I won’t be able to help but compare this work to the film at some point in this review, since I saw and enjoyed the films before reading this book, so I may as well start there.
Reading the book has made me respect the film more in some ways. Other than being superbly casted (though perhaps this is also due to me seeing it first), what they did do well with its adaptation was stripping out ‘story two’ and ‘story three’ completely (i.e. parts two and three) and just focusing on the story of Egor and which side he will choose, which is after all the real underlying (and only truly important) plot point of this book. The book also helped me to understand the film a lot more easily once I gave it another watch.
Perhaps the film goes too far by making Egor Anton's son, but it does serve to make the boy's choice to join the dark all the more believable, unlike in the book, where it is just an inherent given that lies within him.
What we lose almost completely with the film, due to its medium, is all of Anton’s ponderings on the morality of the Watches, who is currently playing him for a fool, the nature of light and dark, and his other musings, which is a sore loss indeed, as this novel's greatest strength lies in its characterisation of Anton. We truly end up rationalising every potential action he can take along with Anton himself.
The third part of the book, ‘story three’, I found far too slow moving and laborious, with all of the Night Watch except Gesar on holiday getting drunk and annoying or upsetting one another.
On a speculating on morality and the nature of good and evil, this is a great book. There is more smarts here than with your average urban fantasy novel, and for that it should be commended.
I'll be reading the entire series so check back for reviews on the subsequent books.
7/10
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