A review by juushika
Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

3.0

Two decades after nuclear war destroyed the surface world, life persists underground in the tunnels of Moscow Metro. Artyom leaves his childhood home to journey the metro, bringing warning of a new threat: dangerous, radiation-created telepathic mutants called Dark Ones. Fans of the game will find the book familiar, both in story and mechanics--the book was prime for adaptation, and makes one wonder what other books would make good games. But the book's Artyom is better fleshed out, an inexperienced and frustrating young man who nonetheless makes for a more personal guide to the metro. Metro 2033 is in many ways his travelogue, a collection of stations visited, people met, philosophies encountered. It's talky, overlong, and underwritten, but the contents are compelling. The metro is a grim and believable world, lived-in and detailed, suffused with horror and, sometimes unexpectedly, with creativity. In many ways it's extremely limited--such as the existence of only one named female character, Artyom's dead mother--and even more often it wants for tighter editing and a narrower purview. Metro 2033 is fatally flawed but its world is worth a visit, and I recommend it with reservation.