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In a world where magicians, werewolves and vampire bats are
a reality the Day Watch and the Night Watch keep an uneasy
truce as they try to limit the actions of both good and evil.
The agents of the Watch are overseen by the mysterious Inquisition
and all three organisations jostle for power. Within the Night
Watch Anton, a low grade magician, continues to have doubts
about the real line between good and evil and the place of
people like him in the world. As an Other he is able to access
different levels of reality and wield great power - power
which is only limited by The Great Treaty, which has kept
the peace between the Watches for a thousand years. Now events
are set in motion which will threaten both Watch's forcing
them together into the Twilight Watch...
The Twilight Watch is the third of four books by Sergei
Lukyanenko and is another stunning, must have, chapter in
the history of the Moscow Watches. The format is similar to
the previous three books, offering up three interlinked stories.
Lukyanenko is a superb novelist and a master of setting up
situations which all come together in the final pages. The
reveal at the end of the book always makes you think back
and smack your hand on your head when you realise that the
answer was there in the first page. I'm getting better at
figuring out the underlying plot - I got it around page four
hundred this time, just about the same time as Anton did.
Okay, so it was only about twenty pages till the end, but
given the labyrinthine plot strands it's still a source of
great satisfaction.
The Twilight Watch contains three stories. The first,
Nobody's Time, has Anton investigating an anonymous
note which reveals that someone within one of the Watch's
has promised to turn a human being into an Other. If the promise
is not fulfilled then the human will reveal to the world the
existence of the Others. Not only does Anton think that this
is impossible, after all Others are genetic aberrations, a
birth defect. The problem is that not only is this strictly
against the Treaty, but if true then the Other which promised
the impossible will die if they cannot fulfil their promise.
The story reunites Anton with his former neighbour and now
Higher Vampire, Kostya, with whom he has an ambivalent relationship.
As a former friend, Anton has difficulties in reconciling
his feeling for his former friend and his feelings toward
a creature that has to kill innocents to survive. Due to importance
of the case the Inquisition sends Edgar, another character
from a previous book.
In the second story, Nobody's Space, Anton is on holiday
with his family when he is sent on a mission to find an unlicensed
witch who appears to have saved a group of children from a
pack of werewolves. In the course of the investigation Anton
discovers that the witch may have in her possession Fuaran,
a mythical book which supposedly holds the spell to turn humans
into Others. As the object is so powerful and deadly Anton
once more teams up with Edgar and Kostya to find and destroy
both the witch and the book.
The last story is Nobody's Power and it is confirmed
that that the Fuaran exists and is in someone's possession,
but who that is and what they intend to do with it is unknown.
The full powers of both Moscow Watch's and the Inquisition
is bent towards stopping the insane Other.
Like
the previous
book, this is a must have for any fans of fantasy
writing. The Twilight Watch immerses the reader in
a fully realised post communist Russia, full of wonders. You
don't just get great stories; the author also weaves in his
thoughts about good and evil, about the state of modern Russia
and the justifiable uses of power. Once more a large nod of
gratitude must go to Andrew Bromfild who has done a magnificent
job of translating the book.
Only one more book to go to finish the series and I'm already
salivating with anticipation. If you haven't already started
reading this series you really are missing out.
 
Charles
Packer
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