Roadside Picnic

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 a little apprehensive after having read a terrible translation of Metro 2033, but no complaints on that front.

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 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!