Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika

by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky, Antonina W. Bouis (Translator)

Part of the Soviet Science Fiction Series, with an introduction by Theodore Sturgeon.

Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those strange misfits compelled to venture illegally into the Zone and collect the strange artefacts that the alien visitors left scattered there. His whole life, even the nature of his daughter, is determined by the Zone.


En la Unión Soviética, como en los Estados Unidos, la fascinación por las posibilidades de la ciencia y la tecnología produjo una larga y rica tradición de ciencia ficción. Los hermanos Strugatsky son sin duda las primeras figuras del género en su pais. Las dos novelas cortas que integran este volumen tienen una introducción de Theodore Sturgeon.

"Picnic extraterrestre" trata de una fugaz visita de seres de otro planeta, que dejan en la Tierra algunos desperdicios, algo así como los restos de un picnic. Estos productos son de una tecnología extraña ponen en juego toda suerte de ambiciones humanas.

"Leyendas de la Troika" es una sátira sobre un futuro lejano en el que el mundo se divide en innumerables pisos conectados por ascensores que nunca funcionan. Clara denuncia a la irracionalidad burocrática, "Leyendas de la Troika" es absolutamente diferente de "Picnic Extraterrestre", lo que prueba la extraordinaria versatilidad de los hermanos Strugatsky.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Russia, Classics, Post Apocalyptic, Humor, Russian Literature

245 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

The brothers Arkady Strugatsky [Russian: Аркадий Стругацкий] and Boris Strugatsky [Russian: Борис Стругацкий] were Soviet-Russian science fiction authors who collaborated through most of their careers.

Arkady Strugatsky was born 25 August 1925 in Batumi; the family later moved to Leningrad. In January 1942, Arkady and his father were evacuated from the Siege of Leningrad, but Arkady was the only survivor in his train car; his father died upon reaching Vologda. Arkady was drafted into the Soviet army in 1943. He trained first at the artillery school in Aktyubinsk and later at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1949 as an interpreter of English and Japanese. He worked as a teacher and interpreter for the military until 1955. In 1955, he began working as an editor and writer.

In 1958, he began collaborating with his brother Boris, a collaboration that lasted until Arkady's death on 12 October 1991. Arkady Strugatsky became a member of the Union of Soviet Writers in 1964. In addition to his own writing, he translated Japanese language short stories and novels, as well as some English works with his brother.

Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[George Kaslov · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Printable Tire]

Roadside Picnic is an excellent tale depicting the effects on one village after the “leftovers” from an alien visit are discovered. For the most part, life continues as normal, with all the greed, bureaucracy, and petty attempts at survival one wouldn’t expect from such a cataclysmic event. The excellent film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky was based on this novella, though the two share little in common other than the same setting. Both are equally good in my opinion, and the story Roadside Picnic could be considered “background information” into understanding the film more.

The novella Tale of the Troika was slow reading for me. It is a satirical story involving investigators of a paranormal bureaucracy taking part in the maddening minutia of another bureaucracy, the Troika. The Troika exists on the seventy-sixth level of an apparently endless warehouse of bureaucracy piled on bureaucracy. It’s a light-hearted attack on such structures, and the monolith of bureaucracy that was the Soviet Union. For some reason I found it pretty boring for most of the way through, perhaps because I couldn’t tell the characters apart for half of it. Antonina W. Bouis’ translation is excellent, however; somehow he was able translate bad Russian puns into English.

For further reading, I would suggest Stanislaw Lem’s excellent critical essay on Roadside Picnic, found in his collection of essays Microworlds.

[Laura Cáceres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dos libros en uno, y pues dos novelas, contrastantes entre ambos, y definen bien los estilos, una desde la transformación del momento y como extendida en emociones, se entiende que "Picnic extraterrestre" lo usaron para la película "Stalker" de Tarkovski, y en este caso le queda a deber, pero pues hay que tomar en cuenta que Tarkovski hizo la evocación, mientras que en el libro están los espacios, los vacío, la jalea de brujas, este tipo de metáforas me gustó mucho pues es difícil imaginar un material que te deja sin huesos, al momento de terminar de leerlo tuve una desazón en la que no sabía de la existencia de los demás, y no sé si fui una idea, o simplemente ya me morí y regresé de la muerte o de la zona.

