Quote"Dear Muscovites and guests to our capital! The Moscow metro is a form of transportation which involves a heightened level of danger."
Here's where I'll be chronicling my thoughts while I read through the novel, Metro 2033.
SPOILER WARNING obviously for the novel as well as all three games (2033, Last Light, and Exodus) because I'll be actively talking about endings and comparing the books/games.
I'll be sharing my thoughts, quotes I like, notes on language and culture, character analyses, and whatever else I feel like saying. I'll probably split each chapter into its own update. I will be tagging each post at the top with potential trigger warnings. This is a horror story, after all.
Start Date: August 2026
Current Chapter: If I Don't Come Back (3/20)
End Date: N/A
My Rating: N/A
Other Info:Wiki (https://metrovideogame.fandom.com/wiki/Metro_2033_(Novel))Map of Artyom's Journey (https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/metro2033/images/1/1b/Metro_Map_-_Artyom's_Journey_2033_Novel.png/revision/latest?cb=20150219172025)Metro 2033: Redux Soundtrack (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c5lCRu17I0)
Want to read with me? I downloaded the PDF here (https://chanon.ro/112chan/www.112chan.ro/lit/src/METRO_2033_(EN)__SH4DOVVV-WBBONLY.pdf) as the author has allowed free distribution of this book. I'm using an app on my phone called Pocketbook to basically turn the PDF into an easy-to-read EPUB format.
Quote"I was born in Moscow. But I remember nothing of that time. I was just an infant when the old world was destroyed in the flames of nuclear fire."
LOOK OUT! There's talk of war, gore, rats, and death in this entry.
CH 1 - THE END OF THE EARTHThe book starts with Artyom mid patrol (while the game starts with him waking up - a pattern that keeps in the series). If I hadn't already played the games I would probably have lost interest very quickly in this first chapter. Glukhovsky mentioned in a few of his interviews that Metro is sometimes poorly written because it was his first novel. Typically I don't agree with this type of opinion from an author (as an author myself I know what it's like to look down on past works), but it's true here. Still, the vocabulary chosen is excellent and even though the sentence structure and dialogue is rough to read (it might be better in Russian tbh, but I'm unsure) I was able to push past these minor issues.
Arytom speaks in the books (I figured he would have to) but he is a silent protagonist in the games aside from his journals which are narrated as transitions between chapters. I've read a lot of fanfiction where Arytom is entirely mute, using his journal and sign language to get his voice across. Or partially mute, where his trauma sometimes causes him to be unable to speak for a certain amount of time. Even in the book so far he says few words compared to the other characters. I'm not sure which I prefer more, or which I'll choose to use when I inevitably write my own fics. A spoken protagonist is definitely easier to write, but having Artyom know sign language or speak only to certain people in private is an interesting way to flesh out relationships.
His home station in the book is called
'VDNKh' (Russian: ВДНХ) which is short for
'Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnovo Khozyaystva' (Russian: Выставка достижений народного хозяйства). This translates to
'The Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy.'In the games, they refer to the station simply as
'Exhibition' which I greatly prefer. VDNKh is a bit of a hassle to read out in my mind for how often it shows up, so I've been replacing it with the game's name. I do really appreciate how the english translation of the book is sticking true to Russian naming conventions, though, even if some of the words are hard to pronounce. Russian is a language I never really had any interest in before this series, but hearing the characters speak it in-game kind of showed me how interesting it can sound. But I'll get more into that another time.
On the topic of station names, I knew that the stations in the series were related to the real ones in Moscow (kind of like Fallout 3 and the DC Metro or New Vegas and the interstates), but I had no idea how accurate they were to real life. That's another thing that really sparks my interest. I love being able to follow Artyom's trail on the metro map and see the real images of stations vs the ones in-game. For once, playing the game before reading the novel has helped as I can more accurately imagine the scenes. I don't think I would have been able to picture this type of Russian culture or architecture otherwise.
Glukhovsky puts a lot of thought into the running of the stations. Economy, agriculture, politics, and distance are described thoroughly and though it can be a little boring sometimes it's very interesting world building. Exhibition exports tea made from the strange mushrooms that can be cultivated from the metro, which leads it to be a larger station due to traders coming and going. The stations are held together by past metro employees and engineers, soldiers, scientists, farmers, and cooks (to name a few professions). There's even a centralized station called Polis (which we will see later) with a large government, a section of the metro called the
'Red Line' which houses communists, formations of unions, and many more factions. In twenty years of this new society's existence there have been many skirmishes and wars fought over the claiming of tunnels and station territories. It really helps to show how vast this metro is and how our societal behaviors continue even in a place that is the direct result of the aftermath of war. War never changes...
