the book. This is my favourite urban fantasy series and I’m glad to be reading it again. show less