Day Watch, Audio Edition

Day Watch (2000/2006/2010) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield and narrated by Paul Michael (Night Watch)

Unauthorized Personnel Permitted, A Stranger Among Others, Another Power

The first story in this book is my least favorite in the entire series, however Paul Michael’s narration actually makes it enjoyable for me. The witch Alisa Donnikova is trying to get back into Zabulon’s good graces, and so makes a mistake–but one that might allow Zabulon to forgive her.

One of the most interesting (to me) scenes in this story is the opening bit with the witch who has been working unseen by the watches–and offers love (and other) potions to women willing to pay her price.

“Do you take the sin on yourself?” the seer asked insistently.

“What sin is there in that?” Natasha retorted, her irritation suddenly breaking through. “Every woman’s committed that sin at least once! Perhaps there isn’t anything there anyway!”

The seer pondered, as if she were listening to something. She nodded her head. “There is . . . And I think it’s definitely a daughter.”

“I’ll take it,” said Natasha, still in an irritated voice. “I’ll take all the sins on myself, any you like. Do we have a deal?”

The seer looked at her sternly, disapprovingly. “That’s not right, my daughter . . . About all the sins. Who knows what sins I might hang on you? My own, or somebody else’s . . . then afterward you would have to answer to God.”

It fascinates me that both this witch–and one of the witches in the Day Watch–believe in Christianity / God. It’s fascinating that a Dark Other can be religious. (This series also has references to Joan of Arc as a dark other, and her captain Gilles de Rais as a light other (one who had gone off the rails, admittedly.)

The second story, of Vitaly Rogoza, is one of my favorites.

In the Twilight the mini-motorbike looked a bit like the little hump-backed horse in the fairy tale. A small animal with handlebars for horns and one big headlight-eye.

Experience is primarily the ability to restrain our fleeting impulses.

The third story deals with the consequences of what happened in the first two stories.

Oh, this book was published in 2000, so there are some DELIGHTFUL things.

The blockheads instantly dropped what they’d been doing and seconds later I could hear the quiet rustling of keyboards, and on the screens the endless corridors filled with monsters had been replaced by the bright windows of Netscape.

The young IT manager— either a weak magician or a wizard— was glad to show him how to get onto the Internet. Edgar thanked him, and the young guy instantly stuck his nose into his own notebook computer, with its screen full of machine code. He was programming the old-fashioned way, without any of those newfangled Delphi Windows.

Edgar launched miRC and connected in the usual way to the Getborg DALnet server, with the funny cow in its logo (of course, the cow was drawn in pseudo-graphics— with letters and numbers). He identified himself, but he didn’t log into any of the channels. He selected “Query” from the menu and put in the name he was interested in: Alita.

It’s lovely to escape into a familiar story–and to take my time with it the way one can with an audio book.

Publisher: Audible Studios

Rating: 8.5/10

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