New Watch (novel)

New Watch

Author	Sergei Lukyanenko
Original title	Новый дозор
Country	Russia
Language	Russian
Series	World of Watches
Genre	Horror/Fantasy
Publication date	2012 (original Russian edition),
Published in English	2013
Preceded by	Last Watch
Followed by	Sixth Watch (novel)

New Watch (Novyi Dozor, Новый дозор) is a fantasy novel by Russian writer Sergei Lukyanenko.

The novel is the fifth in a series that includes Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch, Final Watch and Sixth Watch. The series revolves around two opposing supernatural groups (known as "Others"): the Night Watch, an organization dedicated to policing the actions of the Dark Others—and the Day Watch, which polices the actions of the Light Others.

New Watch was sent to the publishing house in January 2012, with release to the Russian market Summer 2012.New Watch was published in English on May 2, 2013 ( Publisher: William Heinemann, 2013), in UK Only. Scheduled release for the US is April 2014.

New Watch has the typical structure of the Watch novels, excluding Day Watch. New Watch is divided into three stories - "Vague objectives," "Troublous times" and "Vague deeds." Each story begins with a prologue followed by eight numbered chapters and, changing the usual structure, without an epilogue. Except for the prologues, the events of each story are written in a first person narrative using the voice of the Higher Magician character Anton Gorodetsky, a member of the Night Watch. Events in each of the prologues are written in a third person narrative. The entire novel is written in the past tense.

Anton Gorodetsky, while seeing a foreign colleague off at the airport, encounters an overweight 10-year-old boy named Kesha, who tries to prevent his mother from boarding a plane, claiming that the plane will crash. Anton scans the boy and determines that Kesha is an uninitiated high-level Other, possibly a prophet. Anton influences Kesha's mother not to board the plane. Meanwhile, Sergeant Pastukhov of the Moscow police, who gained an ability to see Others (he calls Light Others "dogs" and Dark Others "wolves") in the first novel, sees an extremely powerful entity whom he labels a Tiger. The Tiger can remove a human's aura, which leaves the person completely indifferent to anything. The Night Watch sends Semyon to initiate the boy, although Geser is very disturbed by the events at the airport, as the plane does not crash as prophesized (unlike predictions, prophecies cannot be changed). Geser calls a meeting of all Light Great Others (including Anton's wife Svetlana and daughter Nadya). They then travel by car (through Twilight) to Kesha's apartment in order to protect him from this strange new creature. The Tiger intercepts them and proves to be more than a match for four Great Mages. It only leaves when Zabulon joins the battle. Anton realizes that the Tiger is a creature of the Twilight whose purpose is to hunt prophets before they utter their first complete prophecy. If this prophecy is heard by a human, then it becomes inevitable. If an Other hears it, then he or she becomes the Tiger's next target. While the Night Watch is attempting to hold off the Tiger, Kesha utters the prophecy in an empty room (a prophet does not hear his or her own key prophecy), causing the Tiger to leave. However, Anton has previously asked Kesha to press the record button on a toy phone. Anton then copies the phone's recording onto a flash drive.