Metro 2033

This review is for the novel Metro 2033 written by Dmitry Glukhovsky.The video game based on this book is one of my three favorite video games of all time... the other two being Half-Life 2 series and the Stalker series. After many hours playing the video game I decided to read the novel. I was not sure what to expect. I am giving my impressions below.I will also let you know how similar it is to the video game in a section below (COMPARISON OF BOOK AND VIDEO GAME.)PLOT: The basic premise is that there has been a nuclear war and what's left of mankind is living in subways (probably throughout the world but nobody is quite sure.) Obviously it is the year 2033. This story takes place in the subways below Moscow.Artyom, who was a young boy at the time of the nuclear war, is the main star of the story. He is grown up now and early on he relays the story to a mysterious stalker (stalker is a very loose translation, it real means more like guide/tracker/trail blazer/etc.), named Hunter, about how he opened up a way into the Metro as a young boy for whatever is out there. What's out there are mutants and/or animals that are mutated and maybe something else. Hunter, just back from his latest excursion, is getting prepared to go back out again when he gives Artyom a mission to complete. If he does not come back within a short period of time, he is to go to the Metro city of 'Polis' and seek out another Stalker, named Melnik, and give him a message. That's the basic premise but the story is much more involved than that. The story is about a journey, much the same way that Lord of the Rings is about a journey. You wouldn't summarize 'Lord of the Rings' by calling it a story about a group of halflings that take a trip across the continent to get to Mount Doom.COMMENTS:-Not all of the sentences make perfect sense. This novel is a translation from Russian and there are some inconsistencies. Occasionally something is lost in the translation.-The book is fairly long, almost 500 pages in novel form. At times it does slow down but the story is always interesting. The characters spend a lot of time philosophizing about various aspects of life and life in the metro in general. While I find some of the discussions drag on at times, ultimately these discussions add to the story.*****IMPORTANT***** A WORD ABOUT THE MAP OF THE METRO:There are some good maps of the underground on the internet. Just use google. Some of them will show you the path. Others will give you the coordinates and alternate names of the stations. This is important because the map in the book does not always follow the names in the story. The map provided in the book is actually different than the current map of the Metro. In the story, Artyom carries with him an incomplete or dated map and discovers that there are other stations he doesn't know about. You will find yourself bewildered if you try to follow along with Artyom and the map provided in the book. So do yourself a favor and have one ready when you are ready to read this book!COMPARISON OF BOOK AND VIDEO GAME: The main story is roughly the same in the book and game but in reality it is not the same at all. At it's very basic, it is the same story, but how you get to the main locations is very different.Imagine... if you will... that two people were given the same outline of a story. They are then given a map of the Metro with the path that Artyom must take. They are also given the basic personalities of the characters in the story. Then those two people each write a story on the information given to them. What you would get would be two stories that would sound the same if you summarized them but the 'meat' of the story would be quite different. That's kind of like how I would describe the difference in the story between the book and video game.The Summary: You start out at the same location in both the book and video game. The story starts the same and your mission is the same. Hunter arrives early on and tells Artyom that he is going back out. If he does not come back within a short period of time then Artyom is to leave his home and get to Polis, find Melnik and give him a message. The story of the Dark Ones, the secret underground railroad and the ending is also pretty close to the same (though not quite as adventurous as in the video game). But just about everything else in between is at the same time similar and very different.The Metro Underground: It is the same as in the video game. The big difference is that you will visit more locations and spend more time at each of them. As I noted above, Artyom is carrying a map that is not up to date. This is the map that you see in your book. You will find the true map online by doing a simple search.The Locations: You will visit most or all of the locations you visited in the video game and spend more time at each of them. In addition, you will visit more locations in the book. Obviously these locations are described in more detail.The Characters: You will meet most, if not all, of the characters that you meet in the video game.The characters personalities that you meet in the video game will have the same personalities as in the book. You will meet many more characters in the book. Some of the characters you meet will leave you wondering if they are real or imaginary. It's possible that some of these characters are products of the Underground's mysterious machinations.-Be prepared for some lengthy discussions. Some of them are very philosophical.-The discussions and/or experiences that Artyom has with the characters that he encounters will often be different than in the video game.The Factions: If you have played the 'Metro 2033' video games, you will know that there are a bunch of different factions in the underground. In fact, there are quite a few more that actually exist. You don't see them all in the video games and some of the factions are only talked about in the books. Among those you will encounter will be mostly the same that you meet in the video game. Hansa (Leaders of the ring stations), the Fourth Reich and the Red Line are among those you will meet (but not the only ones).The Dark Ones/The Creatures: The story of the Dark Ones is essentially the same in the novel as in the video game. Most of the creatures that you encounter are very similar to what is depicted in the video game. You may meet a few other unusual beings.HOW ABOUT THE SEQUEL?:After reading this you will be ready for the next book, 'Metro 2034'. Artyom is a very minor character in 'Metro 2034.' Instead, we have a new lead character, an old man who was a train engineer before the war. Hunter, even though he drives the story, is in reality, just a minor character in Metro '2033'. He is a major character in 'Metro 2034', however he will seem quite different. You will be seeing a lot of him and that is a good thing. Hunter has been badly disfigured but somehow seems almost superhuman in this novel. This story, as of yet, has not had a game made based on it. Neither, 'Metro: Last Light' or 'Metro: Exodus' are based on this novel.'Metro 2035' is the book that the second 'Metro 2033' video game, 'Metro 2033: Last Light' is based on.CONCLUSIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS: 5 stars. Definitely one of the best post-apocalyptic stories written.I strongly recommend this book for fans of post-apocalyptic fiction. It is one of the best. I rarely read a book twice. I did so with this one.If you are reading this because you are a fan of the video games and you are thinking of reading the book, I would strongly recommend you do so. I had the book on my shelf for quite some time before I finally read it. The dark, oppressive tone of the game is the same in the novel. It will draw you in the same way the game does.Highly recommended for fans of the video game.Highly recommended for fans of science fiction in general.Aside from the two sequels as of the time of this review (Metro 2034 and Metro 2035), there are also numerous other novels by other authors that have been written that take place in different parts of the world based in the same universe. Also as of the time of this review, unfortunately, none of these have been released in English.There has been one graphic novel that I know of based on the Metro Universe called 'The Outpost' and it takes place in the United States.

