This is the first time I’m doing a book originally translated from a foreign language, but this book has definitely been one of my favorites. Although I’ve heard the translation was a bit off in some parts, I really liked this book because of the way the author seamlessly blended the horror and action of this book with some philosophy.

This story is set in 2033, in the tunnels of the Moscow metro system after a nuclear war wiped out most of humanity’s population. The surviving population in the massive fallout shelter that is the metro system eventually split by station, with separate metro stations becoming their own city-states, waging war, and forming confederacies amongst themselves. This first book in Glukhovsky’s three-book series introduces and covers Artyom, a young man from VDNKH, which is under threat from entities only known as “the dark ones”, who may not be what they seem.

The story starts with Artyom meeting up with a man named Bourbon, who promised to pay Artyom a hefty sum if he helped him get through several tunnels in the metro system. However, as they go along on the Journey, Bourbon mysteriously dies. A stranger named Khan then saves him, and Artyom realizes that Bourbon may not have paid him after all, but would rather have double-crossed him. After Khan and Artyom make their way to another station called Kitai Garod, presumably named after the section of Moscow that it is under. The two become separated at this station due to an attack by fascists from another station, and Artyom is captured. Right when he is about to be executed, Marxist revolutionaries rescue him.

Eventually, Artyom meets a stalker named Melnik, who in the context of this book, is somebody who goes to the surface in order to find supplies and other important items. Artyom delivers a message that he was supposed to get to him. The two eventually go to the great library at the surface, with another person, Daniel, in order to retrieve a map. However, this goes badly, as Daniel perishes in the process to a creature in the library, and Artyom barely makes it back to the metro alive.

I won’t spoil the rest of the book, but this book was definitely a very interesting one, as it is much different from most of the other post-apocalyptic novels I’ve read. The author is very philosophical in his telling of this story, which makes this book stand out from the rest, as well as using the events that happen in the book to represent things in real life. I would recommend this book to anybody who really loves post-apocalyptic or horror novels.