Twilight Watch

Twilight Watch (2003/2007) Sergei Lukyanenko translated by Andrew Bromfield

I tend to hoard books–when I buy a book I expect to be good, I’ll often wait several weeks before reading it, because it’s nice to have something I expected to be good in the line-up. But sometimes I’m looking forward to a book so much that I’ll read it almost immediately upon receiving it. Twilight Watch ended up being one of those books. I received my copy Friday, and finished reading it Monday night.

Of course I had to move fairly quickly, otherwise Michael might have grabbed it and read it first–and I couldn’t have that.

The third book in the Night Watch series, Twilight Watch takes place approximately three years after the events in Day Watch. Svetlana and Anton are married and have a daughter, Nadya. Svetlana has resigned from the Night Watch and has become a non-aligned power, resigning also her use of power and title and title as Great Enchantress. Anton remains in the Night Watch, although he continues to have serious doubts.

As with the previous two books, Twilight Watch contains three separate and interwoven stories: Nobody’s Time, Nobody’s Space, and Nobody’s Power. Each story is complete and and of itself, but all three are tied together, and with the previous two books.

In the first story, someone has warned both the Night Watch and the Day Watch, as well as the Inquisition, that someone is attempting to turn a human being into an other. Anton joins representatives of the Day Watch and the Inquisition to search for the Other who has let out the secret, and the human who wants to become Other. His partners in this search are all people he has dealt with previously: Anton and Witezslav the Vampire for the Inquisition, and Kostya the Vampire (the boy who was his neighbor when he joined the Night Watch) for the Day Watch.

As with the previous three books, the stories continually went in unexpected directions, the past was fast and almost non-stop for the second and third stories, and the characters were all strong and well-developed. Although I occasionally had trouble keeping track of individuals when they were referred to by multiple names, individual characters stood out in my mind, and once I remembered that most characters had several names, I usually could sort them out relatively quickly.

We also learn more about the power of the others–where it comes from, how different magicians have different levels of powers, and that there are more levels of Twilight than

Another bonus was that despite the fact that the book has lots of vampires, there is no sex.

The only issue I had with the book is that although it repeatedly went in unexpected directions, there were a couple of times where I knew generally what was going to happen, even if I wasn’t sure specifically how the action would happen, or who would be involved. But as there were so many things I didn’t guess, it didn’t bother me too much that I guessed one of the plot resolutions relatively early.

But for me one of the greatest strengths of this series is that not only is the story arc concluded within the book, but each of the three stories contains a complete story arc–you could pick up the book, read a single story, and then put the book back down. Not that you’ll want to however, but you could, and I appreciate authors who can do that.

If you’ve read Night Watch and Day Watch, the you don’t want to miss reading Twilight Watch. If you haven’t read any of the Night Watch books and you like fantasy set in the modern world, then I highly recommend the Night Watch series. It’s quite different from the rest of the supernatural fantasy out there right now, it’s well-written, and I find it highly enjoyable. Although you should be able to pick up Twilight Watch and read it without having read the previous two books in the series, you’ll probably find it more enjoyable to read the previous books first–especially since both are easily available through Amazon.

Published by Miramax

Rating: 9/10

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