Roadside Picnic

Tale of the Troika

by Boris Strugatsky, Борис Натанович Стругацкий, Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky

245 pages

English language

Published Jan. 1, 1977 by Macmillan.

ISBN:: 978-0-02-615170-2
OCLC Number:: 2910972
Goodreads:: 3885738

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(140 reviews)

Roadside Picnic is set in the aftermath of an extraterrestrial event called the Visitation that took place in several locations around the Earth, simultaneously, over a two-day period. Neither the Visitors themselves nor their means of arrival or departure were ever seen by the local populations who lived inside the relatively small areas, each a few square kilometers, of the six Visitation Zones. The zones exhibit strange and dangerous phenomena not understood by humans, and contain artifacts with inexplicable properties. The title of the novel derives from an analogy proposed by the character Dr. Valentine Pilman, who compares the Visitation to a picnic.

8 editions

Tak! reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Roadside Picnic

3 stars

Roadside Picnic reads like a love letter to functional alcoholism.

The basic premise is that there were a series of isolated visitations to earth by unknown aliens, who subsequently fucked off and never came back. However, the places where they visited are now strewn with various items and phenomena that behave inexplicably to modern science, in ways that are often extremely dangerous to humans.

In addition to scientists coming to study the visitation zones, this also results in a black market for harvested technology, with people ("stalkers") sneaking in to exfiltrate things at great personal risk.

It's clear that this is if nothing else a spiritual predecessor to Annihilation. Everything is focused around the weird and often brutally inscrutable, with no explanation required or given. It definitely shows its age (and possibly cultural origin), especially in terms of attitudes about gender roles.

The translation was very good imo. I was …

Roadside Picnic reads like a love letter to functional alcoholism.

The translation was very good imo. I was a little apprehensive after having read a terrible translation of Metro 2033, but no complaints on that front.

joelchrono reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Thought provoking and unique take on the first contact trope

4 stars

Roadside Picnic is one of the most unique books of science fiction I have read. A first contact story where we don’t get whats going on, things happen too quickly, and the aliens leave without further to do, and the world keeps spinning.

The only trace of their Visit is some areas known as The Zones, where strange phenomena and dangerous traps can ben found at every corner, as well as strange objects and alien technology beyond human understanding, that lies there for whoever is willing to take it.

Those who venture inside the Zone to scavenge those goods are known as stalkers. The artifacts they find they then sell to whoever is willing to pay, making it a lucrative, if dangerous job. Of course, the government is trying to investigate and find a use for those objects as well, so being a stalker is very much illegal.

In this …

In this story we follow Red, a stalker who is trying to have a normal life, but he finds himself returning to the Zone time after time. He is just a random guy who is pretty good at his job, and every time he keeps telling himself it will be the last.

Most of the characters are pretty much regular people trying to adapt to this new world, there’s barely any geniuses or amazing discoveries done thanks to the new alien technology, and if there is, it’s clear it’s being used for very simple purposes, like using a rocket engine to start a fire.

At the time, and still today, science fiction is seen from the lenses of formidable heroes, brilliant scientists and engineers. In this book, most people are normal humans, and talk like a normal human (althought I think some of it is lost in translation), and most of the physics and technology in the novel has nicknames and slang that is not really scientific, simply based on what an artifact does or looks like, such as empties, bugtraps and shriekers.

What I liked the most about this story is its exploration on how humans would react to this, as a whole. Nobody is trying to contact the aliens or to figure everything out, we don’t even get to know how they looked, or find any kind of message. The principles behind the Zones are a complete mystery to humankind. The technology is far too advanced, and the dangers are far too high for any efforts to bring any significant results.

The implications of it all are big, the insight of some of the characters about our place in the universe. One of my favorite bits was a conversation that shares lots of thoughts and ideas about the reason for the visit, how it affects society as a whole, and despite it all, Humanity keeps moving forward and adapts to this new reality as the status quo.

A fantastic read that only takes a few hours to read and really brings a very interesting outlook to life and our place in this universe. I highly recommend this one!

