Roadside Picnic (Rediscovered Classics) [Paperback]

Arkady Strugatsky (Author), Boris Strugatsky (Author), Ursula K. Le Guin (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2012 | Series: Rediscovered Classics

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.

 

First published in 1972, Roadside Picnic is still widely regarded as one of the greatest science fiction novels, despite the fact that it has been out of print in the United States for almost thirty years. This authoritative new translation corrects many errors and omissions and has been supplemented with a foreword by Ursula K. Le Guin and a new afterword by Boris Strugatsky explaining the strange history of the novel’s publication in Russia.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[a] vivid new translation... it has survived triumphantly as a classic." —Publishers Weekly

"The story is carried out with a controlled fierceness that doesn't waver for a minute."  —Kirkus Reviews

"Brilliantly and beautifully written . . . a truly superb work of science fiction."  —Infinity Plus

"Lively, racy, and likable . . . complex in event, imaginative in detail, ethically and intellectually sophisticated." —Ursula K. Le Guin

"Amazing. . . . The Strugatskys' deft and supple handling of loyalty and greed, of friendship and love, of despair and frustration and loneliness [produces] a truly superb tale. . . . You won't forget it."  —Theodore Sturgeon

"No doubt: a powerful, classic work of science fiction. Certainly recommended."  —The Complete Review 

"If you're going to read just one Soviet-era Russian science fiction novel, it should be Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's dark, ambiguous Roadside Picnic." —io9

 

"The Strugatskys' worldview remains both uniquely cutting and replete with humanity . . . The characters' conflicted views of their troubled world make for a read that still feels fresh today. It's also a book that's bound to make you feel a little less sure of humanity's place in the universe."  —Discover 

 

 

About the Author

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are the most famous and popular Russian writers of science fiction, and the authors of over 25 novels and novellas. Their books have been widely translated and have been made into a number of films. Arkady Strugatsky died in 1991. Boris Strugatsky died in November 2012. Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, and other science-fiction classics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press; First Edition edition (May 1, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781613743416
• ISBN-13: 978-1613743416
• ASIN: 1613743416
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (100 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,315 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic work of Soviet sf April 28, 2012

By TChris TOP 50 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Soviet science fiction tended to be dark and surreal and ironic, a response to the oppressive environment in which it was born. Roadside Picnic, written by the Strugastky brothers in 1971, is no exception.

When aliens visited Earth, stopping briefly for (some speculate) a roadside picnic, they left their detritus behind in an area now known as the Zone. Surrounded by a wall and guarded by police, the Zone is accessible only to scientists and other employees of the Institute, including the explorers for alien artifacts who have been dubbed stalkers. A stalker who enters the Zone looking for alien treasure -- either as an employee of the Institute or to smuggle out items at night -- is always at risk: pockets of accelerated gravity, hell slime, and death lamps pose a constant threat. Apart from causing mutations in stalkers and their children, contact with the Zone leads to other anomalies, including animated corpses and -- for those who move away -- a tendency to attract accidents and natural disasters.

Red Schuhart is a stalker until, having seen enough friends die, he quits. After fathering a furry daughter, Schuhart returns to his old ways, dodging the police outside the Zone and death inside. He knows that stalkers who continue to push their luck end up dead, but when a final prize is dangled before him -- the mythical Golden Sphere that is said to grant wishes -- Schuhart cannot resist one last journey into the Zone.

Why does Schuhart risk his life as a stalker? Because self-reliance is all that has ever saved him from oblivion. He has always wanted to be his own boss, free from the slavery he associates with reporting to an employer. He considers himself an animal, riffraff, but he has never sold his soul, and that is the source of his strength.... Perhaps the Zone represents the black market -- the illegal and dangerous entrepreneurship, full of hidden hazards -- that was often the only path to upward mobility in the Soviet Union. Perhaps the Institute that seeks to control the artifacts removed from the Zone represents the Soviet government and its belief that power should reside in a central authority. Or perhaps this is just a good, apolitical story that happens to have been authored by Soviet writers. The novel's last words are unmistakably political, but they can also be read as a manifesto in support of intellectual freedom.

