Saccharine Thoughts

Ian Fleming When I was presented with this book in exchange for Nightwatch it was tightly bound in a discreet brown paper jacket, looking much like a package that might be as likely to contain some earth-shattering top secret information as it was to spontaneously self-destruct. The front appropriately read "Christa's Secret Book of Secrecy." Being strictly forbidden from researching it, I was told only that it was really good and had plot twists that were not to be prematurely discovered. In addition to the cover being concealed, all pages preceding Chapter 1 were also tucked away into the makeshift jacket. Being a chick and not exactly a Bond fiend, I had no idea this was a Bond book. A very good Bond book, I might add. I can't really compare it to the others since I haven't read them (yet!) but it was definitely entertaining and extremely well-written. Clear language, great development of the characters (even conveying their personalities through their choices...

Sergei Lukyanenko I finally finished Nightwatch , and am finally getting around to telling you about it... My initial response was that the 2004 film, which I was a huge fan of, is SO very different from the novel. I still think both are very commendable works - not something I normally, or ever, say when a film based on a book takes so many liberties. Nightwatch is set in contemporary Moscow and chronicles the division between Light and Dark. All chief characters of the novel are "Others" - the chosen beings who possess the gift of seeing past this life and realm of being into the next: the Twilight, and who act as the soldiers in the eternal war between Good and Evil. Nightwatch takes on a sci-fi fantasy feeling as you learn that the Others take the form of shapeshifters, vampires, sorcerers - all kinds of fantastic and demonic beings. They patrol Moscow as parts of the Daywatch, made up of Dark Others, and Nightwatch, the organization of Light Others. Being set in mode...