Night Watch Ebook

Night Watch Ebook

The Night Watch series has caused a sensation never before seen in Russia — it is popularity is frenzied and unprecedented, and driven by a veritably great, epic story. In 2005 Fox Searchlight declared it had acquired the Russian film adaptation for an American release. Interest in the books here is now set to reach a fever pitch.

Set in progressed day Moscow, Night Watch is a world as elaborated and imaginative as Tolkien or the best Asimov. Living amid us are the “Others,” an ancient race of persons with supernatural powers who swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. A thousand-year treaty has maintained the remainder of power, and the two sides coexist in an uneasy truce. But an ancient foretelling decrees that one supreme “Other” will rise up and tip the balance, plunging the world into a catastrophic war amongst the Dark and the Light. When a young boy with extraordinary powers emerges, fulfilling the basi half of the prophecy, will the forces of the Light be competent to keep the Dark from corrupting the boy and demolishing the world?

An extraordinary translation from the Russian by noted translator Andrew Bromfield, this primary English language edition of Night Watch is a chilling, engrossing read sure to reward those waiting in anticipation of it is arrival.

From Publishers WeeklyStarred Review. Set in contemporary Moscow, Lukyanenko’s fantastic American debut—the introductory in a series when it comes to an epic struggle amidst good and evil—charts the adventures of a race of supernaturally gifted Others, who serve either the Light or Dark Side. The Others slip in and out of an eerie parallel world where they coexist in an uneasy peace that a terrible revolution may soon disrupt. Philosophical Anton Gorodetsky, an earnest Night Watch agent, falls in love with 24-year-old Svetlana Nazarova, a troubled young doctor under a Dark Magician’s curse. While Anton endeavors to undo the curse, he discovers Egor, a gifted boy unwilling to choose amid his Light or Dark abilities. As humankind’s fate hangs in the balance, Anton is forced to re-examine his allegiance, and Svetlana is drawn deeper into the exotic, bright universe of dueling magicians, shape-shifters, witches and vampires. Potent as a shot of vodka, this compelling urban fantasy was adapted to a Russian blockbuster movie in 2004. (July)
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Review“Night Watch is an epic of extraordinary power.”
—Quentin Tarantino

“Star Wars meets the Vampires in Moscow . . . it bursts with a sick, carnivorous glee in it is fiendish games.”
—The New York Times

“The Night Watch is inventive, sardonic and imbued with a surprising sense that, for this author and his audience, much of this stuff is new-minted.” —The Independent (UK)

A “sceptical, intellectual thriller.”–Telegraph (UK)

“Fascinating. . . . [The] magnificent translation by Andrew Bromfield keeps the pace moving. . . . One of the most firstborn and readable supernatural fictions in a heap of time.”–Scotland on Sunday

“Brace yourself for Harry Potter in Gorky Park. . . . The novel holds a heap of captivating scenes and all kinds of marvelous, inventive detail: The vampires’ seduction of a teenage boy is bone-chilling; each time Lukyanenko described the Other-worldly Twilight, I felt lured into it; and the fantastical powers exercised by Anton and his colleagues range from delightful to awesome.”– Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book World

“Lukyanenko is outstanding at rolling out new conceptions for the reader to savour.”–The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)

“[As] potent as a shot of vodka. . . . [A] compelling urban fantasy.”–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“This progressed day mythical fantasy is Anne Rice on an epic scale, a hugely imagined world. A chiller adventure story from cold of Russia, this one’s been syndication like hot cakes around the world.” —Sunday Sport

About the AuthorSergei Lukyanenko was born in Kazakhstan and educated as a psychiatrist. He started out publishing science fiction in the 1980s and is today the most popular science fiction writer in Russia.

Andrew Bromfield is a founding editor of the Russian creative writing of recognized artisti value diary Glas. He is best known for his acclaimed translations of Victor Pelevin and Boris Akunin, and his work has been short-listed for a heap of translation prizes.

Night Watch Ebook Pic

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Night Watch Ebook Photo

Night Watch Ebook Pic

Most helpful client reviews

79 of 81 persons found the following review helpful.
Could not put it down
By J. B Kraft
I have been a reader of Sci-Fi and Fantasy for closely 50 years, and I may say that this is the best “first novel in a series” I have read in with regards to ten years. In fact, I in a literal sense could not put it down, starting it at 10PM on Friday night and finishing it at 3AM on Saturday morning. Then I couldn’t sleep thinking in regards to the ideas in the book.
If you have read translated Russian fiction, you will find a intimate feel to the translation that accentuates the best of the Russian Masters. At the same time, as ideas go, the premise is an ingenuous variation on a recurrent and Manichean theme — Light versus Dark. The story is told through the perspective of Anton, a Night Watcher, who works for an Agency that (1) keeps it is eyes on the forces of the Dark; (2) enforces an uneasy and temporary truce with them; (3) pursues it is own inscrutable agenda in preparation for the inevitible struggle to tip the remainder of humanity one way or the other. I have not enjoyed a novel on this theme one-tenth as much since the late Roger Zelazny’s “Jack of Shadows”, which I thought superb. Yet, Night Watch is even better and more nuanced.

While long (about 500 pp), it is deliciously elaborated but fast paced. The characters are wondrously drawn as we discover new things in regards to them through Anton’s eyes, and he becomes more and more ambivalent with regards to the “party line.” I agree that only a contemporary Russian could tell this story as effectively, given the recent history of that country. You will be constantly astonished and pleasantly occupied as you deduce the real rules that govern this Earth and see the characters develop.

This was a outstanding read, and I can’t wait for the next installment. Because the novel is told in the basi person point-of-view, I have some skepticism of how well this may be turned into a movie, and still convey the complex ideas and reputation development — exceptionally that going on in Anton.

25 of 27 persons found the following review helpful.
Great Russian book
By W. McMillin
I have been waiting on this book for months. I am a outstanding fan of the film and wanted to read the book it was based on. I will have to note that the films Night Watch and Day Watch in truth come from the initial two sections of this book. A world of good and evil that exists around us. A world where a single moment could tip one towards good or towards evil as we are all just an action away from being lost to the other side. A world of spells, vampires, and the gloom but more significantly a world where the line amongst good and evil is not always clear.
I found the translations to be clear and easy to read but with an actual flair to them. This is not some boring by numbers translation.

15 of 15 persons found the following review helpful.
Original, Convoluted but Entertaining
By Peter U. Malyshev
Moscow is swept with the Night / Day / Twilight Watch mania these days. Obviously, I became intrigued with the conception and promptly picked up the book this winter not to be disappointed. The plot draws you speedily into the mystery world of the two opposites: the Light and the Dark (note that NOT the Good and the Evil). One may without doubt or question see multiple parallels with Master and Margarita, even though modernized and less humorous and delivered in a less literary language than Bulgakov’s. The matching is not coincidental given that both novels were written in the periods of Russian history when the lines among what is clear and what is not are not apparent and each participant in the each and everyday living drama ought to make his or her own moral or judgment call. The book is very visual – you may in a literal sense see each of the sequences play out in front of you. The movie adaptation is evenly good though has the same drawbacks – the storyline is a bit choppy and it is from time to time hard to follow the plot. Overall, both the book and the movie are suitable endeavors.

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