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| The Night Watch (Watch, Book 1) | 
 enlarge | Author: Sergei Lukyanenko
Publisher: Miramax
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $2.49
You Save: $11.46 (82%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (58 reviews)
Sales Rank: 6032
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: Tra
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1401359795
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9781401359799
ASIN: 1401359795
Publication Date: July 26, 2006
Release Date: July 26, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Great imagery, if it moves a little slowly August 26, 2008
I picked up this book because I always wanted to get into a literary anthology (a'la Lord of the Rings), but I don't like wizards or dragons. I'm a horror guy, and the fact that it was "light vs. dark" sounded intriguing.
I got into the story pretty quickly. I won't go into a summary, you can read that somewhere else. What I loved, though, was the amazing imagery. This book--I assume the whole series--really lets you paint your own vivid picture of what's going on. It describes things in great detail, but still leaves the scene open to your imagination. The story could have sped up a bit; I felt that with the time he had, the author could have expanded the story a bit. But there's two more books to do that, so I'm not too upset about it.
Overall a great read. I just started the second book (Day Watch), and it's even better!
 Adoration August 1, 2008
Okay, I admit that I probably overhype this book. But for me it was a delicious and refreshing dive into a morally ambiguous world that left me curious for more. Plus I've read some really wretched books lately, so to find this gem was bliss.
I say overhype because the book is divided into 3 novellas and the final novella is the weakest. The ending is indeed anti-climatic. BUT-- I love the writing overall. The second novella was such an awesome page turner.
And, too, I love the main character. He's not the nicest guy and his talents are limited compared to others, but he makes a great hero. I could really empathize with him.
I watched the movie and it was quite different from the book. Although there are some good scenes, the movie was much more violent. That's another reason why I love this book-- the use of violence is nuanced. And the forces of light are ruthless.
I do recommend this book to my friends.
 Overhyped July 16, 2008
No, I'm not going to commit the cardinal sin of rating a product down because it didn't match my expectations based on hype. This book simply doesn't stand out: the writing is fairly average, the story derivative, the characters formulaic when they have any dimensionality at all. It reads as a standard mystery, separated into three stories which follow exactly the same plot structure. Because it's the first book in the series I can cut it some slack for this. Day Watch and Twilight Watch, the sequels, can be safely skipped, however, as they also fail to deviate from this algorithmic style of storytelling with the exception of the first story in Day Watch.
In general I feel we should be able to expect more from horror/fantasy writing. There's a good deal better to be had in the genre, and lauding this book for the principle reason of its author's nationality does no one any good.
 What Were They Smoking? June 21, 2008
1 out of 6 found this review helpful
What were those folks smoking who gave this book and it's companion piece, "Day Watch" great reviews? Based on those responses I bought both books and was sorely disappointed. Be warned, this IS a translation, and not infrequently the translational errors are so bad as to be funny.
Translations are not the best form to critique a book from, but not knowing Russian... ANYWAY, the books' premise will not surprise anyone who has read the Anita Blake books or the like; good versus evil, a bit of metaphysics, brought together in a modern urban environment. So far so good, but the writing, plotting, characterization and so on seemed, well, simple-minded, pretentious, or just,(sorry), juvenile. The books are not truly novels either, but rather a collection of novellas, the sort of surprise I dislike. I could not believe that books reviewed so highly could be so bad. Save your money and buy Anita Blake or Charlie Huston, or learn Russian.
Not great, but not bad either June 10, 2008
This book was ok, but most of the concepts used by Lukyanenko have already been extensively covered by other fantasy authors (The dichotomy between Light & Dark,[LOTR and hundreds of other fantasy books], a hidden world beneath the layer of our own universe, a la Harry Potter or The Matrix). Normally I don't mind traditional fantasy concepts being used provided the author adds something new to the mix or plays around with them a little more, but this did not happen in this book. The only thing I found interesting was the setting: Moscow. I don't see what all the fuss was about. Perhaps it reads better in the original Russian.
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