The Night Watch Series

For a series of books that's marketed as being in the style of J.K. Rowling, there are few comparisons that can be drawn between the two. While both Rowling and Lukyanenko have the writing talent to create a world and characters that is both engaging and believable for the reader, that's where the similarities end.

The Night Watch series of books, for lack of a better blanket term for the books, is made up of four books to date. These are: The Night Watch, The Day Watch, The Twilight Watch and The Last Watch.

Each book is split into three stories, that on the surface appear to be unconnected, but when read, fall into place in a bigger picture. The characters in the stories aren't your everyday people, by their own terms they're known as Others.

Others have powers not granted to normal people (and perhaps this is where comparisons to Potter and friends originated), and the choice to follow the light, or the dark. Whichever choice they make puts them under the control of one of the two Watches; Night or Day.

The Day Watch is made up of Dark Others, entrusted with the task of ensuring that Light Others keep to the treaty and follow the rules. Similarly, the Night Watch is made up of Light Others, who have the task of keeping the Dark Others in check.

The series focuses mainly on Anton Gorodetsky, a Fourth Level Light Magician working for the Night Watch, following him through different periods of his life as he deals with first saving a woman from unintentionally destroying both herself and the rest of the world, solving Merlin's hardest puzzle and coming to terms with his family being the most powerful Light Magicians in the world.

The Night Watch and The Day Watch were both adapted for the big screen, albeit in a way that took the ideas of the books and played around with them until they would work as a film. The Last Watch, written after both films were released, pokes fun at the amount of changes that were made to the story when translated to film by incorperating it into dialogue between the characters and having it dismissed by them as a silly dream.

If you've already seen the films, don't be put off reading the books by the way the films were treated, as one reviewer said: "The films serve as a trailer for the books."

And they're right. There's no way to describe just how gripping Lukyanenko's books are, except to say that for any fan of magic and fantasy, they're an essential read.