Target: Sergei Lukyanenko’s New Watch. Translated by Andrew Bromfield (The Watches pentalogy #5)
Profile: Modern Fantasy, Suspense, Horror
Sergei Lukyanenko ostensibly drew his Watches series to a conclusion with Last Watch, but almost six years later he released a fifth book. New Watch is a very different kind of novel than its predecessors. It draws inspiration from other contemporary and urban fantasies, most notably the Harry Potter series. There is a greater emphasis on the mechanics of the world’s magic system, answering some questions from previous novels, but shifting the tone of the series away from the cerebral contemplation of the battle between good and evil, towards a more action-oriented adventure. Some of Lukyanenko’s trademark musings remain, butNew Watch is clearly written for a slightly different, more global audience than the rest of the pentalogy.
Where Last Watch dealt with the cycle of life and death, New Watch is primarily concerned with the nature of the Twilight, the origins of magic and the quirks of prophesy. The story opens with our tried and true Anton witnessing the awakening of a nascent Light prophet and the accompanying arrival of a mysterious figure called The Tiger. A spontaneous manifestation of the Twilight, The Tiger hunts new prophets and kills them unless they are able to pronounce their primary prediction aloud to an ordinary human. Seeking to save a fellow Light mage, Anton takes up the mantle of defending the boy prophet, and inadvertently pits himself against magic itself in a fight for the future of Otherkind and humanity.
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