I didn’t intend to do this post on Sergei Lukyanenko’s Night Watch yet, but I I have to write something on this book. This book was such a hit in Russia that it spawned two movies there before it was translated into English. These are movies out of the recovering post-Soviet film industry, and after reading the book, I want to see them.

Night Watch is a book of three stories, all taking place in and around Moscow. There are vampires. There is magic. There are tornadoes of evil stuff that attach themselves to people’s heads. In the world, there are two kinds of people: Humans and Others. If you are a human, you are ignorant, weak sheep. If you are an Other, you have contact with something called the Twilight. The Russian word being translated as “twilight” is sumrak, which is translated as “gloom” in the movies. Think of a localized, sort of pleasantly ponderous darkness. If you can enter the Twilight, your first trip there will make you a Light Other or a Dark Other. Dark Others include folks like vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, dark magicians, and the like. Light Others include all manner of healers, light magicians, and generally kindly magic users. The two groups of Others have been at war for as long as anyone can remember, and some of these people are hundreds of years old. What I’m saying is that it’s an old ass war between good and evil.

That’s the world. If you’re thinking so far that this is something any hack scifi author could have written, you’re right. It’s a simple set up of good versus evil. The greatness of the book comes of it’s being so incredibly Russian. The main character is a guy named Anton. He’s a mediocre magician and essentially gets jerked around by both his boss and by the bad guys. One of the genius aspects of this book is that the good/evil war has entered a cold phase. The two powers have struck a sensitive detente, so most of the fighting tends to be either entirely strategic with very little violence. Another really neat aspect of the stories is that, even though this is a war between the categorically good and the undeniably evil, there appears to be a huge amount of moral ambiguity. When the Dark Ones make the case for joining their side, it’s hard not to sympathize with them. Over all, I got the impression that I was reading about a chess game from the point of view of a pawn. Big things happen, and the main character usually doesn’t know why.

There is also a tragically abortive love story between Anton and a woman he meets seemingly by chance. That part of the story is downplayed a little, but it lasts the whole book and asks an interesting question. Should you commit to loving someone even if you know that your relationship won’t last? It isn’t quite as dramatic as it sounds, but the characters have some interesting emotions between bouts of intense spy stuff.

This is a cool beach read. Andrew Bromfield’s translation is smooth and easy to dive into. If you want something interesting that includes a crazy amount of moral ambiguity and certified glitter-free vampires, read Night Watch.