Metro 2033
The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend.More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over.A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth. They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price. VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
8mentions
8people
2011–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I really enjoyed Josiah Bancroft's Babel series: start with Senlin Ascends. I feel like he enjoys writing sentences -- a strange way to put it, but, I think he does. But this is an extraordinary book on its own.
For the ultimate in non-basic vocab, try Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.
The English translation of Metro 2033 is amazing. You can feel the stylistic differences originating in the Russian language, and it's a very evocative horror story with slightly longer sentences and richer language than ordinary books.
Both the Babel books and Metro 2033 (especially) were inspirations for me, writing my novel. And Wolfe is one of my literary heroes, one of the most amazing writers I have ever read. Every one of his novels is rewarding, often through not just language but complexity of plot and narrator. He uses unreliable narrators a lot; beautifully, in one of his series the narrator has amnesia and cannot remember what occurred the previous day, so writes notes to himself. (Soldier of the Mist. Also rewarding once you figure out the name and location references.)
An older classic: Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan is extraordinary in language, but also in the rhythm of sentences. Definitely one written to be read with a voice, not just internally.
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville has dense prose. Wonderful book, very rewarding to read.
- Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. There's a series of games based on the books but I'm enjoying the storytelling in the book far more. Basic premise is after nuclear war survivors have built a new society inside of the tunnels and stations of the Moscow metro system. There's mutants and other threats, but I don't want to spoil too much.
- It’s driven by nuclear war, but check out Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It takes place in the Moscow Metro where people live after a prolonged nuclear winter (with mutants). There is a subsequent video game series derived from the book.
- Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033
- Some recent works:
"Metro 2033" by Dmitry Glukhovsky - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033
"Night Watch" by Sergei Lukyanenko - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_%28Lukyanenko_nove...
- This is also mentioned in Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro_2033_(book) Amazing science fiction book.