As an American, I can't even imagine a system of transportation that large in all of my country - let alone one city! This led me to look up
some stats: The population of Moscow within the city limits is estimated at 13 million people. This is the number that would have potentially been able to reach the metro in time and is still relatively accurate to the books since they start in 2013. Artyom mentions that around 200,000 actually arrived and twenty years after the nuclear war roughly 40,000 people have survived. Consulting the map, there are so many unused or unexplored stations on the outskirts and it's crazy to think that 200,000 people at one point could fit in the tunnels. Compared to the DC metro this is a true underground city, even when all the stations aren't being used because of radiation or other, darker forces.
The games had a decent bit of supernatural elements to them. The Dark Ones as a species are alien-like, though I don't think we ever truly know where they originated. But things like mutants, anomalies, lost souls, the Darkness, etc. were mentioned and seen when I played. Reading the book, I'm excited to say I think the horror element will play a much bigger role. The metro is terrifying, but in the games I'm more worried about survival than I am ghosts. In the book, however, we get glimpses into Artyom's mind which seems like it will be much scarier.
Quote"No one had the guts to go beyond the seven-hundredth metre (roughly half a mile) to the north.../ Even the scouts - big guys, former marines - would stop at the six hundred and eightieth metre. They'd turn their burning cigarettes into their cupped palms and stand rock-still, clinging to their night-vision instruments. And then, they'd slowly, quietly head back, without taking their eyes off the tunnel, and never turning their backs to it."
There's a longer story Artyom is told during his patrol by a man named Pyotr (not in-game) that mentions the station of Polezhaevskaya
(Russian: Полежаевская) being destroyed by some unknown force. He tells of patrols going missing without a trace and a pervading darkness that no light could shine through. Someone from the station ran to the next for help and when the reinforcements arrived...
Quote"There wasn't a living soul to be seen. There weren't even bodies - just blood everywhere."
None of this was specifically mentioned in the games, but the player is guided through situations that are similar. It might just be how my brain is inclined to work, but I find the descriptions in the book more terrifying than the scenes I played through in the game because there is such a huge feeling of 'what the fuck is going on.'
We're given a bit more of Artyom's past here than we are in the game. Artyom was born before the bombs dropped, but has very little memory of the world above. He remembers seeing a picture of ice cream on an advertisement, seeing his mother standing in the botanical gardens, and going down into the metro. Artyom lives in Exhibition with his adopted father, Sukhoi (sometimes called Uncle Sasha), who saved him from a plague of rats that decimated his home station and killed his mother when he was five. These descriptions are also pretty vivid and grotesque.
Quote"Many people perished that day, when a living torrent of gigantic rats had flooded through the cordons and the station, burying all its defenders and its population, muffling their dying screams with the mass of its bodies. Consuming everything in their path - the living, the dead, and their own fallen comrades - the rats tore ahead, further and further, blindly, inexorably, propelled by a force beyond human comprehension."
I've never lived in a city where rats were a major problem, so I can't imagine the sheer numbers it would require for humans to be killed on contact. Are there really that many rats in the Moscow metro? In the NYC metro? New fear unlocked! And I wonder what the rats were running from? This bit of backstory is also left out from the games and it makes me wish that Artyom's journal entries were more detailed. They definitely improved on that in the most recent game, Metro: Exodus.
The rest of the chapter sets up what I think will be the plot for the rest of the book - political conflict between a government called Hansa, The Red Line Communists, and The Fourth Reich Nazis as well as The Spartan Order's newest supernatural enemy - The Dark Ones. According to the wiki, the book was split up into the two games, 2033 and Last Light, so I'm imagining that it won't be as in depth as the games were, which is a shame. Last Light is superior to the first game, in my opinion, so I hope those scenes are still present.
This chapter wasn't bad. My prior knowledge definitely helps and I would feel lost without it, but I would rather judge the book as a whole than on its first chapter - even though some would argue the first chapter should be the best. I'm excited to see where this story goes.
Quote"I had just turned twenty...and could never have imagined what would follow on the morning that my stepfather's friend, Hunter, arrived at the barricade..."
