17,125,200 Square km: A Year of Reading

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The young man glanced at Gesar again

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (418)

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Even at a hundred kilometers an hour the air still felt hot. The wind lashed my cheeks like a hot, rough towel

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (404)

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The trouble he could smell in the air threatened to be far more serious than a mobsters' shoot-out

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (388)

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Week 17 Blog

Night Watch

Sergei Lukyanenko

Pages Read: 324-384

Word Count: 628

Summary

We now have this semi new character named Maxum who is a shapeshifter and is working with the dark forces to open up the vortex to let in evil. I say semi new because his name has been said in the book previous times but never with lots of detail or story line to go along with it. Maxum goes out and shapeshifts into different people to try and lure victims into being killed for sacrifices for the vortex. Or this victims blood gets used to feed the vampires. As this is going on the number of killings are rising and more and more clues are apperaing and linking themselves together further Anton's investigation and getting him really close to finding Maxum, what Anton doesn’t know is there is another shapeshifter who has taken over one of Antons fellow officers and gives the dark ones inside info on what's going on. Maxum gains this info from this inside informant and keeps his killings down and more secretive. But it’s not only Maxum, there are other shapeshifters conducting these killings too. There was this one girl who knew of the dark ones, she was a human and was prepared for them to come. When she was walking alone at night she spotted Maxum as he was acting as a distressed citizen and tried to save herself and kill him with a wooden dagger when instead Maxum used his powers to convince her to stab herself with the dagger. 

Critical Analysis

Lukyanenko uses a double entendre when the dark ones were trying to switch Svetlana. Even though Sergeri Lukyanenko used the word merrymaking (358), I am inferring that what he said could really mean sex, based on the fact that one of the dark one (Maxum) who was put in charge of swtiching Sveltana to become one of them was attracked to Sveltana while also taking her to paties being thrown which is how the word merrymaking was used, as in making her happy and convince her further life in the dark is good. Lukanenko uses another implied meaning this time being an understatement. Even though Maxum said “What difference did it make anyway? I didn’t feel resentful. I wasn’t even in pain”, I am inferring that what he meant was he is truly heartbroken that he had to force Svetlana into a situation he knew she didn’t want to be in and this really hurt him because as they spent more and more time together he fell more and more in love with her and didn’t want this life of the dark ones for her sweet soul. 

 Personal Response

This week was probably the worst week to find quotes. It was very difficult and you really had to reread everything to pull stuff out of the text. It felt like everything was hiding. The book also did this weird thing where it started back over at chapter one. I'm not really sure why Sergeri Lukyanenko has done this but I feel that's very strange. Nothing story wise has changed since re-starting the chapter numbers, we switched perspectives a couple times to different people but the book has done this before, so why now change the chapter numbers. This week I was able to find a lot of different implied mean quotes though using the different categories under it. When we finally learned about Maxum and got more backstory and new story it was interesting, it was like yea i know this guy but now you actually know him and what he's all about. It was this cool way of going about it though, it’s like finally I learned more about this person right when I almost forgot about it. Or more like a “oooo this guy” type of feeling. 

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What difference did it make anyway? I didn't feel resentful. I wasn't even in pain.

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (382)

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The merrymaking that had seemed so forced to Svetlana had already moved outside

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (358)

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Our analysts spent 24 hours working on the theory that the unexpected hot weather had been caused by some moves the dark ones were planning. No doubt at the same time the day watch was investigating whether the light magicians had interfered with the climate

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch your (342)

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Then the wooden dagger slid under my ribs

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (327)

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Week 16 Blog

Night Watch

Sergei Lukyanenko

Pages Read: 264-323

Word Count: 453

Summary

Anton has been appointed top head of the case to the missing people and the vampires opening the vortex. To discourage Anton from investigating and shutting down their whole operation the vampires send him multiple threats and death threats. It started out small with anonymous messages to his phone line and texts to having people he works with scared for him to literal dead bodies showing up at this front door steps. Anton gets pretty close to figuring out where the vampire hide out is but the documents went missing and he was convinced one of his colleagues was undercover working against him. He watched back hours and hours of footage to see the person who sits next to him take the files but what he got instead was a pale pointy eared vampire teleporting in and out of the secure night watch facilities, cracking the lock and retrieving the files that went missing.  

