Tag: post-apocalypse

Book: Dmitry Glukhovsky “Outpost”

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I hesitated for a long time before picking up this book, because I have mixed feelings about Dmitry Glukhovsky, shaped by his Metro series. On the one hand, it’s genuinely a very interesting concept and execution; on the other, while I liked the first novel, Metro 2033, the second—and especially the third—mostly surprised me, and even disappointed me.

And even though I’d heard plenty of feedback about Outpost, I only got around to it after the war with Ukraine began, when almost everyone started saying that Glukhovsky had “seen it all coming” back then. That’s when I got genuinely curious: what exactly was it that Dmitry Glukhovsky supposedly predicted?

The novel opens by showing us a small settlement near a bridge across the Volga, by what used to be Yaroslavl. And now this is the very border of the state. Because at some point, a war broke out in the country, the mutiny was put down, but everything beyond the Volga can no longer be called inhabitable land, since some kind of weapon made it unfit for life. And the people at the outpost on the border are tasked with watching this single route into the cursed lands—just in case, so that no kind of nastiness crawls out of there.

And the lion’s share of the first volume is taken up by a description of life in this settlement—the remnants of all of Yaroslavl, where, judging by the description, only a few dozen residents are left alive, scraping by, somehow living, and even raising children. But the way this everyday grind is described, in my opinion, is drawn out too much. The plot moves very slowly, and all these abundant domestic details feel depressing at first.

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Book: Dmitry Glukhovsky “Metro 2035”

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In September, I wrote in this blog about the game Metro: Exodus—the latest part in the trilogy about Artyom. I also briefly covered the original source material, Dmitry Glukhovsky’s Metro series. The first game followed the plot of the first book quite closely, but after that, the games and books began to diverge, though they clearly influenced each other, especially since Dmitry Glukhovsky was heavily involved in the development of the games.

I really liked the first book in the series back in the day, despite some critiques of its writing style. However, it was easy to forgive the author because the concept was so intriguing. The plot itself wasn’t new: yet another “messiah” traveling from point A to point B to bring happiness to everyone. But the setting of a post-apocalyptic world, where only a few survivors now have to live underground—this was captivating. Glukhovsky added mysticism and science fiction elements, and, unexpectedly, the book became a hit, turning Dmitry Glukhovsky into a mega-star. His books have been translated into numerous languages, Metro inspired a highly successful video game, and his relatively new novel Text was adapted into a film in Russia featuring top Russian actors. But I covered all of this in my last post, so I won’t repeat myself.

After the first book, I quickly read the second, but it featured different characters and lacked both the originality and emotional impact of the first. However, when Glukhovsky released the third book in the series in 2015, I bought it immediately and started reading right away. I managed to get through at most 100 pages before putting it down in frustration and even wrote a brief, emotional post on Facebook. I simply couldn’t keep reading—I disliked the book that much.

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