CH 2 - THE HUNTERArtyom meets Hunter during the previous patrol. This is very different from their meeting in the game where Hunter arrives amidst an invasion of Nosalies on the station. I prefer the book's scenario, as this allows them to have a more detailed series of conversations to establish a closer relationship. The dialogue exchange between them at the beginning of the chapter is endearing me to Artyom in a way the games hadn't - he really feels like an inexperienced kid. Despite life in the metros being tough, he's still part of the original human society, and so he isn't seen as an adult despite having more adult experiences because of the war.
We get a flashback in Artyom's thoughts about his childhood in Exhibition - specifically a time when he and his two friends snuck out of their station and went up to the surface through the Botanical Gardens. In the game this is where he was attacked by Watchmen and saved by a Dark One which is why he has the ability to communicate with them and not be negatively affected by their psychic influence. This hasn't been mentioned in the book yet and instead they get away on their own by running back into the station. In their haste, they're unable to close the station gate behind them, and Artyom feels terrible guilt about this as he thinks it's why the Dark Ones have gotten into the metro.
This is a huge motivator for Artyom's actions in all the games and it comes up in Last Light as a flashback in the intro. He's driven mostly by guilt throughout his life and I've heard that in the books he's much more mentally affected by his choices. When I played the games I felt I did a good job of getting into his character and playing him 'as intended' so I was able to understand the gravity of the sacrifices he was forced to make. It was one of the reasons I got so immersed, I think, and that was effective even with a protagonist that only spoke through journal entries. I'm eager to read about Artyom's emotions directly in the book and see how it compares to what I felt when I played as him.
The flashback of his adventure outside the metro is written very well. I have a collection of good quotes from books I've read on my notes app (I should probably share them here at some point because I find them pretty interesting) and this one made it into that list easily. It just goes to show that even though Glukhovsky thinks his writing in this book is subpar, his talent pushes through in certain moments despite the occasional awkward dialogue or run-on sentence (not that I care about run-ons as a Ray Bradbury fan lol.)
Quote"...One could see the radioactive dust of the dark-blue summer sky, already cleansed of clouds, and strewn with myriad stars. But what was a starry sky for a child who wasn't even capable of imagining that a ceiling might not be above his head?"
Of course this made me think of Fallout and how the Lone Wanderer, or any vault dweller, would react to seeing the sky for the first time. I've thought of this before, but it never occurred to me that someone just
wouldn't know what a sky would look like. Artyom also mentions that they're lucky they surfaced in the night, as he learned later on that they could have been blinded by the sunlight due to their upbringing in the dim tunnels. This wasn't a mechanic in-game and I get why - it would be difficult to implement and some of the most breathtaking scenes were seeing the upside world and the sunlight between the dreary levels in the tunnels, so I'd hate to have lost that experience.
Night falls and as Artyom sleeps we're introduced to his nightmares for the first time, which are a recurring theme throughout the games. It's not clear whether these nightmares of his are fully caused by the Dark Ones' influence or if it's also his own psychic sensitivity. It's unclear in the games as well - at least until his dreams are fueled by his regrets later on in the series. This dream in particular was about Hunter turning into a Dark One and attacking Artyom in his sleep. Maybe it's foreshadowing how Hunter's presence and subsequent request will alter the course of Artyom's life forever? The death of a boy and the rebirth of a man.
Artyom meets his step-father for breakfast. Hunter and Sukhoi argue in a way that is much more tense than in the games. Sukhoi is genuinely scared and he and Hunter lash out at each other over their differing opinions of human survival. Artyom is boyish again in the presence of Hunter, which I appreciate. Almost timid, almost shy. I remember what it felt like to be a kid sitting in on an adult conversation. Feeling like the world is way too big and complicated and wondering why I'm even being allowed to listen in on something so important in the first place.
Hunter is a specimen to him - frightening, intimidating, impressively strong, and smart at the same time. It's briefly mentioned that Artyom, like others his age, yearns for adventure and resents having to do domestic chores like farming and patrolling. He doesn't want to spend his life cleaning pig sties and raising children. He's curious about the world above and wants to believe humans will resurface once again when (or if) the radiation disperses. Because of this, Artyom immediately looks up to Hunter, but is scared because of his nightmare and general distrust of strange people.
Quote"The weapon Hunter carried, Artyom noted immediately, was not a simple one - not for self defence, that was for sure. And then he remembered that when Hunter introduced himself he added, 'as in someone who hunts...'"
