C
Man I fucking hate this book. Metro 2033 was far from perfect, but its story and world were rich enough for me to want to return for more. Metro 2034 is just bad all around, even in ways I didn’t think were possible in a professionally printed book. I don’t know what it is with the edition that I own, but the formatting of the text is infuriating. Words are broken up randomly with hyphens and paragraphs break whenever they feel like it. It’s like the print was made for a different page size and I have no idea how something like that would make it into production.
As far as the actual contents of the narrative go, this just doesn’t feel like the same world that was set up in the first book. A lot of the more fantastical cosmic horror is toned down to the point where it barely matters or seems to affect the daily lives of the metro citizens. There isn’t a strong distinction between the different stations’ cultures anymore, and the locations that are revisited in this story feel nothing like they were previously. I found it much harder to keep track of where characters were and their journey between the stations because of this. And because my edition of the book didn’t have any kind of map to refer to, I had to go back to my copy of Metro 2033 in order to follow along. This led to even more confusion as I remembered what certain stations were like, and how they don’t line up at all to what’s described in this book. One particular example I can point to is Avtozavodskaya station, previously the base of the Trotskyist communists, now taken over by the Reds despite them being at war with the Hansa circle and Avtozavodskaya being nowhere near either of those two factions’ territories. Instead of a natural shift in the political landscape in the time between the two books, it feels like either the author forgot what was supposed to be there or the translator did a terrible job; which he did by the way. To further confuse things, the names of stations and characters that are referenced or return from Metro 2033 are different from the english translation in that book. I don’t know which is more accurate, but just stick to one name between the two books dammit.
The story of Metro 2034 is told from multiple characters’ perspectives, and shifts between them multiple times within the same chapter. Call me a weirdo, but I like my chapters to focus on one thing at a time. This sort of story structure might’ve been less confusing if it weren’t for the lack of personality between each character followed. For the first two thirds of the book, the story crawls along at a snail’s pace, far more interested in the characters’ shallow, heavy-handed philosophical musings about what it means to be human than trying to solve the plot about figuring out what to do with a station that has come down with a contagious plague. It’s a character driven story where the characters don’t really have much drive. There is also this weird, vaguely romantic side plot between Sasha, Hunter, and Leonid that is not only utter nonsense, but insanely creepy considering she is only 17, and also pretty damn sexist when it’s described as a woman’s natural need to cling onto a strong man.
When the book realizes it needs to end, the plot rockets towards an ending so disappointing that it rivals a Stephen King novel. Plot threads literally go nowhere and back, and all of the ham-fisted messaging about maintaining individual humanity in the face of an existential threat literally goes in the water in a conclusion that just feels dour for the sake of it. There is no revelation like the first book, there is no real emotion besides frustration when I finished, there is only a waste of time to be found here.
Also one more thing. There is a character named Artyom that shows up halfway through this book who is not the same one as the main character from the first book. For God’s sake, just pick a different name.
Man I fucking hate this book. Metro 2033 was far from perfect, but its story and world were rich enough for me to want to return for more. Metro 2034 is just bad all around, even in ways I didn’t think were possible in a professionally printed book. I don’t know what it is with the edition that I own, but the formatting of the text is infuriating. Words are broken up randomly with hyphens and paragraphs break whenever they feel like it. It’s like the print was made for a different page size and I have no idea how something like that would make it into production.
As far as the actual contents of the narrative go, this just doesn’t feel like the same world that was set up in the first book. A lot of the more fantastical cosmic horror is toned down to the point where it barely matters or seems to affect the daily lives of the metro citizens. There isn’t a strong distinction between the different stations’ cultures anymore, and the locations that are revisited in this story feel nothing like they were previously. I found it much harder to keep track of where characters were and their journey between the stations because of this. And because my edition of the book didn’t have any kind of map to refer to, I had to go back to my copy of Metro 2033 in order to follow along. This led to even more confusion as I remembered what certain stations were like, and how they don’t line up at all to what’s described in this book. One particular example I can point to is Avtozavodskaya station, previously the base of the Trotskyist communists, now taken over by the Reds despite them being at war with the Hansa circle and Avtozavodskaya being nowhere near either of those two factions’ territories. Instead of a natural shift in the political landscape in the time between the two books, it feels like either the author forgot what was supposed to be there or the translator did a terrible job; which he did by the way. To further confuse things, the names of stations and characters that are referenced or return from Metro 2033 are different from the english translation in that book. I don’t know which is more accurate, but just stick to one name between the two books dammit.
The story of Metro 2034 is told from multiple characters’ perspectives, and shifts between them multiple times within the same chapter. Call me a weirdo, but I like my chapters to focus on one thing at a time. This sort of story structure might’ve been less confusing if it weren’t for the lack of personality between each character followed. For the first two thirds of the book, the story crawls along at a snail’s pace, far more interested in the characters’ shallow, heavy-handed philosophical musings about what it means to be human than trying to solve the plot about figuring out what to do with a station that has come down with a contagious plague. It’s a character driven story where the characters don’t really have much drive. There is also this weird, vaguely romantic side plot between Sasha, Hunter, and Leonid that is not only utter nonsense, but insanely creepy considering she is only 17, and also pretty damn sexist when it’s described as a woman’s natural need to cling onto a strong man.
When the book realizes it needs to end, the plot rockets towards an ending so disappointing that it rivals a Stephen King novel. Plot threads literally go nowhere and back, and all of the ham-fisted messaging about maintaining individual humanity in the face of an existential threat literally goes in the water in a conclusion that just feels dour for the sake of it. There is no revelation like the first book, there is no real emotion besides frustration when I finished, there is only a waste of time to be found here.
Also one more thing. There is a character named Artyom that shows up halfway through this book who is not the same one as the main character from the first book. For God’s sake, just pick a different name.