It was action packed with surprise twists, kept you wanting to see how problems would be resolved.Competently written; footnotes expanding on some Russian place names would have been useful

I first discovered Dmitry Glukhovsky’s METRO series through a video game play on youtube. My son, knowing my love for all things apocalyptic, showed me Let's Play Metro Last Light - Part 1 - In The Beginning… by Christopher Odd. I loved the first video and decided to look into the game. The game was based on a series of novels by Dmitry Glukhovsky. The first two novels were available in English and had audio book versions. The novella which links the first and second book is available in English but has no audio book version. Absolutely no debate on purchasing the audio books.The universe METRO builds begins in our world. The cold war is over. The USSR is a thing of the past although it’s shadow lingers over modern day Russia. The main character, Artyom, is a young adult. He was born before the event but only has very few and fragmented memories of it. On the day of the event, he and his mother were visiting a park close to a metro station. That is why they survived. The metro stations could be sealed to stop contaminants from coming in (the metro was designed and built during the USSR period). Artyom and his mother make it into the metro and past the doors before they are sealed.The metro develops into a new society. As time goes on, the different lines or branches develop different political ideologies. Some stations are more desirable than others, some have more resources, some have ways to grow food underground, some have access to uncontaminated water. Before long treaties are made, broken and fighting begins. The metro is no longer one system but a collection of city states that are connected by dark tunnels.What is in the tunnels is the mystery that lies at the heart of the METRO 2033 book. Traveling even a few hundred meters into the tunnels can be dangerous. Some of the dangers are defined; hordes of rats, mutated life forms that got into the tunnels from above, marauding humans who prey on their own kind. Some of the dangers are undefined. People, groups of people and caravans, evenly armed ones disappear without a trace, without a sound and no sign of struggles. The tunnel dwellers have dubbed the cause of these disappearances as the “Dark Ones”.The website [...] has a virtual tour of all the stations mentioned in the book. It is a wonderful way to connect the descriptions of severely damaged places with what they looked like in reality. Since the story begins in our reality, the photos are showing the reality of the Metro universe before the nuclear event.METRO 2033 is the quest Artyom undertakes to save the entire Metro system. He is tasked with this by a mysterious man who is only referred to as “Hunter”. There is a time element to the quest. As in life in 2016, life in post-apocalypse 2033 does not go as planned. Artyom tours, sometimes unwillingly, many of the various city-states that make up the Metro. It is a fascinating trip. The characters are real. The various ideologies of the city-states are believable. The unknowns in the dark tunnels ratchet up the suspense to terrifying levels. By the end of the book, I was deeply impressed by the world the author created and how much I came to care about the characters in it.METRO 2033: The Gospel According to Artyom is a bridge to METRO 2034. It is only twenty-seven pages but well worth the $2.99 price. Artyom illustrates the consequences of the events the ended METRO 2033. But this short piece also gives significant background into his life before and during the apocalyptic event. It really is worth the price.METRO 2034 begins not long after the end of METRO 2033. The main characters are the “Hunter” from the first book, a man called Homer who believes it is his vocation to write a history and chronicle of the Metro, and a teenage girl named Sasha who has been recently orphaned. Sasha’s father used to be one of the dictator’s of a Metro city-state until he and the girl were banished to an area that had little to no hope of survival. They did survive. Her father managed to live long enough for her to mature and learn to defend herself before his death. Hunter, Homer and Sasha come together in a collision of missions, Sasha’s to survive, Hunter and Homer to find out what happened to a station that no longer broadcasts or sends runners with news. Artyom does not have a large part in this story. He does not make an appearance until Chapter 10. Yet everything that is happening is a consequence of his actions in METRO 2033. The threat this time is not the Dark Ones. It is something much worse and something almost impossible to stop. As with the first book, the characters are fantastic and I grew to care about them. The action is non-stop.The audiobooks of METRO 2033 and METRO 2034 are narrated by Rupert Degas. He is fantastic. His accent for the Russian speakers if marvelous. When simply narrating, not the dialogue, he has a very clear voice with an English accent. His female voices are very well done. I have since added several of his titles to my wish list.The last book in the series METRO 2035 has not been released in English yet. I wonder if a social media campaign of begging to the author could help facilitate that happening.

