Review - The Day Watch
The translator of The Day Watch is the same as the one for The Night Watch, and I believe the same applies. The language barrier isn't as bad as it could be. I do wonder if I'd find the twists and turns of the book more... predictable in its original language -- I keep wondering if I'm missing hints, or something. You can predict right off the bat that Sergei Lukyanenko won't do what you expect him to, but how exactly he's going to twist it, I'm still not up to following.
There's something very compulsive about reading these books. I did take a while over The Day Watch, admittedly -- I could've finished reading it weeks ago. But once I'd picked it up, it was hard to put down. I've meant to do a lot of other things today, but I kept telling myself 'just ten more pages'. It's not hard to read and get absorbed in, and not hard to get caught up in trying to figure out the twist (because you know there is one).
I almost hope that one day he'll do the expected plotline, but it won't be expected because we're all expecting his twists and turns.
I didn't find that The Day Watch hung together as a book as well as The Night Watch did. It's the changing points of view. The Night Watch was held together quite well by the continuing presence (and point of view) of Anton, but Alisa and Vitaly are both out of the game by the end of their sections. They're also difficult to sympathise with -- Anton isn't exactly a saint, either, and sometimes I wanted to kick him, but at least he's on the side of the Light... The book did a better job of making me sympathise with Alisa, Vitaly and Edgar than I expected, but they didn't win me over entirely, by any stretch of the imagination. It spent rather more time in third person than with an individual character, unlike The Night Watch, and I suspect that was because of the storytelling difficulties with the chosen side.
This book certainly didn't keep me as well-entertained and as pleased as The Night Watch did, so it drops another star, to three stars. Which is still pretty good -- in fact, if I weren't comparing it to The Night Watch, it might still qualify for four stars.
There's something very compulsive about reading these books. I did take a while over The Day Watch, admittedly -- I could've finished reading it weeks ago. But once I'd picked it up, it was hard to put down. I've meant to do a lot of other things today, but I kept telling myself 'just ten more pages'. It's not hard to read and get absorbed in, and not hard to get caught up in trying to figure out the twist (because you know there is one).
I almost hope that one day he'll do the expected plotline, but it won't be expected because we're all expecting his twists and turns.
I didn't find that The Day Watch hung together as a book as well as The Night Watch did. It's the changing points of view. The Night Watch was held together quite well by the continuing presence (and point of view) of Anton, but Alisa and Vitaly are both out of the game by the end of their sections. They're also difficult to sympathise with -- Anton isn't exactly a saint, either, and sometimes I wanted to kick him, but at least he's on the side of the Light... The book did a better job of making me sympathise with Alisa, Vitaly and Edgar than I expected, but they didn't win me over entirely, by any stretch of the imagination. It spent rather more time in third person than with an individual character, unlike The Night Watch, and I suspect that was because of the storytelling difficulties with the chosen side.
This book certainly didn't keep me as well-entertained and as pleased as The Night Watch did, so it drops another star, to three stars. Which is still pretty good -- in fact, if I weren't comparing it to The Night Watch, it might still qualify for four stars.