Rants & Raves of Jasmine’s Fiction

I just finished reading through the first book of Sergey Lukyanenko’s fantasy horror tetralogy (meaning 4 books) Ночной дозор.  And I’m a little mind f**ked right now.  His philosophy is so twisted it boggles my puny little mind.  And as much as I love his writings (I’m tearing through the 2^nd book Дневной дозор now) I feel the need to curl up into a little ball in a corner somewhere and let it all sink in.

Anyway, before I get really deep into the twisty bits here’s the storyline in a general overview:

For as long as humanity existed, there have been ‘Others’ among us.  Magic users, shapeshifters, undeads; all soldiers in the eternal struggle between Light & Darkness.

The Light protects all, the Darkness destroys all.  So for many millennia both side waged their war, using any means necessary to achieve victory before the realisation that if the war was to continue, neither side would survive.

So a Grand Treaty was struck between the leaders of the two parties, making a set of laws to govern the way all Others use their powers.  And to uphold this truce, the Soldiers of Light created the Night Watch and The Soldiers of Darkness created the Day Watch to ensure that neither side would violate the Treaty.

And so thus the Balance is created.  And this is where my mind gets a little scrambled.  You see, as a Soldier of Light, you can’t just simply compel people into becoming saints and doing good whenever you feel like it.  As a Warrior of Darkness, you can’t just rampage as you please, consuming everything in your path and sowing hate and despair.

The Treaty states that no one can be forced to do good or evil; people must be allowed to choose freely for themselves.  So for each good deed a Light Other does, it allows a Dark Other to destroy something in return.  And vice versa.  The Balance must always be kept in check.

So imagine a world where you have the ability (saying that you’re a Light Other) to cure a village suffering from the Plague.  You do just that but it was unsanctioned, and in order to keep the balance, you will be arrested by the Day Watch and put to trial which will ultimately end in your permanent termination.  Then in order to ‘fix’ your little tip or power in favour of the Light, the demons of Darkness will kill/eat/ the same amount of innocent people that you saved.  And it would be justified by both parties.

The duality of things really caught me – its-Newton-’s-law at its most basic:  Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  The simplicity of this philosophy is what makes Lukyanenko’s writing so compelling, and so freaking complex!  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  That’s not even the main story yet!

Reading the Ночной дозор kinda made me feel like I was watching The Matrix for the first time – all the “What If” possibilities.  And it freaks me out.  Not to mention this book makes me wanna learn to seriously read Cyrillic/Russian so I can read it in its original language.

I’d write more but I’m too busy finishing off Дневной дозор now. Dasvedanya!

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