I'm learning english and about this book the letter is too many little, so it's visual difficult to read.No es broma tine la letra muy pequeña no se si es intencionado o ha sido un error.

Una historia sobre la humanidad, sus conflictos y rasgos, todo dentro de un mundo apocalíptico sobre los raíles del metro de Moscú.

es dificil imaginar como un editor puede dar el visto bueno a semejante bodrio. Lo que hace el marketin, me vendieron la moto. La historia hace aguas desde el capitulo 3.

Metro 2033 is a 2002 post-apocalyptic fiction novel by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky.The Story follows the protagonist ‘Artyom’, a survivor of the nuclear bombing of his country Russia, now surviving in the remains of the old world, inside the vast metro system of Moscow, Russia. Artyom's ‘hometown’ inside the metro, ‘VDNKh’, is ravaged by creatures called the ‘Dark Ones’. The Dark Ones are a new type of being, said to be the next stage of evolution, ‘Homo novus’ they are called by the dwellers of the metro, beings who are better adapted to environment of the new world and bent on the destruction of old world. A friend of Artyom's stepfather, ‘Hunter’ comes to visit, provides information and inspires Artyom to undertake a mammoth task, he inspires and asks Artyom to complete a dangerous mission which will keep the humans in the metro alive. Hunter, before leaving, and eventually never returning, gives Artyom an item, Artyom has to take this item to a man by the name of ‘Melnik’ in Polis if Hunter does not return the next day. As Hunter never returns and Artyom sets off in a journey to reach the city of Polis, a place where culture is still valued and the only place where people don’t just survive but actually live. Artyom goes off on a journey throughout the metro, going through different caravans and travelling with different partners at different times until he reaches Polis. When he finally reaches Polis, Artyom finds Melnik, gives him the item, and informs him of what is happening at his home station VDNKh. Melnik does not know what to do, until Artyom is spoken to by a secretive group of individuals calling themselves the Brahmins. These Brahmins consist of scientists and academics that pay to people to get books from the desolate wastelands of the surface that are ripe with radiation. They say that if Artyom, whom they think to be a powerful psychic is able to see and feel things in his mind, he will also be able to find a book said to contain something that they particularly need, this will give him something that will guarantee his victory against the dark ones, seeing no other way, Artyom agrees. Artyom, now joined by a young Brahmin named Daniel, goes with Melnik and his group of soldiers to the surface. Once they enter the library, Artyom does not seem to show any ability of finding the book, so the group goes deeper into the library. The group is then ambushed by mutated creatures. Artym and Daniel flee to a different part of the library while Menik and the others fight off the monsters. Artyom and Daniel keep on searching for the book, until Daniel gets gutted by one of the creatures. In his last moments of life, Daniel tells Artyom the thing that will give him victory over the Dark Ones, a map to a secret tunnel system that leads to a missile silo. Convulsing in pain, he pleads Artyom to kill the creature, as the mutant ominously mimics him, hidden behind his body. Artyom, knowing there is nothing he can do for Daniel, shoots through him to kill the beast.. Artyom and Melnik run back to the metro, and Melnik leaves Artyom for a while to sort some problems out and get a group of fighters to go to the missle silo. Artyom during that time, helps a father find his missing child, right after being taken hostage by a cult of extra-terrestrial worm worshipping cannibals. Then, like the ex machina he is, Melnik along with a group of soldiers rescue Artyom, scurrying into the secret metro. From there, Artyom and Melnik get in different conflicts, until they get to VDNKh to give Melniks people the coordinates of the Dark Ones lair. Artyom gets a vision by the Dark Ones leader, a telekinetic creature, saying Artyom was the chosen one to connect the two races. Artyom then realizes the Dark Ones were never attacking, but the humans were responding in fire and bullets. The Dark Ones are bombed, with Artyom realizing he doomed humanity and goes home in tears. The characters of this novel and world are written beautifully, and at every page there is a twist and turn that wasn't expected, making this a great science fiction read.This was the Review of Metro 2033,by Shourya Ghosh

