Title: Metro 2034
Author: Dmitry Glukhovsky
Translator (English): Andrew Bromfield
Series: Metro #2
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic
Pages: 320
Published: 2009, Gollancz (translated 2014)
My Grade: 2.5 out of 5 flutes

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

It’s the year 2034. After a devastating war much of the world lies in ruins. Moscow is a ghost town. A few survivors retreated into the depths of the underground network to build a new civilization. They found only darkness…

At the Sevastopol station, cut off from the Metro, a man appears. Colonel Hunter. He fights a lonely war against the dark, journeying deep into the monster haunted depths of the tunnels. At his side is Homer, an old man who knows the legends of the Metro like no other and will write its history. When the two meet the 17-year-old Sasha, Homer believes he has found the found the perfect pair for his epic poem. But will they live to write the tale?

These are the voyages of Hunter.

MY REVIEW

I kind of want to say: finally! It took forever to read this book and I am honestly disappointed. Metro 2033 was soooo good, and this one fell flat in comparison. The first two thirds were weird. There were strange descriptions that didn’t really lead anywhere, a strange language that was gone in the last third. The story didn’t really move forward in that first section either. I just wanted it to end. I was excited to read about the mysterious Hunter, and sure he went through some stuff, but he is a totally different person in a bad way. He is not intriguing nor mysterious anymore. And I don’t feel like this is the voyages of Hunter, this is a book about Homer and his stupid imaginations that he will become like the old real Homeros. That old man is annoying and has a strange point of view in life. He is however a man with an interesting past, and I enjoyed reading about what happened to him before life in the Metro began.

Then there is the side story about Sasha, the exiled girl who finally gets to see the Metro. I don’t really know what I think of her. In some passages I found her very annoying, sometimes pretty cool.

The last third of the book was good though and it was gone in two days. Stuff happened and it was written in a whole other way which made it easier to read. Even if the ending was good, I still don’t feel like I can give it a 3. A 2 is too litte, but I did feel like some time was wasted while reading it. So a 2.5 feels reasonable.

I think this is a book I will reread one day, but the Swedish translation. I have heard that the Swedish ones are better than the English when it comes to this series (and maybe Russian books in general?).