I’ve previously reviewed the movie The Night Watch (my review), and while I enjoyed the movie, I was curious about the book it was based on. So, I read it and enjoyed it a lot. The Night Watch is the first of a trilogy (tetralogy is four books). While the movie only centered on a few characters, the book has a much bigger cast and the story is a lot more subtle. Narrated almost exclusively by Anton, the book does a great job exploring Anton while the plot revolves around him. So let’s see what’s going on.

Anton is a magician for the Night Watch. They are the good Others (good and bad magicians, werewolves, vampires, etc…you know Others) whose job it is to watch the evil Others. The evil Others have a group called the Day Watch whose job it is to watch to good Others. Anton is on his first field assignment (he’d previously been basically a desk/back office worker). He is following a young boy, Egor, who has been called by a couple of vampires. Before he gets off the subway, he notices a dark cloud over a woman, Svetlana. The dark cloud is so powerful that it must have been cast by an really strong evil magician. Without much time (and not wanting to lose Egor), he uses some magic to reduce it a bit and then saves Egor. It turns out that Egor has the capacity to be a great magician, but it hasn’t been decided by him yet which way he will go. And Anton is tricked by the evil Others into making the decision more difficult.

Anton’s boss tries to work on reducing the dark cloud more (since it’s possible that if it stays strong it can hurt/kill many people as collateral damage). And to help out Anton on his case, he assigns a partner, Olga who was a great sorceress who is being punished by being forced to spend most of her time as an owl. They are forced to confront an apparent plot by the evil Others where several evil Others have been killed and the only person who could have done it and doesn’t have an alibi is Anton.

Anton is put in a position where he has to clear his name, help Svetlana (who he is starting to fall in love with), try to get Egor to choose good and determine what game his boss is running. The boss could be running a gambit that can turn the tide of humanity to good forever, but is it the right thing to do. Anton slowly realizes that he is more powerful than he thought, but the forces he has to contend with are more powerful, more subtle and more experienced. This forces Anton to make a decision once and for all about whose side he is on and what he should do.

Overall, this is a really wonderful book. There are multiple characters and subplots that are juggled around by Lukyanenko. The plots are complicated at times, but he does a great job making sure the reader understands what is going on and more importantly, what the stakes are for everyone (especially Anton). I can see why this series was so popular when it came out in Russia. It’s a great story and well told. I’m eagerly awaiting the second book. Highly recommended.