Roadside Picnic contains some interesting (but far from original) conversations about the nature of intelligence. It ends on a similar note, as Schuhart ponders his own intelligence, his own humanity, almost challenging the departed aliens to understand what it means to be human. Roadside Picnic is a philosophical novel as much as it is an action story, and it therefore isn't surprising that the ending is ambiguous, albeit powerful. This is a seminal work of Soviet science fiction, but it has much to offer sf fans the world over. If I could, I would give Roadside Picnic 4 1/2 stars. Read more ›

34 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exellent! May 23, 2012

By W.A.R.

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I read this book originally in Russian when I was eleven years old. I'm almost forty now and have to say that neither time nor language have taken anything away from this wonderful book. In my opinion this book is a great introduction to Brothers Strugatsky and Soviet Science Fiction in general.
I have to give special recognition to Olena Bormashenko for the excellent translation, she truly did justices to Strugatsky's unique style, staying true to both form and substance.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book July 1, 2012

By Arvin

Format:Paperback

I had not heard about this before, and am now a bit more interested in Soviet SF(!?), and after seeing a small piece on it in Popular Mechanics, got it quickly. I like 'found alien artifact' stories and this one has not dissapointed. Overall it is more a critique on the concept of how we as people would react to such an event, but there are enough small SF details to make it interesting to me. I recommend it for SF readers interested in SF philosophy and alien contact stories.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars amber-like buttons January 22, 2013

By Diplocaulus

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I think this was one of those situations where one goes into a book with certain expectations, and then ends up disappointed when it goes in a different direction.

I liked the premise of the story: aliens mysteriously leave behind garbage during a quick visit to Earth and people collect it. Some people work for sanctioned scientific institutes, others illegaly enter "The Zone" and find stuff to sell on the black market. The main character walks the line between both worlds, though finds himself more often than not working for the underground.

In the end, as much as the book's story fired my imagination, it equally frustrated or disappointed it. For every interesting side-effect of the alien artifacts, there are just as many red herrings or lame and forced ideas. The authors did a good job of creating the slang used by the underground to name the Zone's curiosities: empties, bug traps, grinders, &c. But somtimes I wished all that stuff was more fleshed out. The characters were well developed, but it seemed like the world was not. The book was filled with the internal dialogue and thought processes of the characters, so I felt like I got to know them pretty well. [I didn't necessarily like them, though.]

Many reviews I'd read before getting the book claimed it had a lot of philosophy and deep ideas, but aside from a handful of pages in the middle [where two men discuss what the relationship between humans and the aliens and their visit might mean or become] there really wasn't a whole lot of "philosophy" or depth. Just a lot of good-people-gone-wrong thinking about their motivations....

Anther odd thing: the book's 1st quarter is written in 1st person, but then shifts to 3rd person for the remainder of the book, even though the narrator from the 1st quarter is still the main character. That wasn't confusing, per se, but was strange and I'm not sure why the authors chose to do that. [Maybe that was explained in the authors' afterward which I did not entirely read.]

Just 2 stars might be a bit harsh. I wish I could give it 2.5, but it just didn't give me what I truly wanted to read. [And maybe that's not the book's fault, but I'm still only giving it 2 stars.] There was moment in the book (and this was quite nice, actually) where the main character remembers some amber-like buttons on his mother's coat. He recalled how, as a child, he imagined those buttons tasted like candy but ended up disappointed when he sucked on them and discovered they were flavorless. That's a pretty good way of describing how I felt about this book. Read more ›

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Are we monkeys or cavemen,ants or ghosts? April 3, 2013

