Last Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, translated by Andrew Bromfield, 3/5

For some reason, I didn’t enjoy this book as much as the previous one.  Perhaps some of the premise’s novelty has worn off for me, or perhaps the storylines just weren’t as engaging.  I felt that Lukyanenko tried a bit too hard to include pop culture/literary references and I was annoyed by his appropriation of Merlin as a story character. The writing was decent, though there was some clumsiness in the first few pages that actually made me stop to check if the translator was the same person (it was). I didn’t appreciate the racy content, but it was nowhere as bad as Day Watch.  Overall, a somewhat meh experience, but I’ll still be reading the fifth book in the series, as soon as it comes in at the library.

[Why I read it: I’ve been reading this series off and on over the last couple months, starting with Night Watch.]