Night Watch is very different from Vita Nostra and Age of Witches, by Marina and Sergey Dyanchenko, but I found all these books seem to present a different view of the human struggle, concerned more with ordinary (and extraordinary) people trying to hold onto their humanity in the face of a grim and relentless universe, and less concerned with magical pyrotechnics and orders of wizards and species of supernatural fauna, even if there are plenty of those. While I'm not a fan of urban fantasy in general, Russian urban fantasy has its own distinct flavor, and offers something different from the usual tropes of American and British UF. When a young boy with extraordinary powers emerges, fulfilling the first half of the prophecy, will the forces of the Light be able to keep the Dark from corrupting the boy and destroying the world? But an ancient prophecy decrees that one supreme "Other" will rise up and tip the balance, plunging the world into a catastrophic war between the Dark and the Light. A thousand-year treaty has maintained the balance of power, and the two sides coexist in an uneasy truce. Living among us are the "Others", an ancient race of humans with supernatural powers who swear allegiance to either the Dark or the Light. Set in modern day Moscow, Night Watch is a world as elaborate and imaginative as Tolkien or the best Asimov.
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