Echo of an Extinguished World (Polish: Echo zgasłego świata) is a book that is part of the Universe of Metro 2033, a long-running series of short stories, novellas and novels written by different authors, all set in the world of Metro. Echo of an Extinguished World, written by numerous Polish authors, was originally published in March of 2016. Although there is currently no English version of the book, Echo of an Extinguished World has been translated into one other Slavic language - Russian. The book was translated to Russian by Leonid Dobkach and published in Russia on the 18th of May, 2016.
It was the sixth entry in the series created by Poles. Similarly to its predecessors In the Firelight and Whispers of the Fallen, Echo of an Extinguished World is a collection of 14 short stories by 14 writers, which were selected for publication by a joint jury of admins and fans on the official Polish portal of the series: metro2033.pl. In Poland, it is available in both print and e-book formats. In Russia, it was released as an e-book file available for free download.
Synopsis[]
Two of the stories contained within this collection are set in Moscow: one reveals the secrets of a peculiar ceremony held at one of the stations, while the other recounts the crooked fate of a gang of common thieves caught by Hanza during a failed heist. Two other chapters of Echo of an Extinguished World expand the known Universe of Metro 2033 by adding two entirely new locations to its repertoire - the Stockholm Metro in Sweden (where an outbreak of a hallucinogenic virus leads to the downfall of the Solna centrum station) and Dunmore Cave in Ireland (where a mentally unstable Polish immigrant and a group of Irish people have lived through the war, but the arrival of a mutated, hyperintelligent spider-like being rives their community).
The rest of the book is set in Poland. One of the stories was written by Paweł Majka, author of The Promised District, and takes place in Kraków's Nowa Huta district during winter, featuring one of the main characters from Majka's novel. Several others take us to the Silesian region of the country, showing us how people have survived in old mines as well as the grim tunnels of Project Riese. Elsewhere in the southern part of Poland, a religious cult has endured within Giewont, whereas Zabrze's former mine houses a society that preforms a "lottery" every time a child is born to dictate who will leave to die on the surface. Up north in Gdańsk Bay people live on a set of connected boats, while the inhabitants of Gdynia's military shelters try to reach other survivors by radio from the city's abandoned torpedo station. In the east, where Warsaw lies, the Varsovian Metro has provided refuge for some of the capital's denizens.
Trivia[]
- The gask mask seen on the book's front cover is the MP-6 "Apollo", designed and produced in Poland - used by the Polish Armed Forces since 2012, phasing out the earlier MP-5.