By technoguy

Format:Paperback

This magnificent Russian SF novel is about 40 years old and was written by two Russian brothers,Arkady and Boris Strugatsky,and this is a new translation where the original language,idiomatic,slangy,violent and fresh,has been restored.Set in the early 70s,ostensibly in Canada.There are 4 chapters,detailing the life of Red Schuhart a stalker,who ventures illegally into the Zone,in spite of the extreme danger to retrieve the mysterious artefacts that alien visitors left scattered around.The book starts off with a description of the Zones,6 of which have been left randomly across the planet.Aliens have visited the earth and gone away again leaving behind them several landing areas littered with their refuse, bizarre technological wonders to be found in the Zones. These areas, where the physics of matter are warped in mysterious and dangerous ways, are thought to be the trash piles of aliens who dropped by for a picnic and didn't clean up after themselves The Zone in this novel,Harmont, has a town nearby that was changed by the alien visitation,where a thriving black market in alien products has grown up.The 1st chapter is written in the 1st person from Red's point of view,he is an amoral, lively, unpredictable buccaneer with a revolting vitality.Red has survived after many incursions into the Zone,and has a legendary status,but he isn't some exceptional or particularly unusual human being, but just some guy getting by as best he can in peculiar circumstances.The 1st time he gets out of the Zone where he went with a scientist to retrieve an "empty", two discs held together in space with nothing between them,we find out his girlfriend Guta is pregnant.We know that their child is likely to die or be born mutated due to his visits into the Zone....People are mundane,human relations ring true,there are no super intellects.Most of the characters are tough people leading degrading, discouraging lives,driven by lust,greed,fear and money.This innovation brings a lot of energy,describing the effects of this alien visitation on commonplace people,not an elite.

You meet Red's child,Monkey,over the 10 year period the novel takes place and you realize her strange mutation. Later chapters(3 more) are told in the 3rd person,this brings in more characters,scientists,traders,black marketers,and broadens the perspective and deepens our knowledge ,the stages in the growth of the frontier town which passes through a period of prosperity,the roles of the people in that society.There are conversation between different people about the Zone and scientists researching it and the people who live around the Zone.In one chapter ideas between Richard Noonan and a scientist are discussed about the purpose of the visit,the sociological implications of the advanced technology,was it to see the effects upon the human race,or to kick them a few rungs up the ladder of development,or was it a test,or was it sowing the seeds for a future harvest when the aliens returned?" The violations in the laws of causality is much more terrifying than a stampede of ghosts."Aliens might be indifferent to us and finally unknowable,we may only know them through the after-effects, a one-way contact. They are as far removed from us as we are to animals,insects.The exploration of levels ofconsciousness is good.

Red goes back again and again to the Zone to find the answers to all his problems,becoming mentally and physically changed.Movement away from the Zone leads to disasters and death to the places and people around the emigrants.The chapters in between the 1st and last chapters are one step away from the action(that is entry into the Zone by Red) where each character's viewpoint is distinct,where the authors describe the various deals,exploitations going on around the Zone and the madness of the free market economy. After imprisonment for trafficking in looted alien products, Schuhart agrees to one last expedition to the very heart of the Zone where resides a Holy Grail-like Golden Sphere, capable of granting any wish to the one who reaches it. Red has not sold his soul and can even take the moral high ground.He wants happiness,free for everyone,let no one be forgotten, he feels truly unworthy of the universe-shaping role that his wish will have. The words of an old friend shape his ultimate wish.

Objections to the publication(dragging on for 8 years)were moral,not ideological (contrary to what Ursula Le Guin says in the Forward),the language used,the lack of role models for Russian people,with the darkness,violence, drinking,crime and cursing.The story is racy,lively and pungent,the characters are individually vivid and likeable.The slice of life approach to the narrative works.Its not the plotting that's moving you forward,it's the different ideas,the jumps in time and perspective,societal changes,over 10 years.The ending is abrupt but awesome and the novel leaves you with many layers of commentary and social satire,amazing images and disturbing ideas,with subversive rumblings emerging into consciousness later.The authors have a great sense of humour, slyly poking fun at bureaucracy, and finding the humorous in the most mundane of everyday events .Their imaginative boldness was to posit an idea or theory of alien visitation and to cleverly describe the magical debris,the chemical and physical effects and changes,in a fresh inventive,idiomatic language,through down to earth characters.The shards,ashes, images,after-effects of who we are and what is our place in the universe.Because there are no pop cultural references nor references to the technology of their own time,the book has never dated and reads as if it had just been written.The technology of the aliens is far in advance of the technology we have today.This is SF as a feat of imagination,our limited human perspective on the immensity of the universe. Read more ›