Review: The Night Watch

The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Oh man I had so many expectations for this book and it bitterly disappointed.

Firstly, ignore that tagline on the cover that says it's like Russian JK Rowling. Clearly the Daily Telegraph was drinking some bribery cognac when they wrote that. The only thing the two have in common is a little bit of magic, but honestly this book is pretty stingy with it. Like, maybe imagine JK fell into this really dark depression, drank too much vodka and lost her creativity streak. Then MAYBE you could compare this.

It's not like I hated the story. You've got this young guy, Anton, who works for the Night Watch. These are the good guys (Light Others) who stop the bad guys (Dark Others) from getting out of control. (There's also a Day Watch full of bad guys who stop the good guys being too good.) Dark others include vampires, werewolves, witches, ghouls ... apparently just an endless stream of typical monster-movie bad guys. I can't actually say for sure, because this book has like three vampires and a couple of shapeshifters and nothing else. So here's the first disappointment: scope. Instead of throwing in all these amazingly horrible monsters, this book focuses (narrowly) on a handful of NW characters who are pretty ordinary, and a single plot involving two other pretty ordinary characters. ORDINARY. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MAGIC AND MONSTERS AND ALL WE GET IS ORDINARY

So here's lil old Anton. I think he's supposed to be young? But to me he reads like a fussy old middle-aged man. He inevitably gets caught up in things he shouldn't and is 100% NOBODY, which was actually pretty refreshing. But he still whines and protests a lot so finds himself doing things outside the norm. He had some interesting adventures, but as mentioned, the scope just wasn't there. It's basically 500 pages of Anton wandering around not knowing what to do.

So here's my second problem: I think there may have been a serious 'lost in translation' issue. The story is so vague and random and relies heavily on the reader putting things together which, quite honestly, I struggled to put together. Maybe I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it just seemed messy to me, and I think never understood well enough what it was actually saying to figure out what it wasn't. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt and put it down to a bad translation, because otherwise that's just rubbish, arrogant writing.

The story is divided into three parts - interlocking short stories that focus on Anton, a mysteriously powerful woman and an average kid who is destined for ... mediocre things. (I dunno, I never really worked out what his deal was, to be honest.) The prologue of each sets the scene and then we go frolicking along as Anton tries to figure out what his boss is up to and what he's supposed to do about it. Honestly, the only person thicker than me-trying-to-read-this-book is bloody Anton. If he'd been a bit sharper I'm sure this book would have been easier to read. As it was, I lost track of what was happening so many times. The Russian names don't really help, because they're hard to remember.

Disappointment #3: I found this book in the 'horror' section of the bookstore and it is most definitely NOT HORROR. I wanted horrific monsters, gore, blood, guts, suspense, tension, goosebumps, fear of sleeping ... I got yawns and a headache.

The magic was actually pretty cool when they used it. The Twilight was a bit hard to understand at first but it was quite unique, so I appreciated that element. There's some okay world-building, but the book seems to focus more on the morals of the world than how it actually functions. It also comments a lot on humankind, and by the end of the book I was kinda over being judged by this cynical Russian author who doesn't know me at all. Like, he complains so much about humans being horrible and causing their own evil, and I totally agree that the world is a bit of a mess right now, but like Samwise said, 'there's some GOOD in this world (Mr Frodo), and it's worth fighting for.' It was too dark and depressing and just chose to focus on the worst of humanity without balancing it with some good. That made me sad.

I did really like the bit towards the end (non-spoiler) where happiness was likened to flowers. That was nice. (Even if it did drag on a bit).

So, look. I didn't hate it - there's three interesting stories here. But I think you probably need to read slow to make sure you're following what's going on, and be prepared to fill in a lot of blanks yourself. Don't expect too much in the way of action, or thrills, or monsters, and be prepared for lots of commentary on the human condition.

This may go down better with a glass of vodka.

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