Paperback, 160 pages
English language
Published Nov. 10, 1979 by Penguin Books.
A troubled man leads a writer and a scientist into "The Zone", a mysterious area where the laws of physics no longer apply. All three journey towards "The Room", which supposedly has the power to fulfill the innermost wishes of anyone who enters therein.
Dark and gritty Soviet science fiction. It has a video game-like quality. The characters and their nicknames are well-conceived. The overall crushing cynicism has a Russian feel to it.
I have loved both the Roadside Picnic and the Monday starts on a Saturday. I've specifically tracked this edition for the Tale of Troika to see what else the wizards/scientists at NITWIT were up to next and I loved it.
This has to be one of the most scolding satires of the Soviet bureaucracy, especially their tendency to make a committee for everything. I have recognized so many people from both my experience, and from stories from other people I know in these characters that it has taken me four or five times as long to read through this short story simply because I just couldn't stop laughing at times and had to take breaks.
The ceremonial launch of the elevator and the request for a purple Extraterrestrial with four eyes and four arms to prove that he is in fact not from Earth really got me... you have no …
I have loved both the Roadside Picnic and the Monday starts on a Saturday. I've specifically tracked this edition for the Tale of Troika to see what else the wizards/scientists at NITWIT were up to next and I loved it.
This has to be one of the most scolding satires of the Soviet bureaucracy, especially their tendency to make a committee for everything. I have recognized so many people from both my experience, and from stories from other people I know in these characters that it has taken me four or five times as long to read through this short story simply because I just couldn't stop laughing at times and had to take breaks.
The ceremonial launch of the elevator and the request for a purple Extraterrestrial with four eyes and four arms to prove that he is in fact not from Earth really got me... you have no idea.
I do not wish to reveal more for I will only spoil the jokes. If you liked Monday starts on a Saturday, there is a good chance you will love this story even more.