Hunter and Sukhoi continue their heated argument. It's obvious the Dark Ones' attacks are taking a toll on Sukhoi's mental health. Everyone at Exhibition is mentioned as having constant nightmares and unexplainable dread that has not yet spread to the rest of the metro. I remember Sukhoi being cautious and weary in the games, not wanting Artyom to follow Hunter into danger, but seeing him this fearful is much more effective at getting the danger the Dark Ones pose across to the reader.
The way Hunter talks insinuates that Sukhoi wasn't always like this, either. The Dark Ones mess with people's minds and instinctively instill terror in them. In the games this was always shown as people dying with a horrified expression frozen on their face or losing their minds if they do survive the encounter, but seeing the fear slowly creeping into someone who was once brave is scarier still. It makes me wonder if this fear is truly from their psyches being incompatible with ours or if part of it is also from human imagination running amok.
Quote"They are getting into our heads somehow and it seems to me that they're doing it on purpose. You can sense them from afar, and the feeling gets stronger and stronger, and the agitation is so vile that your knees start to shake. And you can't hear anything yet, and you can't see anything yet, but you already know that they're coming nearer... nearer..."
Sukhoi starts to get agitated with Hunter and begins rambling about how the Dark Ones are
'Homo Novus', the next stage in human evolution, and will end them all. Artyom notes that this is very unlike his stepfather. Sukhoi then starts to taunt Hunter's dream of radiation subsiding and humanity returning to the surface. He insinuates that Hunter's (and all of humanity's) desire to survive above all odds is laughable and inherently foolish and that they should give up and die out as 'nature intended.' Hunter replies, getting angrier;
Quote"Yes, I will sink my teeth into life. Fuck your evolution. Let other species wait their turn. I'm not a lamb being led to slaughter. / But don't try to scare me and don't try to drag me along with you into the slaughterhouse."
Sukhoi storms out and Hunter asks Artyom what he thinks. This is one of the first moments where we can see that Artyom himself isn't a catalyst for a story, but a character that is often pushed to the frontlines and made into the protagonist by the more important people and capable around him. I've read this is a consistent criticism of the series as many people feel that Artyom doesn't have his own reasons for going on these quests and is instead led around the metro by others. I disagree that these behaviors lessen the narrative. Maybe it's my own experiences, but having a reluctant protagonist that isn't able to survive without collaboration and a large dose of luck is more interesting than one who is all-knowing and forever capable. Humanity working together is one of the most prevailing themes in the series, too. Artyom was never meant to be a solo hero, capable of anything and everything with endless ambition and a constant sense of direction.
Hunter describes the metro as a living organism and himself as the cells seeking out cancer and liquidating it - the
macrophage, the hunter. Artyom seems starstruck, obviously putting this strange man on a pedestal because of his confidence and interesting occupation. Again, he acts his age and is humble and unassuming in the face of Hunter's questioning - he has no idea why someone as important and capable as Hunter would care about his opinions on matters of human survival. I can't tell if Hunter really sees something in Artyom or if he is taking advantage of his naivety and interest in adventure for his own gain. So far, Artyom hasn't shown any feats of bravery or unnatural interest in the outside world that differs from those of his peers.
They discuss Hunter's opinion that the Dark Ones are causing this unrest on purpose and using the terrified humans as a way to spread fear among others to possibly take over the metro. This type of thing is less apparent in the games. Whether or not the Dark Ones intend to inflict this kind of pain while trying to communicate is shown clearly in the games as false. I know that they're innocent and unaware of what they're doing via the game's endings, but will it be the same here?
Hunter encourages Artyom to share a secret with him and he'll give one in return. This feels a little slimy, like Hunter is taking advantage of his youth and his curiosity in order to lure him into a favor. I can't tell if Hunter knows Artyom's secret before it's told (there are some people, like Artyom, who have a sort of psychic sense and I wonder if book-Hunter is one of them). Artyom shares his experience going above ground as a child and how he left the gate open. Hunter insinuates this secret could get Artyom and his friends hanged if it ever got out. He grins and winks, but Artyom isn't sure if he's
really joking. I'm not either.
Hunter's secret; he's here to explore the Botanical Gardens and try to find out what's been "growing" there. He's going to attempt to pass the seven-hundredth meter and doesn't want Artyom to tell anyone unless he doesn't come back. If he doesn't, Artyom must go to Polis and look for a man named Melnik. This catches us up to the opening of the first game. This is where Artyom's adventure begins.