Now including a new translation, this is a chilling piece of Russian dystopian fiction and the basis of three bestselling computer games Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light, and Metro: Exodus The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct.

The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind.

But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend. More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness.

The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new wor