En el caso de "Leyendas de la troika" está chistoso, es como que los hermanos Strugatsky metieron todo lo absurdo en un libro, lo licuaron y salen historias chistosas pero divertidas, hasta me atrevo a pensar que de aquí sacaron escenarios para la serie "Ugly Americans", porque tiene el mismo estilo absurdo mágico sí cumple con ser ciencia ficción fársica cómica, pasar de la ficha de Pie Grande a dinosaurios a aliens de seis brazos y que pese a descubrir todo eso, algo que nunca se mueve es justamente la burocracia, porque resulta más absurdo por mucho que los personajes traten de resolver la organización tan grande que es la Troika y todos los casos que presenta.

En ambos libros los carnales Strugatsky sabían de su chamba, me gustaron mucho 😄

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Tale of the Troika' was a slow and boring read, and I only trudged through it because I felt as if somehow, it would drag its heavy corpse up out of the ditch it was wallowing in and rejoin the rest of us here on dry land. Sadly, it did not.

'Roadside Picnic' is a fantastic tale centering on the concept of humanity. Not a single character in this work of fiction is immune from the examination. The setting, dialogue, and environment within which this inspection takes place is like a wonderful frosting on a glorious cake: if you're like me, and wholly appreciate both science and philosophy in your sci-fi, you'll eat this cake and enjoy it!

Not much can be said about 'Roadside Picnic' that has not already been said well. The novella examines the life of a 'stalker', Red Schuhart, a man earning his daily bread by entering a forbidden and incredibly deadly place called the Zone, to retrieve fantastic objects and sell them to the highest bidder. He grows ever-increasingly bitter over the effect this Zone and its artifacts has upon the world, and upon hearing of one final marvelous item, the Golden Ball - which is said to grant one's innermost wishes - he goes after it. Perhaps to save his now-unhuman daughter, Monkey, perhaps for revenge; or perhaps he seeks the Golden Ball for an entirely different reason...

This cake of a story is best taken a bite at a time, slowly, enjoying every morsel.

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although this book contains both Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika, this review is only of the latter, shorter story.

Roadside Picnic isn’t really worth reading. If you’re curious about my review of that one, see here.

Think of Tale of the Troika as kind of a twisted Lewis Carroll-esque fantasy of the Soviet bureaucracy, but not nearly as good as Lewis Carroll would have done.

Luckily it is short, because it is hit and miss, with the emphasis on miss. Still, there are some delightful sections. The argument between the bedbug and abominable snowman about whether the human race was any better than other species is probably the highlight, but there are others scattered amidst the dross.

Near the end, there was one paragraph that will ring true for anyone tired of the attack on science common in the United States today. Is evolution true? Is climate change happening? The Soviets knew the power of ideological denial.

 “How’s he on perjury?” Feofil asked the goat.

 “Never,” she replied. “He always believes every word he says.”

 “Really, what is a lie?” said Farfurkis. “A lie is a denial or a distortion of a fact. But what is a fact? Can we speak of facts in our increasingly complex life? A fact is a phenomenon or action that is verified by witnesses. But eyewitnesses can be prejudiced, self-interested, or simply ignorant. Or, a fact is a phenomenon or action that is verified by documents. But documents can be forged or tampered with. Or finally, a fact is a phenomenon or action that is determined by me personally. However, my sensations can be dulled or even completely deceived under certain circumstances. Thus, it is evident that a fact is something ephemeral, nebulous, and unverifiable, and the elimination of the concept becomes necessary. But in that case falsehood and truth become primitive concepts, indefinable through any other general categories. There exist only the Great Truth and its antipode, the Great Lie. The Great Truth is so great and its validity so obvious to any normal man, such as myself, that it is totally futile to try to refute or distort it, that is, to lie.”

