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Roadside Picnic (SF Masterworks 68) by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky
01/03/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
Pub: Gollancz. 145 page enlarged paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-575-07978-6. Buy Roadside Picnic in the USA - or Buy Roadside Picnic in the UK  check out website: www.orionbooks.co.uk www.orionbooks.co.uk
I read some short stories by brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky when young and other that noting they were Russian hadn't really considered if there was any allegorical sense with their material. With youth and SF, one tends to look at everything in the fantastic more than with deeper meaning on a first read or was that only me?
'Roadside Picnic' was written in 1977 and covers the events after an alien visitation has left artefacts scattered across the globe in three different locations. These places are radioactively hazardous and are generally sealed off. This doesn't stop people breaking into 'The Zone' to get items for the black market. Such people are called stalkers although I suspect the term might have been different in Russian. We follow the life of Redrick Schuhart, a stalker legend mostly because he survives and often brings out fellow stalkers who fall foul of the radiation hazard.
This story is less about the alien artefacts than the journey of the characters. Much of it is only hinted at which tends to make me think the story is more about the run-ins with bureaucracy and the police getting in the way of free enterprise. A film called 'Stalker' directed by Andrei Tarkovsky was based on this book so maybe more of the answer is there as the brothers Strugatsky were also involved with it.
Certainly the effects of The Zone are downplayed. Schuhart himself is affected by the radiation and his wife's baby is described as a monkey in more than the literal sense.
If you're expecting a purely Science Fiction novel using similar West-based themes I'm not sure if you'll be satisfied with this book. If you're looking for a different take and the elements that would make this important to the Russian mindset then it's a rare read.
GF Willmetts
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