Zivan reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Review of 'Roadside Picnic' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

While very dated in its misogyny, smoking and technology, the inexplicable aliens trope feels modern.

I know works like Rendezvous with Rama were also published in the early 70s, but more familiar aliens that are easier to interact with are still more common in the genre, and going beyond the differently human sort of alien still feels revolutionary, or like playing sci-fi on hard mode.

Knowing that Roadside Picnic was written in The Soviet Union, it was also interesting to think about how this got through the political sensors, but when you understand that it is not set in Russia and can be portrayed as a critique of western decadence, things start making sense.

Red feels like an American hero going into the wilderness to seek his fortune. This could have been a western, about the last days of the true frontiers man.

I was able to get over the …

JP reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Very interesting and intriguing

4 stars

I enjoyed this a lot. It's surprising the level of world building that's achieved here given the length. The chapters are long and few, and each one gives you something different to take away about the Zone, how it affects regular people, and how some have learned to take advantage of it.

Len reviewed Piknik na robu ceste by Boris Strugatsky (Piknik)

A great read

No rating

This is a second Slovenian translation of Roadside Picnic and this time we got uncensored version of the book translated by the same translator. It has a very informative foreword which speaks about the fight that brothers Strugacky with the Soviet Union state bureaucracy to get this work published. What is really interested is that the censors in the end took out the bad language in the swear words. Roadside picnic is, according to the foreword, one of the few books that won the battle against censorship. The book is apolitical with slight anti-capitalist subtone so it is hard to imagine why it was not approved by the censors in the first place.

Regarding the book itself it is very gripping sci-fi thriller that questions what is humanity. It is almost at the top of my suggestion list.

helloCLD reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

M O O D

5 stars

Man, this book just exudes atmosphere. The way the story is told over time is great. Highly recommend.

Sarja reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Review of 'Roadside Picnic' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Nothing short of amazing.

jarizleifr reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Review of 'Roadside Picnic' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

If I had to pick one word to describe Roadside Picnic, it would be clever. All about this book feels rascalous, chaotic, full of energy and vitality. I think the main theme here is how people and culture can adapt to almost anything. No matter how bleak, odd or desperate the situation, the spark of life can be found in the most unexpected of places and that's something I'd gladly take to my heart from this book, especially in these trying times.

ManyRoads reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky (SF Collector's Edition)

Review of 'Roadside Picnic' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Reading this book in today's world actually seems to be sensible, as we careen into the abyss. The novella's premise is thought provoking, and the characters are 'warped' (in an interesting way).

Kat reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Taking the crumbs from the table

5 stars

Aliens visit earth and leave again, as if they were just stopping for a picnic along the way to somewhere more interesting. The people living near the visited sites (Zones) find all sorts of mysterious and often dangerous things left behind that shatter our concepts of physics and the possibilities of life. Scientists are no better off than anyone else tring to understand them. And that's the crux of it - when humans are so insignificant, so far away from understanding reality, there is really very little separating us. I've typed and deleted a few more things but felt like it cheapened the book's themes because ultimately I think they are affective rather than ideological. So I'll just keep them to myself.

loppear reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

even better

4 stars

Second read, the sense of absurdist normalcy around incomprehensible change drives every scene and is just gripping.

Holly Tulips reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

Oops

4 stars

I put the review in the finished book comment. I may be stupid.

tim reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

roadside picnic

5 stars

Really good modern translation (idk maybe the original reads that way too) but very cool to see all those little bits that have seeped into modern scifi everywhere

Matto reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky

My review of Roadside Picnic

5 stars

This is a great Science Fiction book ! An unputdownable page turner. Good story, good character development, very well written. I enjoyed it a lot, read it in two sittings :)

Sergio reviewed Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky (SF Collector's Edition)

Review of 'Roadside Picnic' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

A pretty solid soviet science fiction novel, in which prospectors referred to as Stalkers explore and retrieve artifacts from the Zone, the site of an alien visitation event years in the past. It has just the right amount of science fiction terminology, concepts and lore to string the reader along, but it's strength really is the character's interior voices and social commentary. I listened to the audiobook version with an afterword by one of the authors and found it particularly insightful.