Critical Analysis

Quote one “ One more body laid at my door -- but what does it mean?”. This is when Anton has already apprehended multiple suspected vampires for questioning. The other Vampires were trying to scare him into releasing the ones he has taken and to also warn him that no matter what they will keep killing and that at any point they can kill him. They tried to get Anton to step down from being the head of the case so they could have someone to more easily immediate. Neither of these tactics worked like at all. Quote two “Maybe I’d stepped across the barrier that should have never been crossed.”. This was before the first quote when Anton was beginning the arrests and he was scared of something like the first quote happening because there was an anonymous tip sent in saying for Anton to watch his back and that he shouldn’t bother investigating unless he wants to end up in the pile of missing people. The pile has been hypothesized that these are all the people taken for the sacrifice to be able to have the power to open the vortex. 

 Personal Response

The book is okay. I feel its changing style from the description I read on Amazon. When I originally grabbed interest for this book it was when I read the description. It talked about a vortex and this crew called the night watch set in place to put people in their place who aren't using their superpowers for good. What I’m reading is more of a cops and robbers type feel, the Night Watch are really just police but in this alternate universe with magical powers and these people trying to open the vortex are the bad people and give of culty vibes. 

[evansrussianlitblog]

The boy still wasn't frightened-- 'I saw Anton today'-- What Anton?

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch (313)

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One more body laid at my door -- but what does it mean?

Sergeri Lukyanenko, Night Watch (299)

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“He came crawling in like a sad little puppy vampire”

-Sergei Lukyanenko (283)

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Maybe I'd stepped across the barrier that should have never be crossed

Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch(227)

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Week 15 Blog

Night Watch

Sergei Lukyanenko

Pages Read: 203-263

Word Count: 424

Summary

The night watch gets word of a secret meeting happening with the Dark ones and they knew they had to be there and collect more evidence. They give Anton the position of possessing a Dark magicians body to be able to sneak into the secret meeting. As he performs the spell to possess Olga he is almost caught by other dark magicians lurking around the building. He finds where the meeting is being held and sits in on it. When soon he notices a lot of attention on him and asks Alisa over the ear piece if he can abort and she gives him a pep talk because this mission is really important in stopping deadly vortexes. Anton decides to stay and finish the meeting, they get vital information on where the next meeting is and the names and addresses of potential victims. The night watch works on having cover and planning out how they will stop these attacks, they position Night watch men around each house on the date that was said it would be hit on. The first night the night watch men ambush unsuspecting dark magicians before they could even enter the house and take control of another person. The second night at another house the dark ones actually ambush the Night watch men and capture them and at the same time go back to the first house and abduct and turn another person to evil.

Critical Analysis

Quote one “Stay in that body! Its suits you better; you’re not a man, you’re a spineless wimp!” is when Alisa was trying to convince Anton to stay in Olga's body that he took over to go undercover in the Darks Ones meetings the he wanted to leave because he thought the Dark ones knew it was him. Quote two ““He took a step forward and Alisa darted out of his way” is when Alisa and Anton were tracking down one of the Dark Magicians and he turned a corner and as they turned they saw they were trapped and the dark magician ran at them and Alisa jumped away out of instinct

 Personal Response

Starting to like the book more than I did before and finding more interest in it. I feel that way because with the recent events I feel almost like I'm watching criminal minds. I feel like I'm getting more of that detective work and busting criminals more than ooo magic and ooo evil vortexes and spells. Now its like James Bond trying to sneak into secret meetings. 

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“He took a step forward and Alisa darted out of his way”

-Sergeri Lukyanenko, Night Watch (253)

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I compared the situation with a game of chess. I was the rook, an ordinary officer of the Watch, and Svetlana was a pawn-but a pawn about to become queen

Sergeri Lakyanenko, Night Watch(242)