METRO 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky

I finally got to the end of this 'terrifying underground cult bestseller', but it was a bit of a struggle. There were three reasons why.

Firstly, the style is very 'Russian'. It's convoluted, monotonic; sometimes people say things that just don't register; sometimes things happen that nobody seems to take any notice of. Okay, it's just a style. Maybe you'd get to grips with it better than I would.

Secondly, the hero of the novel spends all his time moving from one underground unpronounceable station to another; each station has a different culture, mostly all very downbeat and degenerate. I got a bit tired of following a metro map. Okay, you might live better with that than I did.

Thirdly, the timescale doesn't seem right. The world has been blasted by a nuclear holocaust; the few humans that remain are huddled in the metro; but all around are weird forms of life formed by radioactivity. Above ground are giant birds, strange four-legged predators apparently descended from librarians; the Kremlin has been taken over by a gigantic primordial oil-based soup. All this is less than fifty years? I don't think so. This problem permeated my thoughts as I ploughed through the book, and rather spoiled it for me. Now that I've pointed it out, it would probably spoil it for you, too.

It's not a bad book. I just didn't enjoy it all that much.

add comment | read comments (0) 2017-03-05