147 pages
English language
Published Nov. 10, 2007 by Gollancz.
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.
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).
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.
Interesting idea, but the prose is uneven (though that may be due to the translation) and the characters are both unconvincing and unlikeable, making it hard work to engage with the story.
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.
Two decades have passed since the Visitation, when aliens visited Earth. The landscape has been left permanently altered. The so-called "Zones" remain quarantined, full of extraterrestrial disease, incomprehensible anomalies, and mysterious debris. Scientists continue to study the remains of the aliens' visit, and scavengers called "stalkers" prowl the Zones in secret, putting their lives on the line to steal artifacts for the black market. This short novel follows one such stalker, Redrick "Red" Schuhart, tracing the impact of the Zone on him and the other people in the adjacent semi-deserted town of Harmont.
I read this book in one sitting, as the premise is incredibly compelling. While the book would have been interesting enough had it focused entirely on the stalker's perilous adventures in the Zone, a great deal of attention is devoted to exploring how contact with the capital-U Unknowable changes the characters. The aliens themselves never make an …
Two decades have passed since the Visitation, when aliens visited Earth. The landscape has been left permanently altered. The so-called "Zones" remain quarantined, full of extraterrestrial disease, incomprehensible anomalies, and mysterious debris. Scientists continue to study the remains of the aliens' visit, and scavengers called "stalkers" prowl the Zones in secret, putting their lives on the line to steal artifacts for the black market. This short novel follows one such stalker, Redrick "Red" Schuhart, tracing the impact of the Zone on him and the other people in the adjacent semi-deserted town of Harmont.
I read this book in one sitting, as the premise is incredibly compelling. While the book would have been interesting enough had it focused entirely on the stalker's perilous adventures in the Zone, a great deal of attention is devoted to exploring how contact with the capital-U Unknowable changes the characters. The aliens themselves never make an appearance, and rather than a first contact scenario it's suggested that we humans are merely terrified and uncomprehending insects picking over the incidental litter of their brief visit (the titular "roadside picnic"). Despite their close proximity to the unknown, the humans largely continue to be driven by self-interest, lusting for money and fame. Despite this—if my interpretation of the ambiguous finale is correct—the book ends with the faintest glimmer of hope that humanity can move past their baser instincts.
Despite all the mystery and unanswered questions, this was an exciting and satisfying read. Although there are no direct connections, I think fans of Lovecraft's cosmic horror will especially appreciate this book.
I didn't like any of the characters, but the rest of the book was OK, I suppose.
Light on plot and character, and the translation feels a bit off, but this is my kind of sci-fi: bleak, ambiguous, full of haunting images and that sense of awe that we don't understand much of anything in the universe.
Great concept of indifferent inscrutable alien encounter and struggling scrabbling border characters.
liked it.
