Twilight Patrol

It's not even 6 PM but I'm feeling pretty sleepy right now. I know why. It's because I got the bright idea last night to try reading Sumerechnii Dozor (Twilight Patrol), Sergey Lukyanenko's 2004 sequel to his awardwinning urban fantasy, Nochnoi Dozor (Night Patrol).

It's set three years after ND, and the good news is that Anton's managed to get married and have a daughter, Nadya (Hope). The bad news is that there's a rich and powerful normal human who's learned all about the Others, and wants to become one. He has no latent power. He doesn't want to be Initiated by a vampire or a werewolf. No, he's decided that he wants to become a Mage of the Light, and he's fairly sure he can force the Others to do that for him.

I wouldn't be so worried if the head of the Night Patrol didn't seem, reluctantly, to be taking him seriously.

Frankly, I'm not as interested in reading Alisa Donnikova's story, Day Patrol -- even though it apparently has more information on both her and Ali-Sher, the Night Patrol half-Other determined to avenge his father's murder at Alisa's hands, and even though it's written by another award-winning author, Vladimir Vasil'yev. But I sure I will eventually try it out. Still, I'm also eager to work my way through the Tanya Grotter books. I miss the little redhead and her buddies.

I still really need to increase my Russian vocabulary, particularly when it comes to nouns. Although I can usually get the gist of what's going on, and occasionally I feel that I'm actually just reading, Lukyanenko still is using an sf/f writer's large vocabulary. Maybe if I were reading something aimed at kids, I'd be able to consult the dictionary less. Still, me for the 500 Russian Verbs book. Real Soon Now.