“Adapted from the Russian best-seller” is not necessarily the way I shop for books, but Sergei Lukyanenko’s NIGHT WATCH – the first in a huge-in-Russia trilogy that’s already been made into a slightly less-than-intelligible movie – is a fascinating piece of work.

Set in a post-Communist Russia that’s become the nexus of an uneasy truce between the forces of Light and Darkness, NIGHT WATCH revolves around a low-level agent of the Light, Anton Gorodetsky, who at the novel’s onset patrols the night, making sure evil beings don’t get up to too much no good.

Lukyanenko has created an awesome world here, in which vampires need licenses to hunt humans, where fairy godmothers need a permit to grant good luck, and a simple “damn it” has a concrete, measurable effect on reality. Unlike so many fantasy worlds that only seem real when the main characters are in the immediate vicinity, the Russia of NIGHT WATCH is vibrant, and every one of the huge cast of characters has complex motivations that match their incredible abilities.

And for Anton, whose power is far outstripped by his desire to see the world become a better place, these motivations prove to be heartbreaking and utterly human.

Much like BLAZING SADDLES‘ magnificent, straight Mongo, Anton is just a pawn in the game of life, and he’s constantly set up by forces beyond his comprehension to fulfill a destiny that seems to be common knowledge for everyone but himself. In NIGHT WATCH’s first section, which is from whence the plot of the movie came, he’s tasked with stopping a curse of Hiroshima-like proportions from raining down evil upon the globe, while at the same time keeping a young boy safe from a vengeful vampire.

The second part of the book, which partially corresponds with the second movie (but not so much with the second book, though both are titled DAY WATCH so as to confuse everyone), has Anton being set up for the murders of random servants of Darkness, and by the third act, we start to see the web that has begun to form around Anton as his fate begins to resolve itself.

Unfortunately, the book loses some steam after the first half, and I have no way of knowing if this is the fault of the writer or the translator. While the first section crackles with wit and cunning insight into contemporary Russia and the state of the world, the language becomes bland as borscht as the book reaches it climactic showdown.

That said, I’ve still got my fingers crossed for the forthcoming DAY WATCH (the book; I’ve seen the film already, and it’s better than the first, but still just a hair beyond coherence), because the world introduced in NIGHT WATCH is too intriguing to forget, especially at night. –Ryun Patterson

Buy it at Amazon.