­

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two very different stories:

ROADSIDE PICNIC (4 stars) Fascinating take on the "first contact" science-fiction novel, written in Soviet-era Russia. The aliens in this story are truly incomprehensible, and the "roadside picnic" analogy is only one of the theories that humans have advanced to explain the bizarre debris left after the alien visitation. What's interesting is that this first contact story has no aliens in it, just their "leftovers", and, at the bottom, this novella is really about people. The characters are well-written and imperfect. This is my second read on this story.

TALE OF THE TROIKA (1 star). Bleah. Had a few vaguely humorous bits but overall didn't do anything for me; if I want to read Soviet-era Russians satirizing their system and society. I'll pick up my copy of Bulgakov's THE MASTER AND MARGARITA.

[Jo Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roadside Picnic 3 Stars, an 'Okay' story I thought it was going to have a dated feel to it, but surprisingly it didn't. I wasn't real happy with the ending though, big build up then left me hanging. I really wanted to know what that golden ball was all about.

Tale of the Troika I gave up on 20 pages in. It seemed somewhat Alice in Wonderland-ish, just not my cup of tea.

Russian science-fiction may not not be my thing.

[Troy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've heard about this story for years. I knew Tarkovsky's Stalker was loosely based on this book, and a few days ago a friend comes in and gives me a copy (to give to my co-worker, but instead of doing that, I read it for myself). So I'm working two jobs, have a guest in town, and am supposed to be dealing with all kinds of other crap, but all I did with all my available free time was read "Roadside Picnic." It's a fast, smart sci-fi story, and I might come back in a month and boost it up to the full five stars.

... I have to go out now. I'll finish writing this later.

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like all great books, this was not fun to read and there is one part in the second act which is drudgery for 40 pages...so much so that you would question the five star rating, and yet this book is so creative, so dense with ideas and sheer reimagining the concept of otherworldliness that it demands reflection and there is no greater compliment.

[Darth Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Rating solely for Roadside Picnic--book is due at the library and, honestly, don't really wanna speed-read Tale of the Troika before I return it.)

For those who might not know, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (yup, the video game) is based on this novel. Have yet to play it, but it's been on my STEAM wishlist for a loooong time (just like books, got a huge backlog of games to play lol). I think what I enjoyed most was the premise of what the Zones are and how utterly meaningless humanity is/would be to a space-fairing race. Redrick was a piece of shit, but at least he was a compelling piece of shit and, oftentimes, hilarious.

[Vinny · Rating 4 out of 5]

guy wanted a golden ball, got a monke as a daughter instead.

[Csenge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I read a different edition, so all of this review is just about Tale of the Troika.

Tale of the Troika, in my opinion, was even better than Monday Begins on Saturday (which I also adore). I read it pretty much in two days. It is more concise and more linear in its storytelling; the world is more coherent, and the entire story line is freaking hilarious, with a whole crew of lovable characters. I don't know how well it would translate for readers not from an ex-Soviet country, although most of the satire on bureaucracy fits pretty well into current systems, as well as academia. Most people can relate to a committee like this from some point in their career: One member who wants to screw you over, one that has no idea what he is talking about, one that wants to sound very important, one that is powerfully dumb, and one that sleeps through the entire thing. It is a fun read, very poignant satire, and a place I wish I could return to... The only problem with this book is the disturbing lack of further sequels.

[Jens · Rating 3 out of 5]

TL;DR both stories are better than my rating gives them credit. If you want to maximize your enjoyment I suggest checking out the different translations and see which resonates most with you.

