I don’t usually spoil anything I write about. This book works better unspoiled but the way the world currently is this post has more value with spoilers. I will spoil the major plot points. Before I go to spoilers I say this is best book in Metro trilogy. Russia invaded Ukraine when I was listening the book. Book felt quite different after that. Don’t comment about supporting Russia or buying Russian goods. I got this before the invasion and was listening it before invasion. To spoilers.
Metro trilogy happens about 20 years after nuclear war. World has been destroyed. Only survivors live in Moscow metro. That is what we think after first two books. First book’s protagonist Artyom tries to contact other survivors. He is only one trying to do it. Others attempt to discourage him. Metro is divided into different factions which fight each other. You have fascists and communists who do most of the fighting. Other factions concentrate on other things.
Metro 2035 gives quite bleak picture of people living in metro. We meet communists’ prisoners who don’t want to escape because they think they might not be punished if they stay in prison. Everyone except Artyom rather stay where they are instead of leaving the metro. Even after they learn the truth. Artyom wants to lead people away from metro but people rather stay in metro.
We learn others survived too. Moscow has radiation problem because it was shot with nuclear missiles. But people can live normally away from Moscow. Or as normally as you can after nuclear war. Why people in metro think they are only survivors? There are jammers around Moscow which block all radio communication. Jammers are there because people running the metro assume war is still going on and enemy will launch nuclear attack if they knew there were survivors in Moscow.
After this we learn there really are no fascists or communists or any other factions. It is really just people behind the scenes trying to control metro population. They divide people into different factions and try to limit population with fighting. Factions’ leaders know what is going on into some extent and they provide resources to keep jammers running.
Why I wanted to spoil this? You need to know the situation before I talk about depressing ending. People of metro could leave anytime they want. They could if they weren’t fearing the enemy and thinking any change to current situation leads only to worse situation. In long ending Artyom wants to convince others to leave with him but everyone rather stay in metro than leave. They prefer their miserable life in metro to going outside. One mother rather let her child die than let him leave with Artyom. That ending hit really hard after reading from Twitter what is currently happening in Russia.