Assim como a maior parte do público ocidental, conheci Metro 2033 por meio do jogo eletrônico e resolvi buscar o livro para ver se o fascínio que enxerguei no mundo virtual também se refletiria nas páginas de literatura. Minha sensação foi ambígua: há momentos em que realmente é difícil de largar o livro, mas a maior parte foi simplesmente maçante.Para quem não conhece, a obra se passa numa Rússia pós-apocalíptica em que a humanidade só consegue sobreviver debaixo da superfície, nos túneis do metrô. A história conta a jornada de Artyom em busca de ajuda para salvar sua estação de um inimigo aparentemente invencível, os "dark ones". A questão é que o apocalipse criou uma série de fenômenos paranormais e criaturas mutantes que empurraram o ser humano para o patamar mais baixo da cadeia alimentar.O começo do livro é bastante promissor. Na verdade, Metro 2033 possui dois aspectos: o primeiro é dedicado a esse Novo Mundo criado após o apocalipse, onde o sobrenatural e o selvagem trazem vida à obra. É o melhor aspecto da obra de Glukhovsky. Quando nos pegamos intrigados pelas vozes dos mortos vindas das tubulações, as forças sinistras existentes nos túneis, as profecias, o mistério das Torres do Kremlim, os terríveis Librarians e outros monstros, é simplesmente impossível colocar o livro de lado. Somos compelidos a desvendar todos os segredos desse fantástico e ameaçador universo, e a parte que Artyom está sendo perseguido na superfície por criaturas que param e observam-no como se fossem estátuas está entre os melhores momentos da obra.O problema começa quando o autor se desvia do fantástico e volta ao mundano, e isso ocupa a maior parte do livro. Como é comum na ficção pós-apocalíptica, o mundo de Metro 2033 é uma espécie de microcosmo da nossa própria realidade. Há os fascistas, os comunistas, o capitalismo selvagem etc. A questão é que nada tem imaginação ou profundidade, parecendo terem sido tiradas de um manual escolar qualquer. Por exemplo, uma das coisas mais interessantes dos romances apocalípticos é a relação do homem com a religião, mas em Metro 2033 isso é tratado de forma quase caricata. O mesmo pode-se dizer da crítica à exploração dos homem pelo homem, simbolizada quando o protagonista é colocado para limpar os banheiros da elite comerciantes. Mais caricato, impossível. Parece que Glukhovsky se contentou em agitar certos espantalhos para dar um fraco verniz de reflexão à sua obra.Esses problemas são potencializados por uma outra questão: não há bons personagens em Metro 2033, a começar pelo protagonista. Artyom é um picolé de chuchu. Todos seus coadjuvantes são absolutamente esquecíveis, à exceção de Khan, cuja presença é bem curta. Não parece sequer haver uma motivação razoável para qualquer um deles. Os "dark ones" são estabelecidos como uma ameaça no início do livro, mas praticamente desaparecem pelo resto da obra. Frequentemente o leitor se esquece do porquê Artyom ter iniciado sua jornada, não há senso de urgência, tudo parece ser mais importante que a ameaça representada por eles. Lembra aqueles jogos em que o jogador passa 90% do tempo fazendo side-quests. Quer saber o que vai acontecer a seguir? Beleza, mas antes você verá Artyom limpar privadas, apostar em corrida de ratos, enfrentar os canibais da Grande Minhoca e por aí vai.Para finalizar, ainda achei a tradução do russo para o inglês um pouco abaixo da média. Embora seja possível compreender quase todo o texto, há situações em que fica evidente ter havido alguma tradução equivocada, ou alguma palavra mal escolhida, fazendo com que tivesse de voltar e reler, tentando extrair algum sentido do que foi dito. Há um momento, por exemplo, que Melnik fala sobre Artyom ir à "police" (polícia), o que não faz sentido algum, pois não há nenhuma polícia para se ir. Acho que o mais provável é que a tradução correta fosse "Polis", a estação, mas o tradutor comeu mosca. Esse é só um dos exemplos que poderia citar de uma tradução bem confusa que foi realizada.Sem ser propriamente ruim, Metro 2033 é uma obra que não foi capaz de atingir nenhuma das minhas expectativas. Há alguns momentos brilhantes, quando o autor foca no mundo assustador criado após a queda da humanidade, mas a maior parte é uma peregrinação modorrenta, metáforas infantis do mundo contemporâneo e personagens sacais. Esperava mais, bem mais.