Metro 2033: First U.S. English edition

Great book.

Metro 2033 is the book that formed the basis of the popular video game series for which it is perhaps better known, set in a world that has been devastated by nuclear war, where the remains of what is left of humanity have been forced to seek shelter in the Moscow metro system. A place where people live short, hard lives in a dark world beset by all manner of danger...The story follows the adventures of Artyom - a seemingly unexceptional youth who resides at VDNKh - just one of the many metro stations that essentially act as towns and cities within the larger metro system. He spends his days sharing his time between working in a factory that uses mushrooms to make the tea for which his station is most famous for, and standing guard at the dark tunnel mouth from which any number of threats could arise at any given moment.That is until he is approached by a 'stalker' - the men who brave the radioactive wastes in the city above the metro in order to bring back items that are essential or useful to the metro's continual battle for survival - and is given a message and a special mission that requires him to leave his home for the first time in his life and travel the metro system and alert everyone of an awful danger that has appeared...I never actually played those games but I had heard of them, and I love the post-apocalyptic genre, and the synopsis sounded intriguing and exciting, however I found the book to be a slow and often unexciting slog that often felt more of a chore than it was a pleasure.The world of Metro is interesting enough. Split into several dozen stations, each of which belongs to a faction of one sort or another - from fascists trying to launch a Forth Reich, to the hard line communists who run what is known as the 'Red line', to the extremely powerful and influential cartels that control the ring stations which represent the easiest and most circular route to traverse the metro and so the best trading routes, the numerous smaller independent stations each with their own inhabitants, ideals, and trends. All of this is visually represented in the book with a colour map of the metro that you will frequently find yourself referring to as you follow the main characters travels through the tunnels.No, the problem is with the story itself and the fact that it feels slow, labored, fragmented, drawn out, and pointless.Artyom is tasked with informing the metro of a terrible danger that threatens them all, yet he's never really told exactly what that danger is and it is left to speculation. It's made clear that he has to make it to Polis (essentially the capital city of the metro system) with his message, but it's never really made clear why that destination is so important, and he never deems it necessary to inform the many people he meets on his way there of the encroaching danger they face.Along the way Artyom finds himself drawn into a couple of side quests that initially have a feeling of significance about them - chief amongst these when it is believed that Artyom is a prophesized one destined to retrieve a book of mystical importance from the Lenin Library in the radioactive wastes of old Moscow - but these events despite plentiful page time being dedicated to them ultimately peter out and end up as distractions with little meaning to them in terms of the overall story line.Additionally the author makes frequent use of deus-ex-machina, as at every stage of his journey Artyom finds himself presented with *exactly* the person or event needed to ensure the continuation of his mission. For example being rescued at the exact point of an execution to be carried out by Nazi's when a completely random group of merry Trotskyists appear to spring him.The author does in fairness make it part of the story that the fact the character constantly finds his bacon being saved in the nick of time and seemingly completely by coincidence at every turn may be part of some greater prophecy, but it happens so often that it's impossible to look at it as anything other than a lazy plot device to keep the story moving.The resultant effect of this is that the character himself doesn't really grow or develop, because every time he comes across a challenge rather than have to think or fight his own way out, the exact person he needs to do it for him magically happens to appear.Metro 2033 is a book that constantly has you thinking that things will start getting exciting just over the next page but it never really does. There is a twist in the tale but this literally happens in the last few pages by which time the end of the books feels like a bit of a mercy.It's not a terrible story, just terribly mundane.5/10

