Your impressions of Metro 2035

Metro 2035 has been out for a while now - first in Russia, second in Poland, third in Hungary, and now a few other countries have it as well. I only started reading it 2 days ago, because I didn't have much time or interest before that, and finished it yesterday. I'm glad I finally motivated myself to do it though.

In my opinion, it's a love it or hate it kind of book - especially for fans of the series. I won't spoil anything here, at least for now. Pretty much the entire first half of the novel is a bit of a drag. However, when it reaches a certain point in the narrative around the midway point, it really speeds up from there. Not necessarily the action, but definitely my interest in the plot was completely renewed and only grew after that. I was also happy to see some returning characters and how well they were implemented here. Metro 2035 is much more political than Glukhovsky's previous works. Metro 2033 was the first and perhaps most atmospheric of the trilogy - introducing the reader to this strange new world; the second part, Metro 2034, tried to be much more philosophical. This one on the other hand kinda takes a little from both, but like I said it ends up feeling much more political. It's an even harsher critique of present-day Russia than the other two. Perhaps it suffers a bit on the traditional atmospheric side, yet I personally preferred this as it felt more fresh.

Artyom is quite different in this book. You can still see the young man that was the protagonist of Metro 2033, but 2 years on (after all the shit he's been through) he is much more mature, confident and capable. At the same time, fortunately Glukhovsky didn't turn him into a stereotypical silent badass, you can still see that he is young and stubborn so there is plenty of the old Artyom left. Some of the Polish fans really disliked this changed Artyom though. On a few occasions in the book he does make some decisions where you just wanna grab him by the collar and backhand him, but overall I think I actually liked this Artyom much more. He has more personality and is wiser. Another thing I really liked was this one psychedelic section in the book. It was quite weirdly written in a way that was hard to read with missing punctuation. It was done purposefully and it actually kinda worked. In general, I felt as though Glukhovsky's style as a writer has evolved and gotten much more unqiue (in my opinion for the better). Overall, it certainly feels different and kinda sticks the whole Moscow Metro upside down by the end of the plot.

Ok, I know that most of you here are Anglophones and will have to wait for an English translation of the novel before you can share your impressions. But on the small chance that someone else here has already read Metro 2035 in another language, I am posting this thread now. If not, then maybe it will be dug up once the English translation is finally released. Alternatively, if anyone wants to know something else about Metro 2035, feel free to ask me here. However, before you do, check this. I've added a synopsis with only minor spoilers for the early part of the book and a section about how Last Light ties into this. You may already find what you're looking for there. On the other hand, if you want to start reading the novel completely clean like I do, I'd advise against even those minor spoilers.

To finish I'd like to leave a nice short fragment from Metro 2035 that is taken out of context and doesn't spoil anything, just to give you a taste (note that I translated this to English from Polish, which was earlier translated from Russian, so that's why it may sound awkward):

Lovely imagery, isn't it?

 

A few of the Universe of Metro 2033 books have actually been published in Spanish, so you may get lucky there.

 

You may be able to buy a printed one and get it delivered, although an e-book version will probably end up being much cheaper. Spain also got the first novel from Dyakov's trilogy - that's also worth a read. Check here. I won't be able to come up with any websites that have it up for free since I don't speak Spanish, however I would recommend buying what you want to read to support the series. Maybe eventually they will print more of them in Spanish. Although outside of Russia the series seems to have only really taken off in Poland, to a much lesser extent Germany and Hungary as well. Italy and Spain got some of the novels translated too (and of course Avoledo wrote his own), but I don't think they enjoy much popularity in either of these two countries.