| Roadside Picnic | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Author | Arkady and Boris Strugatsky |
| Original title | Пикник на обочине |
| Translator | Antonina W. Bouis |
| Cover artist | Richard M. Powers |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
| Publication date | 1972 |
| Published in English |
1977 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| ISBN | 0-02-615170-7 |
| OCLC Number | 2910972 |
Roadside Picnic (Russian: Пикник на обочине, Piknik na obochine, IPA: [pʲikˈnʲik na ɐˈbotɕɪnʲe]) is a science fiction short novel written in 1971 by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, published in 1972. It went on to win several awards. The film Stalker directed by Andrei Tarkovsky is loosely based on the novel, with a screenplay written by the Strugatskys. The novel is ranked number 89 on Sci-Fi Lists' "Top 100 Sci-Fi Books".[1]
Contents |
Plot summary
Aliens have visited the Earth, and departed, leaving behind a number of artifacts of their incomprehensibly advanced technology. The places where such artifacts were left are areas of great danger, studded with space-time anomalies, known as Visitation Zones. A frontier culture arises along the margins of these Zones, peopled by "stalkers" who risk their lives in illegal expeditions to recover the artifacts, which do not obey known physical laws. The one most sought after, the "Golden Sphere", is rumored to have the power to fulfill the deepest desires of anyone who's reached it.
The novel's main protagonist is stalker Redrick "Red" Schuhart, initially employed as a lab assistant at the Harmont branch of the International Institute for Extraterrestrial Cultures, near the edge of Canada's Zone. He leads an expedition in search of a valuable artifact, as a result of which one of his colleagues is indirectly killed by an anomaly. Red later discovers that his girlfriend Guta is pregnant and wants to keep the child, despite rumors of monstrous births as a result of stalkers' exposure to the Zone's mutagen effect. They marry against the wishes of Guta's family, and she gives birth to a mutant daughter. His dead father comes back home from the cemetery where he was buried, which is now inside the Zone. His daughter, initially appearing normal, becomes more and more alien, "speaking" with his undead father in a strange tongue. Red goes into the Zone one last time in order to find the Golden Sphere, taking with him the young son of his enemy which he knows will die in a "meat-grinder" at the entrance to a canyon where the Golden Sphere is. After they get there through many obstacles, the youngster rushes forward towards it, shouting "Happiness For All, and No-one will be left out!" - only to be crushed dead by the invisible force. The trap now de-activated, Red comes slowly down towards the Golden Sphere, praying "let my inner desires be the good ones, and Happiness for Everyone!".
The name of the novel derives from a metaphor proposed by the character Dr. Valentine Pillman, who believes that the Zones and artifacts can be thought of as evidence of an extraterrestrial "roadside picnic". After the picnickers depart, nervous animals (i.e. humans) venture forth from the forest and discover the spilled motor oil, balloons, candy wrappers, and other detritus of the visit- which is commonplace to those who left it, but incomprehensible to those who find it.
Awards and nominations
- The novel was nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for best science fiction novel of 1978 and won second place.[2]
- In 1978 the Strugatskys were accepted as honorary members of the Mark Twain Society for their "outstanding contribution to world science fiction literature."[3]
- A 1979 Scandinavian congress on science fiction literature awarded the novel the Jules Verne prize for best novel of the year published in Swedish.
- In 1981 at the sixth festival of science fiction literature in Metz the novel won an award for best foreign book of the year.
Adaptations
- Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker is loosely adapted from the book, although with the Strugatsky brothers contributing to the script.
- In 2003, the Finnish theater company Circus Maximus produced a stage version of Roadside Picnic, called Stalker. Authorship of the play was credited to the Strugatskys and to M. Viljanen and M. Kanninen.
- While not direct adaptations, the video games S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, its prequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky and sequel S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat borrow from the original novel and from the film. The series has a wish-granting monolith similar to the Golden Sphere of the novel, or the Room of the Tarkovsky film. The series takes place in a fictionalized version of the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation and contains various physics-defying anomalies and strange "artifacts" that form within them.
- A Finnish language tabletop roleplaying game called Stalker was published in 2008 by Burger Games with the permission of Boris Strugatsky. The game was written by Ville Vuorela.
English releases
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika (Best of Soviet Science Fiction) translated by Antonina W. Bouis. New York: Macmillan Pub Co, 1977, 245 pp. ISBN 0-02-615170-7. LCCN: 77000543.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. London: Gollancz, April 13, 1978, 150 pp. ISBN 0-575-02445-3.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic / Tale of the Troika. New York: Timescape (Pocket Books), February 1, 1978. ISBN 0-671-81976-3.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. London: Penguin Books, September 27, 1979, 160 pp. ISBN 0-14-005135-X.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic. New York: Pocket Books (Timescape), September 1, 1982, 156 pp. ISBN 0-671-45842-6.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic (SF Collector's Edition). London: Gollancz, August 24, 2000, 145 pp. ISBN 0-575-07053-6.
- Strugatsky, Arkady and Boris. Roadside Picnic (S.F. Masterworks). London: Gollancz, February 8, 2007. ISBN 0-575-07978-9.
Similarities in Other Works
The TV series Lost features a strange island ("Zone") full of mysteries, a "smoke monster" crushing people to death with invisible force (like the "meat-grinder"), and several people appearing undead (though fully conscious). There's also a scientific institution dedicated to the study of the island and its strange phenomena.
The wish-granting Golden Sphere is a central feature of Michael Crichton's novel Sphere, adapted into a film in 1998.
Notes
External links
- Read Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky on the Perm mirror of Maxim Moshkow Library.
- Read Roadside Picnic parallel both in Russian and English.
- Download Roadside Picnic in one zip file from the official Strugatskys' page.
- Download Roadside Picnic in pdf format from the Cryptomaoist Editions of the Center for Computational Aesthetics.
- Review of the Roadside Picnic on the Infinity Plus website.
- The SF Site Featured Review: Roadside Picnic
- Stanislaw Lem about the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic
- Review of the Roadside Picnic on SFFWorld.com
- Stalker play at Helsinki City theatre in the Circus Maximus page.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
