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juushikaTitle: Metro 2033
Author: Dmitry Glukhovsky
Translator: Natasha Randall
Published: London: Orion, 2010 (2005)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 451
Total Page Count: 139,892
Text Number: 410
Read Because: fan of the game, e-book free with Steam purchase of Metro: Last Light
Review: Two decades after nuclear war destroyed the surface world, life persists underground in the tunnels of Moscow Metro. Artyom leaves his childhood home to journey the metro, bringing warning of a new threat: dangerous, radiation-created telepathic mutants called Dark Ones. Fans of the game will find the book familiar, both in story and mechanics—the book was prime for adaptation, and makes one wonder what other books would make good games. But the book's Artyom is better fleshed out, an inexperienced and frustrating young man who nonetheless makes for a more personal guide to the metro. Metro 2033 is in many ways his travelogue, a collection of stations visited, people met, philosophies encountered. It's talky, overlong, and underwritten, but the contents are compelling. The metro is a grim and believable world, lived-in and detailed, suffused with horror and, sometimes unexpectedly, with creativity. In many ways it's extremely limited—such as the existence of only one named female character, Artyom's dead mother—and even more often it wants for tighter editing and a narrower purview. Metro 2033 is fatally flawed but its world is worth a visit, and I recommend it with reservation.
The adaptation from book to game is spot-on: game mechanics like bullets as currency and the use of gas masks come straight from the book (this kind of dystopic literature provides natural survival mechanics), and setting and plot are faithfully recreated. This is the only book/game adaptation which which I'm familiar with both iterations (although not much falls into this category in the first place), but it's such a successful transition that it makes me wonder what other books could do the same. Two things seem key: potential interactivity and—likely, but not necessary—violence as a problem-solving method, since games are by definition interactive and violence is their most common form of interaction.
Should you read Metro 2033 if you've played or watched Metro 2033? Eh. If you want to. The book's world is more detailed and varied, but given the bloated scope of the book that's not necessarily a good thing. The game does most of what the book does, but the book does it artlessly—it's talky, repetitive, and Randall's translation is particularly bland—whereas the game, however flawed, reduces some redundancy and still renders the same dystopic, surreal, haunted world. The book is quieter and more philosophical; the game is more consumable. Arytom is the book's primary selling point: he's often annoying but always an existent character, filling the gaping hole in the game(s). Normally I prefer text as a storytelling medium, but Metro 2033 as a novel is far from remarkable—intriguing, yes, but not particularly good; you don't need to read it to appreciate the Metro world.
Also telling is how much it bothered me that the book had not a single talking, named female character. The game doesn't, either—Metro: Last Light has one, identifiable by her gender and, unsurprisingly, sexually available to Artyom—but it didn't bother me nearly as much. This is in part because the games have more women in the background of towns, functioning as flavor text (book Artyom rarely notices women)—but mostly, it's because I'm even more accustomed to seeing women erased from video games than I am from books, and therefore more tolerant of it. So there's that.
Author: Dmitry Glukhovsky
Translator: Natasha Randall
Published: London: Orion, 2010 (2005)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 451
Total Page Count: 139,892
Text Number: 410
Read Because: fan of the game, e-book free with Steam purchase of Metro: Last Light
Review: Two decades after nuclear war destroyed the surface world, life persists underground in the tunnels of Moscow Metro. Artyom leaves his childhood home to journey the metro, bringing warning of a new threat: dangerous, radiation-created telepathic mutants called Dark Ones. Fans of the game will find the book familiar, both in story and mechanics—the book was prime for adaptation, and makes one wonder what other books would make good games. But the book's Artyom is better fleshed out, an inexperienced and frustrating young man who nonetheless makes for a more personal guide to the metro. Metro 2033 is in many ways his travelogue, a collection of stations visited, people met, philosophies encountered. It's talky, overlong, and underwritten, but the contents are compelling. The metro is a grim and believable world, lived-in and detailed, suffused with horror and, sometimes unexpectedly, with creativity. In many ways it's extremely limited—such as the existence of only one named female character, Artyom's dead mother—and even more often it wants for tighter editing and a narrower purview. Metro 2033 is fatally flawed but its world is worth a visit, and I recommend it with reservation.
The adaptation from book to game is spot-on: game mechanics like bullets as currency and the use of gas masks come straight from the book (this kind of dystopic literature provides natural survival mechanics), and setting and plot are faithfully recreated. This is the only book/game adaptation which which I'm familiar with both iterations (although not much falls into this category in the first place), but it's such a successful transition that it makes me wonder what other books could do the same. Two things seem key: potential interactivity and—likely, but not necessary—violence as a problem-solving method, since games are by definition interactive and violence is their most common form of interaction.
Should you read Metro 2033 if you've played or watched Metro 2033? Eh. If you want to. The book's world is more detailed and varied, but given the bloated scope of the book that's not necessarily a good thing. The game does most of what the book does, but the book does it artlessly—it's talky, repetitive, and Randall's translation is particularly bland—whereas the game, however flawed, reduces some redundancy and still renders the same dystopic, surreal, haunted world. The book is quieter and more philosophical; the game is more consumable. Arytom is the book's primary selling point: he's often annoying but always an existent character, filling the gaping hole in the game(s). Normally I prefer text as a storytelling medium, but Metro 2033 as a novel is far from remarkable—intriguing, yes, but not particularly good; you don't need to read it to appreciate the Metro world.
Also telling is how much it bothered me that the book had not a single talking, named female character. The game doesn't, either—Metro: Last Light has one, identifiable by her gender and, unsurprisingly, sexually available to Artyom—but it didn't bother me nearly as much. This is in part because the games have more women in the background of towns, functioning as flavor text (book Artyom rarely notices women)—but mostly, it's because I'm even more accustomed to seeing women erased from video games than I am from books, and therefore more tolerant of it. So there's that.