Both Roadside Picnic and Tale of the Troika are classic stories for a reason and there is a lot to be said about the interesting history surrounding both works. In particular Roadside Picnic has heavily influenced both movies and video games. I have not seen Stalker or played S.T.A.L.K.E.R., but parallels between Roadside Picnic and Annihilation has not escaped me. Indeed, the world created by the Strugatsky brothers in Roadside Picnic is the most remarkable. Moreover, there are many nuggets of thought such as a discussion of reason:

Xenology: an unnatural mixture of science fiction and formal logic. It's based on the false premise that human psychology is applicable to extraterrestrial intelligent beings." "Why is that false?" Noonan asked. "Because biologists have already been burned trying to use human psychology on animals. Earth animals, at that." "Forgive me, but that's an entirely different matter. We're talking about the psychology of rational beings." "Yes. And everything would be fine if we only knew what reason was.”
[...]
reason is the ability of a living creature to perform unreasonable or unnatural acts.
[...]
Reason is the ability to use the forces of the environment without destroying that environment.
[...]
'man, as opposed to animals, is a creature with an undefinable need for knowledge'?
[...]
There is a need to understand, and you don't need knowledge for that. The hypothesis of God, for instance, gives an incomparably absolute opportunity to understand everything and know absolutely nothing. Give man an extremely simplified system of the world and explain every phenomenon away on the basis of that system.
[...]
Everything I've read on the subject comes down to a vicious circle. If they are capable of making contact, then they are rational. And vice versa; if they are rational, they are capable of contact. And in general: if an extraterrestrial creature has the honor of possessing human psychology, then it is rational. Like that.

Nonetheless, I found some of the delivery of (some of) the story and ideas rather lazy, such as conjuring the noble laureate to (only) give important (background) information.
Moreover, I had some problems with the stilted writing (which may be unfair since everything will come across as stilted in comparison to Vladimir Nabokov who I read just before picking up this one) and could not shake the feeling that (a lot of) humor was lost in translation:
The second story of the collection, the biting satire of bureaucracy that is the Tale of the Troika I enjoyed more than the Roadside Picnic; possibly because it's style reminds me of the amazing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass:

The members of the Troika watched with interest. Professor Vybegallo glowed with fatherly pride
and with refined and flowing movements picked litter from his beard. Eddie had settled into an apathetic
gloom. Meanwhile the old man typed away. He pulled out the paper again.
"Here's the answer, if you please."
Farfurkis read it.
" 'Insade, I have a neon … hum … a neonette.' What's a neonette?"
"Eine Sekunde!" the inventor cried, grabbed the paper, and scurried back to the typewriter.
The affair went on. The machine gave an illiterate explanation of a neon bulb, then answered Farfurkis
by telling him it spelled "in-sade" according to the rules of grammar, and then:
Farfurkis: "What grammar?"
Machine: "Why our own Russian grmr."
Khlebowodov: "Do you know Eduard Petrovich Babkin?"
Machine: "No how."
Lavr Fedotovich: "Harrrumph. What motions are there?"
Machine: "To acknowledge me as a scientific fact."
The old man ran back and forth and typed with unbelievable speed. The commandant jumped up and
down excitedly in his chair and kept giving us a thumbs-up sign. Eddie slowly regained his psychic
balance.
Khlebowodov (irritably): "I cannot work under these conditions. Why is he racing back and forth
like a tincan in the wind?"
Machine: "Because of my eagerness."
Khlebowodov: "Will you get that paper away from me? Can't you see that I am not asking you
anything?"
Machine: "Yes, I can."

or

Today’s youth does not struggle enough, does not pay enough attention to the struggle, has no desire to struggle more, to struggle to make struggling the true, primary goal of the struggle, and if our wonderful talented youth struggle so little, then they will have little chance of becoming a truly struggling youth, always involved in the struggle to become a true struggler who struggles to make the struggle …

[C · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to admit, I'd much rather watch the Tarkovsky film based on this novel ("Stalker"; it's really excellent).

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good.

[Buttonwillow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for roadside picnic

[Stephen Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book combines two short stories/novellas by Arkady Strugatsky together, so I’ll discuss each of them separately.

First is Roadside Picnic, which follows the aftermath of an alien visit to a town. I loved the unknown and uncertainty in the story, where characters are left speculating as to the point of the visit and the nature of the artifacts left behind. I think my favorite parts were whenever Red would enter the visitation zone. The story did an excellent job creation tension, as we the readers have no clue what is out there and what can happen. The unknown as Red maneuvers through the visitation zone, and the horror of the strange and merciless deaths was well conveyed.

