So, my second article. It’s a book review and the first such review I’ve ever done. There will be faults and I apologize in advance for that. However, I will be looking at a good book, so this will be an easy one. By this, I am talking about Metro 2033 by Dmitri Glukhovsky. This excellent piece of Russian sci-fi literature both has two games based on it and a sequel. I shall provide links at the bottom of this post.
The main character is Artyom, a resident of VDNKh, a station of the Moscow Metro. He is a resident of it because it is the year 2033 and those inhabiting the Metro were forced down here due to an apocalyptic nuclear war. In the dark of the Metro, new societies have emerged, shaped heavily by the conditions that the survivors now live in. Old features of civilization, such as literature, are fading away, while pigs bred underground and mushrooms are dietary staples and bullets are the common currency.
The story of our protagonist, Artyom, starts with the visit of a mysterious visitor called Hunter. This visitor is on a mission, one that concerns a threat to the entirety of the Metro, and assigns him the task of reaching Polis, a great station of the the Metro, should he fail. After receiving what appears to be a signal, Artyom sets off on his journey, one filled with danger, both from people in the variety of communities that exist in the Metro and from mutant creatures born out of the conditions of the post apocalyptic Metro and the still radioactive surface.
On this journey, he encounters a variety of individuals, all with their own reasons for travelling along the Metro. He also has hazards is his way, varying from factions like the Fourth Reich to the mutants and the decaying state of the Metro system. There is also the threat of the dark ones, creatures with strange abilities and unknown goals. There is, in my opinion, an interesting contrast between Artyom and some of the people he encounters, with Artyom being an inexperienced person who simply want to get to his destination, while others are either more experienced or alternatively are more ideological in their reasons for traversing the Metro, like the Communist group he encounters at one point.
In my opinion, this is certainly one of the better sci-fi books out there. The descriptions of the environment of the Metro and of its different stations are well written and the differing factions of the Metro are, in my opinion, quite interesting. The plot is good and the ending is one that is interesting, being open to being interpreted in different ways. There’s also a map that comes with it of the Metro, detailing the location of the stations and which factions own them, though I am unsure if it is included with the paperback version. Anyway, it is certainly a book I’d recommend. Thanks for reading.
Notes: There are, as mentioned, two Metro games. The second game, Metro: Last Light, is apparently the better of the two. In regards to them, all I can do is point to this review by Angry Joe. The sequel is available in paperback, though the hardback version will not be released until February and I will be unlikely to take a look at it until that time.
Gloomy Intelligentsia 