This is a very good read. I started the third volume and it looks like they can be read independently.
Glukhovsky published his first novel on the Internet for free in 2002, he wrote it at the age of 18. Immediately he got three million readers.
The main story is that after an atomic war, some Moscow residents remain alive in the extensive Metro stations and tunnels. There are some deformed people too. The literary portrayal was so good for the next generation that they decided to make an online video game on the sequel volume: Metro Last Light.
You can find an English pdf here:
Metro English pdfAs much as I read, DG is a genius - he unites the deep sarcasm and observation of human nature that is common in
the East European literature of the past two hundred years, especially Russian, with the practical details and action-oriented parts common to Western sci-fi classics. The world he portrays is the most interesting, most likely he played with it for years in his mind before writing about it.
He is an intellectual who has worked with various radio and TV stations (including earlier at Russia Today), and has a very blunt, pessimistic view on Putin's Russia - already his books depict the taking apart of Soviet nostalgia and a subsequent Russian version of fascism - which is starting to happen since he published his books.
So I'm reading METRO 2035 - and it's good as hell! Both from a literary point of view and the world he constructs.
Radiation he not only imagines - he worked for a while with Mayak people too.