My other half recommended that I read Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky so I figured I'd give it a go. He had really enjoyed it and I'd enjoyed watching him play the game so I grabbed the book.This book is amazing, it's so well written that you can totally imagine being there and it's really made me want to go to Russia to have a look around!The book is set in the Metro after the surface becomes uninhabitable due to war. The basic idea is similar to Fallout if you've ever played that. Human civilisation has persevered and adapted to living under ground, each station is like it's own town with it's own beliefs and ideas and you can see where all of the ideas have come from as you read through the book.I would say that this book is not for the easily distracted. Unfortunately my attention span has been terrible this year because my personal life has just been so busy, this meant I was reading until I fell asleep with the book, or getting to the point where I was too tired to concentrate. As a result it took me months to read it. Due to the author being Russian and this book having been translated to English the names are all Russian. This means that unless you already know the names it might be a little bit difficult to get used to. Luckily for me, my Auntie is Russian so she has explained what things are and even a bit about where some of the places are.Glukhovsky has even gone as far as to set up religions and backgrounds for these beliefs and in doing so has made the book even more realistic. Without wanting to spoil the story I can't go into this too much and I loved when some of the things came up because I wasn't expecting it. This means that although I desperately want to tell you about every little thing in this book, I can't because I really do want you to read it yourself.It's difficult to give a basic outline of the plot because of how intricately it's been put together so that the main character, Artyom, meets the other characters along the way. Artyom is on a journey through the Metro to try to save his home station, VDNKh. He meets people who are nice and want to help and some people who just want to cause problems. Artyom's quest is tested at every station and the adventures he has are fantastically written. Another thing which interested me in this book is how in the underground the people live on the only things they can really rely on keeping underground. Mushrooms, pork, and in some cases, Rats. They even make tea out of the mushrooms!I would definitely recommend these books to anyone and I will be reading more of Glukhovsky's work.

Only halfway through the book, but I am thuroughly disappointed. The writing itself isn't bad, but the concepts, storyline and general explanation of the world is not great. This could be done a lot better.The protagonist seems to be saved in very unlikely ways throughout the first half of the book. None of the workings of the unlikely society it portrays seem to be explained.. oh, and every single station seems to be controlled by a very distinct subculture. Be it Nazis, jesus freaks, trotskyist fans of che Guevara, a Hanseatic league, old school stalinist communists. All this in separate stations in the narrow confines of the Moscow metro.To add to this it seems half the book is just the author trying to pull some Dostoyevsky out of nowhere with long introspective rants about how it feels to live there.Ok ill stop. I'm ecessively negative. It's not a bad book.. it just disappointed me badly as it could have been so much better. Why does the author not take time to discuss how a society like that actually works? It's not that I'm indifferent to the protagonists journey, it just seems secondary to the concept of the book.

I have wanted to read this book ever since I played the game a few years ago. This is however not as Emersive or gripping as the book and I found it a very slow read. One of those books you can't read from cover to cover very fast as the action is very slow paced and there is a lot of detail and information. The book was originally written in Russian and this translation has some funny and just plain wrong wordings. However the story is fantastic and carries onto another two books.Worth a read but not for younger people as I think they would get bored easily.

The Russians have a skill in writing apocalyptic, nightmarish stories. You only have to read the Strugatsky Brothers' (or watch the film version, "Stalker"), Gansovsky's "A Day of Wrath" or watch Lopushansky's amazing "Letters From A Dead Man" to realise that they understand what it is to live on the edge of the abyss.Claustrophobic, dark cul-de-sacs of danger and terror, "Metro 2033" is a world of uncertainties and fear, hung on the fringes between survival and death. Criminals and refugees, traders and mystics... bullets used as currency... fear, and always uncertainty.Artyom, our hero, is asked to deliver an important message that could affect the survival of humankind in the subways. On his way to the centre he is aided, and hindered, by a motley crew of individuals who reflect the chaos that reigns below. The voyage is full of menace (though moments of almost calm menace and surreality are not uncommon).There is one brief sortie to the surface that becomes an adrenalyn-packed nightmare. I never realised that you can read a book through your fingers as you wait for the horrors to leap out from the ruins and the dark.This is, of course, an Odyssey and our brave Ulysses has to strive through his labours as he comes face-to-face with the demons that litter his nightmare world distorted and turned inside out by humanity. His is a noble task and he is aided by heroic figures, heroes that could have stepped out of the ancient myths... Yet questions and doubts are raised constantly... what sort of humanity is it that Artyom wants to save?... and what nightmares come flowing down the dark tunnels of the Metro.