ISBN: 9780575093133
Date read: 17/04/2021
How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
Support your local bookshop by going to Bookshop.org to buy your copy (instead of THAT online shopping website…)
“A picnic. Imagine: a forest, a country road, a meadow. A car pulls off the road into the meadow and unloads young men, bottles, picnic baskets, girls, transistor radios, cameras…A fire is lit, tents are pitched, music is played. And in the morning they leave.”[1]
Roadside Picnic is not your usual ‘first contact’ story. Unlike War Of The Worlds[2], where the aliens are invaders hell-bent on conquest, or Arrival[3], where the visitors from outer space are benevolent and want to communicate with us, in Roadside Picnic aliens have long since visited Earth and promptly moved on. Having not even acknowledged our existence, or possibly not noticed mankind at all, the aliens have left behind only their landing sites, several massive inhospitable areas known as Zones, and strange mechanical debris and extra-terrestrial junk that is now scavenged and sold by Stalkers, the name given to the only people willing to set foot in the dangerous Zones.
Redrick Schuhart is our protagonist, a veteran stalker whose entire life revolves around the Zone. Not just his livelihood, which has him illegally looting and selling alien technology to the highest bidder, but also his family life, with his daughter having been born as something not entirely human due to his lifelong exposure to the unknown hazards and forces of the Zone. Motivated by necessity, Red makes one last journey into the Zone, in search of a legendary alien object said to have the power to grant any human wish; the Golden Sphere.
I had heard loads about the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker (1979), which is an adaptation of the novel penned by Tarkovsky and the Strugatskys. There is also the videogame S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007), and I knew that they were both based on this novel. Over the years, I kept hearing Roadside Picnic being referenced in films, videogames and other books, so I finally picked up a copy. I’ve also wanted to get into more World Literature, and rather than start my Russian journey with something potentially tough, say a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy, I felt that a critically acclaimed sci-fi might be a good way to ease myself in.
This was an amazing read. The way that the Strugatskys go about world building is in much the same way as the best sci-fi and fantasy novels. We as the reader are dropped into a world that is alien to us, but perfectly normal to the characters. It is up to us to decipher the terminology and rules of this imaginary world. Due to this style of world building, the world of the book is completely believable and real, which is further aided by its blue-collar sensibility. The actually sci-fi event is complete background to the everyday struggles of the main character, namely making ends meet, supporting a family and a child with special needs, and trying to stay alive while doing it.
For the most part, the characters are not altruistic scientists, fascinated by the implications and consequences of the event known as The Visit and how it will benefit humanity. No, they are morally questionable opportunists, who couldn’t care less about the fact that aliens exist, let alone that they have actually visited our planet. All of the characters and the world itself seem to be caked in the dust, grime and cosmic radiation of the Zone. Everyone smokes. Everyone drinks. Everyone curses. They are more concerned with making a quick buck on the black market by selling the technology the aliens have left behind. Nobody understands the alien artefacts they are tampering with, and nobody seems to care, so long as they are valuable. The artefacts are highly useful to us, but also highly dangerous, and the scientists and stalkers never learn from the technology; they could well be using an alien’s toothbrush as a source of limitless energy to power human inventions.
The novel’s more sci-fi elements, like the hazards and reality-defying nature of the zone itself, are described in a truly terrifying way. Similar to the works of Lovecraft,[4] the things that will kill you in the Zone almost defy human description, and the way the Strugatskys make them appear and behave really gives the reader that sense of being in the presence of something completely beyond human understanding.
The book is damn near perfect sci-fi; short, sweet, to the point and memorable. The writing style is so good that anyone who remotely likes sci-fi, or even fiction in general, will be able to lose themselves in this one. And at only 193 pages, it goes by in a flash. Read it now. It’s talked about as one of The Greats for a reason.
You might also like…
- Stalker (1979 film)- Andrei Tarkovsky’s famous film adaptation of the novel, with a screenplay written by himself and the Strugatskys. It differs quite substantially from the novel, and many viewers might find it a hard watch, but it is an amazing companion piece to the book and covers even more intriguing ideas, concepts and characters. Do a bit of research on it first, then if it sounds like your thing, do check it out. It is definitely worth your time.
[1] Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Roadside Picnic, (London: Gollancz, 2012) pp. 131-132
[2] H.G Welles’s sci-fi classic from 1898
[3] 2016 film directed by Denis Villeneuve, based on the 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang
[4] H.P Lovecraft (1890 –1937), American writer of horror fiction, known for his creation of what became the Cthulhu Mythos.