Download PDF Metro 2033 First US English edition METRO by Dmitry Glukhovsky Dmitry Glukhovsky 9786099543611 Books

Product details Series METRO by Dmitry Glukhovsky (Book 1) Paperback 460 pages Publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (January 17, 2013) Language English ISBN-10 1481845705

Metro 2033 First US English edition METRO by Dmitry Glukhovsky Dmitry Glukhovsky 9786099543611 Books Reviews

• The book itself is good (the story) but the edition specifically is terrible. I've never seen so many typos and errors in a book before. Also, all the chapter titles are blacked out (for unknown reasons to me). Please look at these pictures to see what I mean.
• 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.
• 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 show. 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 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. His mission 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. This book is about a journey.....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 drag 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 discussion a bit tedious at times, it does add to the story.
  
  ABOUT THE MAP
  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. Also the map provided in the book is actually different than the real map. Artyom carries an incorrect map in the story 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. It can be very confusing if you don't have the true map. So do yourself a favor and have one ready when you are ready to read this book!
  
  COMPARISON OF BOOK AND VIDEO GAME The story is roughly the same in both 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.
  -The novel visits many of the same locations as the video game but there are more locations in the book.
  -The characters are more fleshed out in the novel (obviously!!!) Also, obviously, the stations are described in much more detail. You will meet many of the same characters, but your interactions will be different. Artyom's interactions with the characters will be different but the characters themselves have the same personalities and behave in much the same manner.
  -You will meet additional characters along your journey. Some of these characters may be real or they may be in Artyom's head, you are never quite sure. Be prepared for some lengthy speeches of philosophical content.
  -You will start out at the same location and the mission given by Hunter is the same....get to Polis and find Melnik. The ending is also pretty close to the same. But just about everything else in between is at the same time similar and very different.
  -You will obviously learn far more in the book about the underground Metro.
  -The mutant creatures are pretty much described the same way they show up in the video game.
  -The story of the Dark Ones is basically the same in both versions.
  
  HOW ABOUT THE SEQUEL?
  After reading this you will be ready for the next book. Keep in mind that Artyom is a very minor character in 'Metro 2034.' Hunter, who is really just a minor character in Metro 2033 even though he drives the story, is a major character in 'Metro 2034.'
  
  Metro 2035 is the book that the second Metro 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 and I did so with this one.
  
  Recommended for fans of the video game.
  Recommended for fans of science fiction in general.
  
  This book has spawned 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.
• Bought this book after playing the amazing video game it inspired. The book was interesting, and as a film student, I always enjoy seeing what elements are altered between the mediums of text/film/video game. The book is certainly worth a read if you're familiar with the games and the Metro universe.
  
  However, there are two major things that make this novel lose points for me. The first is specific to this edition of the book; being that there is no map of the Moscow Metro system whatsoever in it. When reading the novel, I always had my phone at my side with a map of Artyom's world ready to be pulled up for reference. The second issue is with the translation of the novel. While it isn't terrible, it certainly isn't refined, and I found myself losing train of thought and having to reread several paragraphs that contain more complex, articulate ideas. The sections where Artyom delves into philosophical thought or dreamscapes are particularly difficult to read, and even when you do manage to understand the point he is trying to convey, it is often uncomfortable to read.