Stylistically, the story is broken into five sections. Three of the sections follow Red’s perspective, really making him the driving protagonist of the work. The first section follows Valentine Pilman and serves as a nice prologue to the work. The fourth section follows Richard Noonan, and I find that section to be the most adrift section. I find Richard Noonan’s section to be mostly about Red anyways, so I wonder why have not have that section from Red’s point of view? Perhaps I need to go reread it.

I find the ending interesting and poignant. Is the golden ball really a wish granting device? Red asking for happiness for everyone and that no one will go away unsatisfied has this interesting transactional tone to it. Knowing the other alien devices, I get the horrible feeling nothing good is going to come of Red’s wish.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Tale of the Troika is a very different short story – it’s a satire of bureaucracy and while I loved the initial set up and the absurd situations, I think the story rather dragged on through the latter half.
There are elements of the story I adore – the ceremony for opening elevator, the committee for rationalizing the irrational, meeting the abominable snowman, a talking bed bug, a pterodactyl, the committee asking an alien for proof of its origins, and the attempt to humanize the inept council.

However, I struggled with following and differentiating the different members of the council (the Russian names at times blurred together). The story felt aimless at times, slipping from one absurd situation to the other without the main character having much agency. The characters almost don’t matter, as the Troika itself is the main character and the object of ridicule.

The Tale of the Troika has many elements I like and together should be a story I love, but I felt like the pieces didn’t come together for me.

Rating: 3/5 stars

[Tbfrank · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Strugatsky brothers' novel is a variation of the First Contact scenario, an alien visitation of Earth without any direct interaction with nations, governments, the military, scientists, or individual citizens. The visit was brief, occurred in multiple locations around the globe, and they departed leaving considerable material evidence behind. Apparently they never heard of the Prime Directive nor possessed any concept of a minimal ecological impact.

The sites are called zones, and have been cordoned off as they contain large amounts of mysterious detritus, some relatively benign, others exceedingly dangerous. Inside the zones are abandoned homes, businesses, factories, machinery. The main players in the story are average people, with scientists and generals bit players. The alien material is scavenged officially and unofficially, the latter by a group called stalkers. In either case, the work is dangerous and many suffer injury or death. The risks are high and rewards increasingly diminishing. The items retrieved are adapted to human use very different from their actual purpose. Some cause disasters that challenge containment. Some have seemingly magical properties including one rumored to grant a person's deepest desire.

At the core of the novel there is an extended discussion between a scientist and a local businessman who doubles as an agent for the authorities in eliminating the stalker activities. They discuss if the visit has changed humanity, the definition of intelligence, and what the visit was really about. Would we recognize each other as intelligent beings? What if they didn't or decided humanity was of no consequence or interest? The danger of the 'pseudoscience' of xenology lay in assuming aliens would reflect human psychology, possessing recognizable human motives and needs. Yet the scientist offers his impression of the visit in human terms - a car pulling off the road into a meadow, young people spreading blankets, baskets of food, bottles of drink, radios, tools, gum wrappers, dripping oil, exhaust, cigarette butts and ashes, then rushing off again - the image of a roadside picnic.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll be honest -- I picked this book up for Roadside Picnic, not Tale of the Troika. I read both, but am primarily rating the book based on Roadside Picnic. Troika was good, but was not my primary interest.

Roadside Picnic is outstanding. It has all the best elements of a short story - dramatic suspense, creepy unexplained goings-on, lovely in-media-res to draw you right into the story. The premise is low-key horrifying if you let yourself think on it, but the book is also great for a quick, intense scifi read.

Roadside Picnic is about a location that is under the influence of weird extraterrestrial forces. The humans near the Zone don't know what or who caused it, what its purpose is/was, nor what exactly is going on with the Zone. The book was written in 1977, but the Zone gave me distinct Chernobyl vibes which I'm positive is what inspired its literary offspring. The laws of physics don't apply, time and space are distorted, and danger is ever-present. Yet, people nicknamed Stalkers raid the zone for contraband to sell on the black market because how can you say no to the money such activity yields? While primarily scifi, the book also has some interesting thoughts on the nature of work being necessary to survival at the sacrifice of one's own life - this message felt distinctly modern Russian to me, and I was totally here for it.

