By Sergei Lukyanenko and Vladimir Vasiliev.
Previous book here. As you can probably guess from the title, this book purports to tell stories featuring the Day Watch/Dark Ones. Rather than featuring one character, this book handles things differently. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with the co-author on this book, but it's a definite change in how the story is told compared to the previous book.
The first story, "Unauthorized Personnel Permitted," is told by Alisa Donnikova, a Dark One witch featured off and on in Night Watch (even though I didn't mention her in the original review). Alisa used to be the girlfriend of the Day Watch leader, Zabulon. Until the end of Night Watch, when Alisa did something stupid and while Zabulon saved her bacon, he has pretty much ignored her for the last year. Alisa cared greatly for the dude and has been bummed out ever since. We start out the story following Alisa around on her day. Interestingly enough, for someone who is totally dedicated to the dark side and freedom and doing whatever she wants, Alisa has her good and bad moments. She deals with a mother that stresses her out (and nearly curses her!), she has a depressing philosophical discussion with the guy who drives her to work about being evil--and yet, she still saves a mouse that two of her colleagues are scaring the crap out of. That's Alisa for you--sometimes evil, sometimes not. She's definitely done terrible things in her past once she became an Other--oh, the joys of being a teenage girl who finds out her mom's a cheater around decision time--but at the same time, she has feelings like everyone else.
Alisa and the rest of her coworkers go out on a mission to save a witch who's getting busted by the Night Watch. During the operation, she saves the day--but at the cost of burning out her own powers. This impresses Zabulon, who said he'd thought he was wrong about her before, but indicates that he's going to get back together with her later. But first, he's going to send her on a vacation. Vacation if you're an Other turns out to be working at a children's summer camp, where Alisa can feed off of her charges' nightmares and recharge her powers back up. Even without her powers the girl's a terror--she forces two guys who wanted to rape and rob her into raping each other just by holding them at gunpoint. (I should probably be more offended at that, but as a girl, well, part of you does think, "Hah, now you know what it feels like.") But with her charges, other than feeding off nightmares, she's okay. While on vacation, Alisa ponders taking a human lover for the summer--Zabulon doesn't mind.
However, Alisa falls in love with Igor, a fellow camp counselor. It's total love at first sight, and without her powers she wonders if he's an Other---she somewhat hopes he is, and also hopes he isn't so he doesn't interfere with her relationship with Zabulon. A few days after they fall in love, she's sucked up enough power to charge herself up--and discovers that Igor is a LIGHT Other. Who'd been in the same situation she had--powers drained, sent to camp to rehab himself--and they fell in love without having any idea what the other one was. I'll finish talking about this below the spoiler cut, but it really got to me.
The second story, "A Stranger Among Others," switches back and forth between a first person viewpoint and third person narration, which I'll admit I wasn't too thrilled with. It's just...kinda weird to do that. The first person is told by Vitaly, a Dark Other visiting Moscow from out of town. He's got some weird case of amnesia and doesn't really remember what he's doing there or how he's got tons of cash on him. And he keeps stumbling across bodies, and ends up taking out a few Light Others. Meanwhile in the third person sections, both sides are freaking out over the theft of Fafnir's Talon, a supermagical gadget recently stolen by the Regin Brothers, a weird Dark sect from another country that isn't in the Watch. We see Anton in here frequently, but from a third person point of view. Of course Vitaly ends up with the talon, and the Inquisition shows up to investigate the entire situation. But little does Vitaly know what he's really in Moscow to do...indeed, only Zabulon seems to know where this is going--and he once again visits Anton to give him a heads-up on what to do. Yes, it's another complicated gambit, only this time a lot of people end up surprised. Again, I'll talk about it below the spoiler cut.**
I did not like this story so much until the end--Vitaly's an obscure and confusing narrator, though given the nature of his plot, that's to be expected. I also just found the switching between first and third (and reading about Anton in third rather than first) to be disconcerting. On the other hand, the ending of this one does answer a question that should have come to mind while reading the first book about equal and opposite powers...so that's a good point.
The third story, "Another Power," finally follows up on both of the following stories. Igor and the Regin Brothers have been sent to Prague to be dealt with by the Inquisition, and Anton has been tapped by the Night Watch to be Igor's advocate. A fellow named Edgar--featured heavily in this story, but this time the entire thing is told in third person--is dubbed as the defense for the Day Watch. Despite my bitching about third person in the last story, the third person and switching actually works in this story and is needed since it switches between Anton and Edgar trying to figure out what Zabulon's ultimate plan is. While getting drunk with Igor, Anton tries to figure out why Zabulon would set up his girlfriend and why it would benefit him to take Igor out of the picture. On his own, Edgar tries to figure out the Fafnir's Talon part of the plot--and figures out exactly what Zabulon had in store for him. And it's a giant UH-OH.*** We finally find out what the endgame was going on, and who's going to win and lose.
This is an intriguing series. I had issues getting through parts of this one and in some ways I feel it's a little weaker than the last book--but in other ways, I was blown away. So overall this one gets four stars too.
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* Oh, Alisa. I felt so sorry for her and Igor. Poor bastards being set up for another Xanatos Gambit by Zabulon, who didn't care enough about her to not set her up to die. Poor couple falling in love in a way that could never be. Worse than Romeo and Juliet, man. Not to mention that it was all a gambit to get Igor to take himself out of the picture. Ouch!
** The Mirror thing is an interesting way to handle an imbalance of power, that's to be sure. Tricking Svetlana into losing her powers on fighting the guy...hoo boy.
*** I really liked how Edgar figured out how Zabulon was going to sacrifice him. And then the book totally turns the tables and nothing happens to Edgar at all--it's another person who's temporarily used to resurrect someone else. Go figure. Can't say I blame Edgar for wanting to quit Day Watch after that.
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