NIGHT WATCH

A yarn set in the same world as Resurrection Man (1995), where magic has seeped back into the world since WW II and, after a climactic event in 2004, triumphed over and extinguished science- -except that, in 2047, advanced computers, engines, and whatnot still work. The South Side of the city Edmonton is relatively magic-free since grandfather Winter literally cut out the magic ``angel'' growing inside him and sacrificed it to the Powers of North Side in a dreadful Deal. Now his granddaughter Emily must renew the deal, but she refuses and flees to Vancouver, where Chinatown's leaders have hired troops from Edmonton in order to keep their own magic—generated by monsters at bay. Winter demands Emily's return and will supply no more troops until Chinatown complies. Unfortunately, Emily has entered the nearby Forest, a Power that likes Emily and eats troops for breakfast. Hereafter the plot, always fragmentary and meandering, comes off the rails altogether. There's a power struggle among the Chinese. . . . Death shows up. . . . and. . . . What with the intriguing but fatally inconsistent backdrop, clunky exposition—Stewart, a Canadian, stops everything to rhapsodize about Wayne Gretzky and the '87 Oilers, for instance— and absence of logic: charming, sometimes, but a shambles.