Roadside Picnic inspired a Russian movie called Stalker, which is a unique story unrelated to the book except by the meta-concepts of "The Zone". The movie was written with Arkady Strugasky, and is considered an important work. Both pieces also inspired the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game franchise, which melds this book's premise with the real-life Chernobyl disaster to make the Zone more clearly about radioactivity of some kind. And the book inspired a new VR video game called "Into the Radius", which is a fairly faithful spiritual adaptation of the book (without the characters, but with a very true representation of the Zone itself).

I strongly recommend Roadside Picnic. At 145 pages, it's a quick read and it doesn't let you down from the moment you read the prologue.

[necronizer · Rating 4 out of 5]

From my little experience with the Metro 2033 game, I knew Russian SF was different than traditional SF but I was not ready for how different and interesting it is

Fun fact, a youtuber/independent games media named SkillUp/Ralph had this book as recommended read for this game called Pacific Drive, a game I have had my eye for quite some time now, and I am so happy I read through this book! I knew there was an existence of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. media as books and video games but I never understood them properly but Roadside Picnic gives an outstanding look into who is a stalker and what is the exact phenomena with the Exclusion/Visitation Zones. And from my on going binge of scifi ideas I have been going through, this is pretty much up there on my list! The only criticism would be the writing is the same as I saw in Neuromancer where the context is either lost in the translation or just not quite present for me to understand the text without doing my own separate research - which to be honest, I know is a staple in the scifi genre.

For Tale of the Troika, man this is a fun one! From the context of when this book was published I am assuming the satirical take on red tape bureaucracy is against the formerly Soviet Union. And I found myself enjoying the absurdness and hilarity of the tale while also agreeing from first hand perspective how red taping shit (especially technology) can hinder progress without having a strong reason as to why is that shit required!

[Philip McCarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read half the book since I was only interested in reading Roadside Picnic. This was definitely an odd little story with some real great ideas. I think that by taking the slower and less action oriented approach to the story, the authors were able to explore the greater effects the Zone had on people besides being in the thick of it. I liked the intergenerational angle taken in regards to the Zone's effects, such as the father coming back as a harmless zombie and the daughter being born as a monkey-like creature. The items being drawn from the zone were also intriguing, given the fact that they were given different names by the general populace and scientists. I also liked that they were clearly otherworldly and people struggled to understand them, yet still used them for progress but without deep consideration of cost. I was a bit disappointed with how slow the book was though. I can imagine this story as being one that may have influenced Vandermeer in the writing of the Annihilation series. Feels a bit like a precursor to it.

[Allerglance · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone's who's played the S.T.A.L.K.E.R game series, I came in hoping to get that same feeling that help inspire that game with this book. It delivered with the worldbuilding but slowly lost its cohesion in the end.

The book itself will catch your attention and details the alien wasteland of the zone, in the first part. The first two chapters are great in detailing and telling the story of the Stalker and their lives within the zone and how life progresses near a hostile environment. However moving forward there are too many different characters that do add points to the story it feels like it should've needed it's own book as if telling the other side of a story. The times it does get back to the zone doesn't feel the same as the wonder of the first chapter as the tensions aren't fully conveyed with the problems they tackle in the zone.

All in all, it's still a great book if you did love the game and tackles issues how people adapt to live near the zone.

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roadside picnic might be one of my favorite sci-fi stories to date. It's very subtle, barely explaining much of the universe and letting your mind fill in the blanks. Much of the technology is hardly discussed because it's really not important to the story. Instead, we get a good look at the main character, Red, and his life as a stalker. Red has been horribly damaged by the Zone, both physically and mentally, and we truly feel bad for him because he simply wants to provide for his family. That being said, he has a selfish and cruel side to him as well, which makes him incredibly compelling. While I really enjoyed Roadside picnic, I couldn't finish Tale of the Troika. It had an interesting concept, but it somehow ended up being really boring. Maybe one day I'll pick it up and finish it. Anyway, read Roadside picnic if you want a quick, engaging classic sci-fi story.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiene una traducción, justamente la edición que sale aquí en la miniatura, ¡MALÍSIMA! Tanto, que estropea la historia hasta el punto que te confunde. Si no fuera por ello, las cuatro estrellas caen seguro. Un ejemplo, en vez de decir: se fue a la MIERDA, dice: se fue a las HECES. A ver, no negaré que me resulta gracioso, pero eso es porque soy raro y surrealista. Estoy rebozado de dadaísmo. Supuro luz como un electroduende, y nadie me comprende. Pero... Joder, en vez de "dinero", poner "plata" y así unas cuantas! ¿Acaso el traductor quería meter parte de su autoría en la obra de Arkady y Boris? ¿Nos transmite un mensaje con su traducción? Puede. El caso es que espero que la de Gilgamesh, sea mejor.

[A · Rating 2 out of 5]

Positives: it was cool to read a book that inspired a cultural phenomenon, the world was interesting, concept of aliens not even noticing humans was great, good philosophical shit, had some exciting moments.

Negatives: I get that this was a "examining the human condition" kind of thing but I couldn't give two fucks about Red or Noonan or anybody else tbh...and the writers really did the 3 women in this book dirty. One was a hot girl turned dutiful housewife (why are you still here man there's nothing left for you in the relationship lol), second one was a "oh no mc's gonna lose the most important woman in his life how tragic!" situation, third one was...hot girl who.....shows that her father is an asshole? Idk?

It's nice I read it, would not read again.

[Jason · Rating 2 out of 5]

Roadside Picnic fails in all the ways so much sci-fi does, when it fails. To its credit, it’s underpinned by a truly engaging concept. Aliens have come to earth and left, leaving detritus which has become the object of human desire. The landing zones are controlled with Area 51-like secrecy, and there’s a group of treasure hunters who risk their lives and the hammer of state punishment to sneak into the zones and bring goodies home. But beyond that, the novella is all plot serviced by painful sentences, cheesecloth characters, and philosophical woo-woo. It’s frustrating because the bones of something truly special are here, but it never delivers on providing a reading experience that’s remotely fulfilling.

[David Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roadside Picnic was the basis for the Tarkovsky movie Stalker. I really enjoyed the movie, though I'm not sure I can recommend it. The story and the movie are quite dissimilar. I may have enjoyed the story more than the movie, but they're quite different.

Tale of the Troika I found less enjoyable. Although I've read a fair amount of Russian/Soviet history, I don't really know that much about what it was like for the average Joe (or Ivan). I suspect this story is an over-the-top satire of Soviet existence. But I can't say for sure. It may just be a fever-dream after a bad case of food poisoning.

[Daniel Saiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro cumple completamente al introducir el milagro de la Zona en Harmont, a pesar de los peligros, de la muerte resulta increíble cómo ni los merodeadores o los lectores son capaces de alejarse de ella. La historia sin necesidad de ser complicada logra atrapar al lector y uno realmente logra empatizar con su protagonista, aunque esa misma cercanía con el personaje principal de la mayoría de capítulos puede provocar que el final parezca un cambio abrupto que desentone con lo que creíamos saber de este.

[Jennifer Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book came recommended from friends and while I could see why they liked it, I really struggled to get into it. Anyone with experience working within a bureaucracy will be humored by the ridiculousness of the interactions. However I just felt like it was repetitive and didn’t go anywhere. I suppose that itself is a good definition of a bureaucracy and perhaps it was purposely designed that way.

[Sammy Parmenter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book very evocative, i loved the sequence when we change perspective from Red and focus on a man who isn’t a stalker. His conversation with the scientist, made me think in depth about first contact with other worldly intelligence and ask question about our importance in the grand scheme of the universe.

Only downside, was that I wanted to see more of the zone and it’s strangeness

Bar that, very enjoyable book!